17th mayThey had been shown the local area by Sheila and we all had an invite to a 50th Birthday party that evening.We headed back to our rooms, showered and headed back out to meet up with Sheila and go to Ann's birthday party.Party Australian style - Karaoke, outdoor BBQ, BYO drinks (bring your own), etc.It was loud very brash, and the locals were commenting on how 'Cameron ' had dressed up for the occasion as he had put on some shoes!!Although he had a new woman in tow so maybe the shoes were in honour of her presence!We met miners, fishermen and a herdsman, who happened to be a Scottish lady called Jeanie, it was great fun.We woke up with fuzzy heads - Rob and I blamed the nitrogen from our diving!Sunday was market day in Mission Beach so we headed off to have a quick look around and meet up with Sheila, who then took us on a visit to Jeanie's stud farm, then back to Ann and Ferdies 'shed' for breakfast.Breakfast was a huge egg, bacon, sausage, toast, fried onions & fried potato mixture.It set us up beautifully and also helped with the nitrogen haze! Ann and ferdie are currently having a house built at the front of their land, for the last year they have been living in a shed - we would call it a barn, but the Aussies said no it was definitely called a shed!It is all open fronted, amazing to think you could survive like this all summer and winter.Jeanie also lives in a shed, as the cyclone took her house out two years ago and they haven't yet got around to fixing it up, the wonderful laid back lifestyle here is something to savour, especially when you get the chance to compare how stressful life seems to be back home in the UK.After breakfast, we still needed to visit Rob, another ex pat who has built a balanese style home.Everyone was very friendly we had a fantastic time meeting and hearing about the lives of so many people, it was a totally different aspect to Australian life.We had a walk along Bingali beach in the afternoon, then in the evening met a few more locals who Sheila had introduced us to in the pub.Monday arrived and time to move on.We made a complaint to the reception at the Mission Beach resort, as the sugar ants had never been cleaned up during our 3 nights stay, I took a photo and said it was the dirtiest place we had stayed in, they gave us a free nights accommodation for our troubles!We headed south towards Townsville stopping for an hour or so at Balgal beach which was stunning.We only have one night here, but plan to check out the town before we move further south towards Mackay.