11/28/10

The morning started about the same as the previous mornings with hearing Tommy getting breakfast ready. I enjoy this sound much more then I do the annoying and load birds that woke me up every morning on Magnetic Island. After breakfast they said if anyone wanted they could go swimming and I decided not too. I got a nice little sunburn on my stomach from yesterday and the boat was completely out of water. We were instructed to take 1 minute showers to conserve water as much as possible but we nearly ran out the previous night and the last 4 or 5 of us that were ready to were told that we could not since too little water was left. I did not want to go swimming and have my skin dry out from the salt water since I knew I would not be able to even rinse it off at all. Once everyone was in from the swim we headed back to Airlie Beach. We sailed but it was more casual on the way back and we could sit anywhere we wanted on the deck since the boat would never be in a full tilt. It looked as this was going to be the nicest day of them all and it was hot and very sunny. It was a fun little trip back and we arrived right on time at around 11:30 am. We then took some group photos of everyone that went on the trip and we were off on our own. I walked back to the hostel and told some of the others I would meet up with them later at the beach. I wanted to get clean with a shower and grab some food. I was happy that the YHA that I stayed at before had a guest toilet and a guest shower. I also found that the main storage locker where my big backpack was had no lock on it. I went and asked the front desk about this and I was told that the lock had broken. No mention of buying a new one or anything just that the lock had broken......WOW, my stuff was safe....Oh well, no worries I don't think anything was taken or messed with from the looks of it. I then did a quick check of my email and some MN news and decided to go find some food. I settled on a little bakery nearby and got a sandwich and some chocolate chip cookies to go with it. I then went to the beach park and meet up with some of the other members of the boat trip as they were all sharing pictures from the trip. I opted out of that since I took some pictures but none that I think anyone else would want or care about. I got to see the German girls dirty white station wagon that they were using as a camper. They had purchased it for $1,500 and had like it so far and they planned to sell it to other backpackers when they were done with it. The bar in town called beaches was having a little get together that night for the people who went on our boat trip. The deal was starting at 7pm for every three people you got a jug (Pitcher) of beer and also 20% off all food menu items. I told Nick I thought I would be able to attend but when I checked my bus ticket the departure time that night was like 6:55 pm. Many of the others were about to get on the road if they had not already done so. In talking with Kim and Matthew from the U.K. I found out that they got a camper van to relocate so for $1 a day they had six days to take the camper van from Brisbane to Cairns. I traced my hand on the German girls car and wrote my name on it like they wanted and then Nick and I went to go back to town so he could check into his hostel and then he wanted to grab some food. I said I would join him but I was not hungry since I was full from my sandwich and cookies. We ended up at a bar and he got a steak sandwich and fries and we decided to split a bucket of Coronas. After we finished out beers and chatting I said good bye to him and wished him luck on his travels. I had a few hours left before I needed to catch my bus and I figured I could do search for some cheap flights on the internet to see if I could get somewhere cheap without the bus ride. I was lucky and found that I could catch a flight down to Melbourne and stay a few days and then fly back into Sydney the day before my flight to New Zealand is scheduled to leave. Once I am in Harvey Bay I will just need to make my way to Brisbane by bus then I can fly instead of the greyhound. When I arrived back to the hostel I got a load cheer from across the courtyard saying "Hey, Minnesota" it was the schoolie Chewie and it he was having a few drinks and it appeared that he had found a lady friend since I last hung out with him. We caught up quickly and he told me that they were going to hire a boat in a day or two and he was going to take them out to Whitsunday Island. He was pretty proud of the fact that he had his boat license and that he could hire the boat and go out to the island themselves. As I was talking with him another girl at the table was waiting for the same overnight bus and she asked me when I was leaving to catch the bus. I told her in a couple of hours and we decided to walk to the bus together. She was also doing a similar trip on Fraser island so she might even be in my same group. Her name was Lena from Germany. When we did leave to go catch the bus it was a nice little walk and we got to the station and were waiting around with everyone else to load the bus. Just when the driver started to load up everyones backpacks Lena noticed that one of her shoes that she had hanging from her roller suitcase was missing. She asked me if I would hold her ticket and watch her bags as she tried to run back and see if she could find it. She was gone a good ten minutes but was lucky because the bus had so many getting on that she had plenty of time. She arrived back with her shoe and quite sweaty since it was still quite warm out. This was the first ride where we had assigned seats so this was going to be a new experience not only in the fact that it was an overnight ride but that I did not get a choice on where I would be sitting or who I would sit next to. I ended up getting seated next to a guy who is from Denmark and his name started with a T but even after he spelled it and told me what it was I had no clue so he told me to call him TK. I chatted with him about his travels and he said that he worked for a two weeks at a banana farm and that the work sucked and the farmers were not not nice to the backpack workers but were even worse to the aboriginals that worked at the farm. After the first stop TK saw that the two seats next to us were open and he opted to sit with some more room across the aisle from me. The rest of the ride I had two seats to myself. I was also VERY, VERY disappointed to find out that the dvd player on this bus did not work......Crap, 12 hours on a bus and no movie to kill some time. I could not fall asleep for anything early on in the ride. My inflatable neck pillow for some reason has a slow leak in it so every few hours I would need to put more air in it. I do not understand why I could not sleep, for the most part I can always fall asleep in any moving vechile no problem. It was going to be a long night and morning in the Greyhound.