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Published: December 19th 2006
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Airlie Beach; I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside
Despite spectacular scenery 12 hours is still a long time. Thursday 14th - Saturday 16th December.
As I boarded the 8:35 Sunlander for my eight hour journey heading south from Cairns I grabbed a copy of the local rag, The Cairns Post and it had me smiling straight away. Just imagine these headlines in The Daily Telegraph; "Dob In Hoons, Urges Top Cop" which roughly translates in English to tell the police if you know any drink drivers, "Grog Bender Ends In Court" (self explanatory) and "Sniff Again And Go To Jail", a magistrates' warning to alleged rapist Trevor Norton that his PAINT sniffing habit (yes paint) was doing nobody any good and that his 'chroming habit' must cease with immediate effect. What sort of people are these ?
At 10am an intercom announcement advised us that the first movie of the day was about to commence in the Club Lounge so, having done with the paper, I moved myself down and within five minutes I was joined in the semi circular seating by two girls, Rhi, a plump and over confident 22 year old single mother of five going to stay with her sister for Christmas and Becky, an 18 year old trailer park dweller on her way
Airlie Beach; I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside
Rhi, 22 year old mother of five maneater and Becky. They helped pass a few hours on a very arduous rail journey. to a funeral. They'd just met on the platform and were now officially best mates. I soon discovered that Rhi is a nymphomaniac who has 40 or so what she called f*** buddies whom she'd met through the internet and from the vibes I was getting from the pair of them she had designs on yours truly being No.41. They spent the next two hours assessing every male that entered the carriage as a possible target for Rhi who by this time had sunk four double JD's and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when Karen, the Canadian from the previous day's reef trip, turned up to add a bit of maturity and sanity to proceedings. The Queensland scenery was spectacular as the Sunlander trundled along, disturbed only by the sight of mooning arses hanging out of an assortment of vehicles as they sped by every fifteen minutes or so.
I had booked the first leg of my journey to the first main town on the map of Township 8 hours from Cairns but the puzzlement shown at my choice by the two Aussie girls told me there was nothing to be seen or done there. When we
Airlie Beach; I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside
Every now and again one of these would burn past us. Look closely at the windows. pulled in to the station at four in the afternoon I had to agree so quickly nipped to the ticket office and extended my journey by 4 hours to Proserpine, the closest station to Airlie Bay and the gateway to The Whitsunday Islands.
The shuttle driver dropped me at Magnum's in the centre of town and I checked in for the night in one of their sumptuous chalets (not). I went in and threw my bags on the only available (unfortunately upper) bunk and asked one of the occupants where the bedding was. I was directed back to reception and asked the girl if it would be possible for me to have some. She replied that you had to pay, 1.50 Aus Dollars for a sheet, 2.0 AD for a pillow. That's a new one I thought and asked her for one of each. "Sorry mate, we're out of pillows" was her reply. Marvellous.
The first people I bumped into when I ventured out were the Irish couple I'd sat next to on the plane from Darwin to Cairns so I shared a couple of jugs of Tooheys best with Alex (Keira doesn't drink) before hitting the sack.
I hadn't had a drop of alcohol for over four days and sleep was easy to come by. After a day of doing next to nothing other than organising the next rail leg of my journey, a lie down by the beautiful lagoon and arranging a trip for the following day to Whitsunday Island I adjourned to the bar area to watch the last couple of hours of what is turning into another disastrous test match. I got talking to Stuart, a 31 year old ale can from Rugeley near Stafford who spent each day supping whilst his two mates were doing the things normal people do and after making some dinner joined up with the three of them again at about 9:30. All three were good lads and funny to boot so I had no problem hanging with them for the night. Magnum's was hosting it's weekly Miss Wet T Shirt and we all thought it'd be rude not to support it so we watched that for a while before hitting the town, or more exactly the row of bars in the only street in town. The Aussies are a dangerous breed. I get the impression that they wouldn't
Airlie Beach; I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside
Townsville was supposed to be my first port of call. Looks lovely but the girls assured me it was yet another example of Hicksville. consider it a great night out unless they'd got absolutely destroyed by drink then been involved in a mass brawl at the end of the night or at the least, a heated argument. At one stage on the main street I heard two lads explaining to the more dominant three "c'mon lads, we only want to get drunk". As a result I was pleased that I managed to survive unscathed and climbed into my bed at 3am ready for a 9am start to the islands.
When I woke all was not well. One of the other guys in the room, Tomer, a young Israeli had discovered someone had been in the room whilst we all slept and emptied the contents of his wallet (500 Aus dollar). I checked my shorts lying on the floor alongside my bed and discovered I too had been relieved of all my cash. I had about 200 bucks (80 quid) in there but the worst thing was that for a couple of minutes I thought my new camera, with a million and one memories on the memory card had gone too. Fortunately, that wasn't the case but the cash was for real. Someone had
come into our digs in the middle of the night whilst we slept and robbed us. I'd even left some cigarette's on the veranda and they'd took them and my lighter and left five dollars inder a cup. Cheeky bleeders. Waiting for the police to arrive meant the cancellation of my trip to the Islands.
I was very low to say the least. I had no money, it was Saturday morning and the banks didn't open until Monday. Fortunately I bumped into Alex again and he insisted on lending me 100 dollars to be returned when I got to Sydney. The rest of day, now useless, was spent hanging around the lagoon waiting for my 7pm shuttle to catch the train south and to rub salt into the wounds I had to sit and watch the Aussies carting us all over Perth. I said my goodbye's to the three lads from Stafford saying we'd meet in Sydney and prepared myself mentally for the journey from hell.
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waymo
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luverly juberly
Ha Ha thanks for for that dude. U could have broken into your novelty pack!