Nicole, Mangoes and Paradise

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Days 49-56 18-25 March Queensland

An afternoon flight from Auckland to Brisbane, an overnight stop in the city and we were on our way to the tropics. We flew Business Class to Brisbane, thanks to Emirates’ free upgrade. I nearly messed this up. In the departure lounge we were called to the desk and told we had ‘different’ seats. Thinking we were about to be given dodgy seats on the wing tip, I went into challenge mode for about 10 seconds before R realized this move was definitely to our advantage. A shame this was one of our shorter flights - 3 hours or so - , but it was good to be able to stretch the limbs, listen to the refrain of ‘More champagne, madame? and its inevitable reply of ’Yes, please’ from the lady on my right. With R determined to relieve Emirates of most of its bubbly, I spent the afternoon with Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and that film ‘Australia’. I’m glad they threw in this film for free. I’d have begrudged paying for such bad direction, hammy acting and above all, bad writing. Thank God we landed just before the happy ever after, which I presume was how it finished. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

The next morning, Queensland’s champion racist taxi driver shuttled us back to Brisbane Airport to fly Virgin Blue to Mackay. Back to cattle class. Appropriate, as Mackay and Central Queensland is beef country. It’s also sugar cane, palm trees and lush green. Virgin Blue took us tropical virgins across Capricorn (Tropic of) and dropped us off 1000 km north in little over an hour. We knew it could be rainy - we’re still not completely out of the wet season - but the two-hour drive to Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands was in stair-rod stuff all the way. It was only when we drove back to Mackay in fine weather that we appreciated the beauty of the tropical landscape.

Airlie Beach lived up to expectations. It owes its popularity more to being the access point for the Whitsunday Islands (thanks for the name, Jimmy Cook) than for the intrinsic beauty of the town. Australia’s little townships don’t often win architectural prizes. They’ve grown up as functional places for settlers, miners, or farmers who’ve never heard of town planning. AB is the same, except this place is geared for tourism in a big way. All kinds are here. Gap-year backpackers go for the gravy and chips ($3.50) or fish and chips shared between three, with a stubbie each. Grey nomads and families with pre-school kids stay at the apartments and motels and eat and shop further down the strip. It’s still fairly quiet in Airlie Beach, but the fleet of boats are still operating their impressive timetable to cater for all needs, ranging from a quick 15 minute trip to Daydream Island, to a five day cruise on an air-conditioned sailing ship hopping the islands. “Mr Cook! Look! Land ahoy! Maybe we can get our air-con fixed sooner than we thought!””Good on yer, Banksie. She’ll be right!”

We extended our planned three nights at Airlie Beach to give the rough sea conditions time to change (it’s the end of the ‘wet’ season), so we could do a trip to the reef to see those coloured fish and a day trip around the islands. Trips to the reef were cancelled on two successive days and we chose not to join the braver souls who returned from the reef looking pretty green. Plan B for Airlie Beach was pretty damn good, though. We spent a day on Daydream Island, swimming in the resort pools and wandering across for the odd cool beer. The wind on the end of the island made us realize that we’d probably made the right decision. To get to the reef, there’s a good hour or so of open water, unprotected by the islands or the reef. The skipper of our boat back to Airlie at the end of the day gave his prediction for the following day’s state of the sea as “A bit like today - between fresh and frightening”.

Our apartment was great - balcony with hill-top sea view, pool with hill-top sea view. Every morning just after dawn the resident population of at least a hundred white squawking sulphur-crested cockatoos flew in loose formation (Keep up, Biggles! ) from left to right above the trees below the balcony into the sun. Every evening at 6.30, just before dusk they flew back (Biggles, no loitering! Fly in a straight line, for God’s sake…. Are you drunk?) The parrots were a bit like the backpackers - quiet during the day, noisy going home at dawn. At least no backpackers perched on our balcony.

It was a bit frustrating, enjoying fantastic weather on the mainland, but hearing how rough it was a couple of hours off-shore. We made for Bowen, an hour up the coast, home of the mango and location for filming of the recent epic “A********a”, starring N***** K*****. (You can’t have too many asterisks when talking about this film.) Bowen is an ordinary working town, but has been given a place on the map by pretending to be Darwin in 1941. Easy job, probably. The café we patronized proudly displayed plates signed by N***** and H*** and others too anonymous to mention. Not sure if N***** asked for banana syrup on her ice cream. I’ll find out and let you know. The iconic jetty which stars in the film is at the moment inaccessible to the public, so film fans have to make with banana syrup and gawping at signed plates. Bowen has some pretty beaches, though. If you go, check out Gray’s Beach, Horseshoe Bay and Rose Bay. In Europe these beaches would be concreted over and teeming with lobster-backed humanity. Here, on a sunny day, we shared the space with a handful of locals, grass, granite boulders and coconut palms.

Conway Beach is round the corner from Airlie and Proserpine, through vast fields of 6-foot high sugar cane, past the waterfall and rainforest swimming hole at Cedar Creek. The creek emerges on to a vast and deserted tropical beach and snakes across it into the surf. Warning signs both for estuarine salt-water crocodiles and for ‘marine stingers’ meant we didn’t get our feet wet.

Proserpine’s main centre of attention was the Court House in the centre of the town, today serving as the main polling station for the state elections. The good old boys of the Liberal Party (=Tories) posed proudly for my souvenir photos outside. Me: Is the voting done electronically? Good Old Boy: Naa, we don’t tag people round here- only cattle…. Although my missus would quite like to get me tagged. For the record, their man didn’t get to serve the Whitsunday constituency in the Queensland Parliament. Labour sneaked in again and retained overall control of Queensland, with Anna Bligh becoming Australia’s first woman State Premier.

Having stayed longer than planned in Airlie Beach waiting for a calmer sea, we decided not to drive the 1100 kms back to Brisbane, but to put a bit more business Mr Branson’s way. In what seemed like no time at all, we’d dropped the car off at Mackay airport, booked another for our arrival in Brisbane and we were driving out of Brisbane airport, north towards the Sunshine Coast. The Sunshine Coast did what it said on the tin; there was a coast, plenty of sunshine, but around Caloundra too much concrete. A helpful girl in an information office suggested we might appreciate the ‘Sunshine Coast Hinterland’. She was right. We do. I’m writing this in a beautifully quirky faux-French B & B, ‘The Spotted Chook’, in Montville, run by Jane and Leroy, who left his job in Sydney to build this wonderful house, perched on the side of a hill.

Montville itself is perched on the rim of an ex-volcano, 400m up in the hills about 40 km back from the coast, which is visible as part of vast panoramas all around the eastern edge of the hills. The villages around here are full of boutique B & Bs, twee shops selling useless artefacts in the name of art, and various therapies being advertised - ‘Psychic readings while you wait…. Relaxotherapy…. Massage ……Toe nails clipped, $20 per foot…….’ Good caffs, though and a friendly winery up the road. There are waterfalls and pockets of preserved rainforest, with endangered species lurking, several of them which make weird and wonderful noises in the dark. We’ve looked hard, but have not yet seen any sign of the Southern Gastric Brooding Frog, native to the area, and thought to be extinct. Let’s be fair - with a diagnosis like that, there’s no wonder they’re probably extinct. This is Steve Irwin country, a few miles from Australia Zoo, which we’d earmarked for a possible rainy day visit. The forecast is good for the rest of our time here and in Brisbane, so instead of a trip down Steve Irwin Way to see the crocs, we plan to grab a final day at the seaside today - at Noosa.

This may the final episode of this blog. It’s back to Brisbane tomorrow for a day with Tatsy & Perry. After a couple of nights in Singapore to soften the blow, we’re back home on Tuesday 31st.

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Photos

The Big Mango
Before Nicole and Hugh came to Bowen, this pulled in the crowds.

Airlie Beach
Making the most of Vodafone's Squalk and Talk plan

Democracy Rules
Queensland Liberals hours away from election defeat. Tagging proposal shelved.

One lump or two?
Sugar cane fields near Conway Beach