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Published: March 11th 2010
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Was up at 8.30 and went for breakfast in the main restaurant here at Long Island resort. There aren’t cooking facilities for the backpackers but they offer cheap meal tokens, so the breakfast buffet (which includes Fruit, Yogurt, Cereals, Full English, toast, tea coffee etc) is only $10 and you can have as much as you like.
Sunbathed for an hour, reading my book then met a girl who was collecting Coconuts to de-husk. I asked her if I could join her to find out how you do it. De-husking was pretty cool. You have to smack the big cacoon on a metal spike, then rip apart to pull out the smaller Coconut shell inside. She was a nice girl and told me she was living and working on the island at the resort with her Australian boyfriend… what an amazing place to be!
Later that afternoon the same girl took a few of us on the jetty to feed the fish. A couple of big Batfish were swimming around, the greedy one kept chasing the other away which was funny. One of them had a cleaning fish stuck to its side which sucks and eats what comes off their scales.
I wondered if this was the same type they use in Thailand for the fish massages. A little boy called Archer kept us entertained. He reckoned the two Batfish were married and the bossy one was the woman in the relationship. He also insisted another fish was a stingray, although it clearly wasn’t.
After the fish feeding session I went to the Pool bar to get some lunch. Jerry the bar guy came across as rude earlier when I asked if Allison the girl on reception had dropped off a travel adapter for me, but I soon realized it was his dry sense of humour. Allison was at the bar with him, it was her day off and he was spraying her with water from the pumps and dragging her around on her bum.
Allison was lovely. She asked about my travels and how it was back home. She’s from Wigan and knows Wilmslow quite well. We went to sunbathe for an hour or so and talked about love, family, friends etc. We were both a bit surprised at how deep our conversation ended up being, but I think some of the things we talked about were easier to say
as we didn’t know each other. Her and Jerry have been getting closer since working on this Island together, but he told her yesterday he’s quitting and will be leaving in two weeks when he’s worked his notice. She was visibly upset and had spent the morning in tears. I hope it works out for the two of them - they were so sweet together.
I was sad to leave Long Island but was looking forward to meeting up with Ellie again. When I got back to Airlie Beach at 6pm we hugged and said how much we'd missed each other. What am I going to do when she goes to South Africa?! Went on the internet for a bit before going to the Bus Station for our coach to Cairns. The Greyhound Coach was one and a half hours late which was frustrating but we chatted to a lovely, softly spoken guy from Sheffield about his trip to Asia. He had loved Vietnam and told us not to be put off by the horrible people in Ho Chi Minh City. We left our bags with the driver and followed all the other passengers on to the coach. The driver
went bonkers and slapped his hand hard against our window! When everyone got off he started yelling, telling us that he'd not told us to get on the coach. We were shocked at his behaviour, how rude!
The coach was cold and it took Ellie and I ages to get comfortable enough to sleep. Thank god it was our final coach journey in Australia. In fact, if I never get on another overnight coach again, I will die a happy woman.
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