21/5/09

Checked out at about 9:30am and sat in Picnic Bay playing cards before our bus back to the ferry terminal so we could get back to the transit centre in Townsville (named after someone whose last name was Towns, rather than just being a very unoriginal idea for a place name!). The ferry got us there in plenty of time for our 1:30pm bus so I had enough time to run to Subway and back to grab us some lunch! The bus journey was about 5 hrs but went pretty quick due a dreadful movie (Bringing Down The House) and a half decent one (The Italian Job - the remake of course). Arrived in Airlie Beach at 6ish and walked the few minutes to our hostel, Magnums which is a huge campus-esque complex with a massive bar and two restaurants. Airlie Beach is mostly used by people as a gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, but after thinking long and hard about it, we decided that it would be very similar to the trip we did in Cairns to the reef, so we would visit Fraser Island, further South instead.

Our room was a private double, which stank of mould, which was unpleasant to say the least, but we made do especially as we did have our own space at least. After dumping our stuff we wandered up and down the main strip of shops and restaurants, where Jo did a lot of window shopping for nice things that we either didn't need, couldn't afford, or both! We then hit the supermarket to get stuff for breakfasts and lunches and then had dinner and a couple of pints at the bar before heading back to the room to play some cards!

22/5/09

Had a nice lie in although woke up smelling like mould (not cool!) and had some breakfast. Went and had a look at the shops again now we were in daylight and they were actually open, though the only thing purchased was a polo shirt for me for a bargain $10. Nice. Made ourselves some sandwiches for lunch before heading to the lagoon area (much like Cairns). Read and sunbathed until the sun disappeared, then headed back to the hostel for some nice potato wedges, fish and chips and a few pints each, then heading to the room to sleep (only after playing cards for a few hours of course though!).

23/5/09

Had to check out by 10 which was a little annoying seeing as our bus to Rainbow Beach wasn't until 6pm (a nice 14hr overnighter. Sweet.), but we could leave our bags in the luggage store at the hostel so we spent the whole day at the lagoon which seemed like a good idea at the time, but we both 'caught the sun' (me much worse than Jo) so to speak so were a little redder and hotter than we would have liked by the time our bus journey started. Jo bought herself a nice new handbag to cater for our ever expanding amount of stuff, and managed to upload a lot of the photos before a quick snack at McDonald's! This bus journey was not good. We had been looking forward to a load of really rubbish films to fall asleep to but sadly this bus had no DVD player and had less legroom than previous ones which made for a very uncomfortable, not to mention long, journey which resulted in about an hour of sleep max! It's a tough life this travelling lark!

Airlie was a nice place but almost 100% traveller oriented so didn't really have a great deal of character, but then again I suppose most people only use it as the gateway to the Whitsundays so don't actually come to see the place itself!