Airlie Beach Road Trip
When our Bingal Bay trip was cancelled I decided that I would still like to go on holidays. So I put it to Jerome that we go to Airlie Beach for a couple of days just to get away. After doing some research and looking at our available funds it was decided that backpacking was the best was to go. Following the decision to backpack the best accommodation was at Magnums Backpackers resort, it was central and had a club and a good pool hall, everything to young backpackers needed to have. After a very late night on Wednesday having gone out to dinner with Emma to the lovely WhiteBlue restaurant we did have quite a late start getting away.
We eventually left around twelve o’clock disregarding the planned time of eight thirty, the renowned talker Jerome collier was subsequently as quite as a mouse when driving to Airlie beach that proceeded not to keep me awake or alert while driving. Upon arriving we booked into our decent but modest accommodation, it was a ten-bunk dorm with most of the backpackers being from England, so really it was great to hear all those familiar accents. It did pose one problem though; I have a tendency to acquire the accents of those around me without actually realising.
We then got some dinner, we had planned to eat out but the food in magnums was really good so we just got some half priced pizzas and some vodka and sat down and enjoyed them. We got chatting to some people but the first night we mainly kept to ourselves. The events that followed this get slightly hazy around twelve o'clock, but what Jerome and I did work out was that Jelly Wrestling however entertaining is a rather barbaric sport. An experience that was not to be missed, following the jelly wrestling and the jug of sangria with modified vodka shooters we learnt that our room is no less than a metric stumble.
The next day with quite sore heads we went to do some sunbaking, however the clouds would come over and blocking the sun and the breeze was too damn cold so went back to our rooms. We then had a lazy day of reading books and talk to some of the other backpackers in the room. We had met two in particular Lyndsay and Katy both from the UK, who we had dinner with on the second night, we then went back to our dorms where we talked about everything and anything and got drunk on goon and spirits.
Then it came time to hit the town, the nightclub at magnums was dead so we travelled up the road to Beaches, which was absolutely packed. After a couple of hours dancing there it closed so we moved back to M@SS for a few drinks and subsequently was in time for the wet t-shirt competition. Although attention grabbing there was the thought of how seedy and red neck it actually was especially with Kate by my side. It was decided that we should probably go to bed as both Kate and Lyndsay had a boat to catch in the morning as so did we.
When the morning came around despite how much Bacardi was drunk there was little evidence of it in terms of hangovers. But on our last day we decided to get away from Airlie and go on a tour. We decided we had two things in mind, adventure and relaxing. So we chose Hamilton Island for its adventure and White haven beach, luckily for us they both came in a package deal.
Our boat left Shute harbour at 9 and we had arrived at Hamilton by ten to ten. The first thing we had planned to do was to spend the morning Go-karting, this posed one problem, getting to the track. As on the Island we had no means of travelling apart from out feet the next best idea was to Hitch Hike. This proved to be a great success with very little walking done. Go Karting was fun and unfortunately there were no crashes, that would have made it interesting but all the while having a ball. I had to forget all my road sense, ahahahahaha, not that I have a lot.
After Go-karting we had planned on going go jet skiing, unfortunately for us the Jet skiing was no longer available so we resorted back to our natural instincts and went to the Island Bar where we sampled a selection of cocktails, of the Pinna-Colada range. Realising we were about to miss our boat, we ran over the hill to the other side of Island and boarded the boat for our next destination.
White Haven was beautiful, as always the stunning white sand was breath taking and we then decided to sleep on the beach while the others ran around in togs we sat in jumpers, as it was so cold.
We slept most of the trip home and when we got home all we wanted to do again was sleep, so we went into our dorm to find it full of Irish people. The one thing about backpacking is that the population of the dorms is ever changing, for example the first night was a mix of Canadians and Americans and Brits. The next night was all stunning Irish and English girls; Jerome and I were quite pleased with the ratio. On our final night out door was crammed with Irish guys and a couple of Girls, who woke me from my alcohol-induced coma at 3a.m when they came home.
Our final morning was more hysterical than anything else. We were awoken by an Irish guy saying, “Fuck off” and the laughter ensued. All the other Irish people keep paying him out and then more they did the more he did stupid things, he kept laughing like a Leprechaun. Let me tell you one of the funniest moments of my life.
We packed up and left for Townsville at around 10a.m. When we arrived we stayed at Jerome’s house for one night of drinking before my abstinence from alcohol for the next week and a half.
So that was Airlie Beach, another successful holiday.
(z)
The Metro One.
