Airlie, Mackay, Brisbane - Or "Australia - The Land Of Sunshine, me bollix"!

So there's this myth, right, that it's always sunny in Australia. Well I'm here to bust that myth wide open! Actually, you've probably been reading about the weather, I saw it on the Times website. It's pretty mental. I've actually been quite lucky.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? In the beginning there was the Word and the . . . No, not that beginning!

I left Cairns on Monday 3rd Januart 2011 (can't get used to writing that), with a Greyhound bus ticket and the strong desire to sit on some beaches and top up my already ridiculous tan. That hasn't really happened. When I was buying the bus ticket the lady told me that the road out of Rockhampton was closed because of flooding but would probably be open by around the Wednesday or Thursday.

My uncle and dad dropped me off in Cairns around ten and the bus wasn't til twelve so I got some food and just generally hung about looking suspicious for the rest of the time . . . well, I read a book. A decent book, called Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks. When I first started it I thought it was woeful, but after the first sixty pages or so it becomes a fantastic read. It's about the First World War and manages to convey the absolute idiocy of the conflict in a way that I've never come across before, and still manages to come to some interestingly positive conclusions, while skimping on none of the psychological horrors inflicted on the men who fought in place like the Somme, places that for me, echo with the same horror as Dachau and S21. If anything, the Somme is nearly worse because men we sent to die, not by hatred but by the indifference and stupidity of commanders miles away, with no conception of the waste and wanton cruelty they inflicted on the lives of others.

But I jumped on the bus and I was the bus for most of Monday. Also, I discovered when I got on the bus that Rockhampton would not be open that week. Seven days at least. By the time the next driver got on, he reckoned it would be ten days. As it turned out, it was closer to twelve, but I didn't know at the time. Instead, I had to start looking at other options, options I might have looked at earlier if I'd not been told Rocky would be open in "three or four days" but then the rain has been absolutely crazy so really it isn't anyones fault.

The bus arrived in Airlie beach at about midnight. Also, I keep writing Aerlie, because that's how we'd spell it back home, so if I do it, don't slap me. You can slag away, but no slaps, thank you muchly. After I got off the book I wandered into town, marvelling at the number of pissed Australians stumbling out of, into and around a multitude of pubs all over the place. It was like Kuta all over again! Yay!

No, actually it was a lot nicer than Kuta. Still, I had been on a bus for twelve hours and I just wanted to get to bed. I eventually found my hostel after walking straight past it once and then discovered that the office was locked up. I looked around in a panic but couldn't find anyone and had visions of having to try and find a different hostel when a rather pissed off security guard appeared. Apparently he'd been off dealing with some drunk idiots who wouldn't either shut up or go drink on the beach . . . God, some people are so inconsiderate. Like actually. I can really believe that they wouldn't walk the five minutes to the beach to continue drinking, or just go to a pub, when then were clearly disturbing everyone in the hostel trying to sleep. They'd even been given an extra two hours after the general "quiet" time started.

So eventually I got to a bed, and more or less just went to sleep. I was tired. I'd managed to get unused to buses somewhere in the last month.

The next day I spent the early morning sorting out whatever the hell I was doing next, because I wasn't spending my last weeks sitting on Airlie Beach hoping like hell I'd get to Sydney in time to come home. I ended up booking a flight from Mackay to Brisbane on Friday, which meant I had to go to Mackay on Thursday. Well, I didn't have too, but I didn't want to take the risk that the bus might be late and I'd miss the flight that cost me a hundred and fifty fucking euro.

However, all that done I finally got to set about enjoying some of Airlie, even if the annoyances had given me a whooper headache. I eventually ended up going to bed early that night but it was grand, I still managed to enjoy the afternoon before the crippling pain sent me to the chemist for some tablets in the evening.

The beach has this really nice entrance. One of the things I like about Airlie is that because it's a pretty popular place its spent some money on keeping itself clean and modern and nice-looking. Mission Beach I found to be a fairly run down area, except for Castaways, but Aerlie doesn't suffer the same. Nearly everywhere is fresh. Even the entrance to the beach is nice. See? They've also built a little lagoon, which is basically a huge outdoor swimming pool. There were loads of people around, sunning themselves, tanning or just chilling with their friends. I brought my book out and had a read, listened to some aggressive music that really didn't gel with the enviroment at all. Which is mostly why I was listening to it.

One thing about Australian beaches is that they're not actually always that safe. You really don't have to worry about shark attacks too much. They're not that common, but there are plenty of other things that'll kill you. If you see a sign like this for instance, you're probably better off not swimming. Unless there's a net, and a lifeguard, and some other people already swimming.

 It basically warn you off the different types of jellyfish in the area. One will hurt you a hell of a lot. The other will kill you. There's even a bit of the sign that says, "If in doubt, panic!" Okay, that's not quite true, but it is serious. You've to call an ambulance and hope to hell you get to the hospital in time and hope even harder that it was the other type of jellyfish. Even if you survive, the pain is apparently crippling and can go on for days.

So, be careful where you decide to swim. Seriously. And if yo get stung, use the bottles of vinegar located on the beach, normally at these signs, and then ring a bloody ambulance. Saying, "Ah, it'll be grand" does not work in Australia. Further down the coast you don't have these problems of course, and you only have to worry about these things for a few months a year, but at the same time, it's not really funny if you end up dead. Trust me, your ma will bait ya round the head for it.

But, all that said, it's still a lovely beach. And a really nice place to sit and read and just relax.

Day two was a little (but not much) more productive. I got up, had a swim in the hostel pool, and then sat out and read my book, again. Also spent some time working on some blogs later on in the afternoon when it got really hot and I needed a break from the sun. McDonald's lured me in with their stupid free wifi, even though I was like, I'll just sit outside and use the net, they won't mind. I eventually decided some chips sounded good, and by the time I left the counter I had chips, a burger and chicken nuggets. I have no idea how it even happened.

Back in the hostel I met my two new room mates who had just come back from trying to get past Rockhampton and were now doing like me and looking for flights to Brisbane or beyond in the hopes that they'd be able to get their holiday back on track.

I'd a burger and a lovely cold pint of cider for dinner and then got to bed, read some more and slept.

The following morning, Thursday, I headed out to grab my bus and I could see the clouds moving in. By the time the bus was pulling out of Airlie, the rain was pumping down. We left the worst of it behind for awhile, so it was just gloomy when I got to Mackay. The hostel was booked up (lots of people doing what I was doing) but I managed to find a decent private room for alright money for the night and ended up having a big bed and a room with cable TV to myself that night. I'd dinner in a chinese restaurant. The owner of the place told me it was his favourite and I reckon there just couldn't have been a better place because the food was great.

I was lucky here too. The rain had moved in the afternoon, but not until after I'd found my place to stay, and then I waited it out, got out to have dinner and made it back just before it started bucketing down again. Go me!

For some reason I stayed up til about two playing Kingdom Hearts on my PSP but I had a half-decent sleep all the same before I had to check out and catch a tai to the airport. It was fairly sunny that morning, but the rain moved in as the afternoon approached and the flight from Brisbane was delayed an hour. By the time we made it only the plane it was bucketing down. The flight itself was rocked by turbulence for most of the way and when we arrived in Brisbane we heard that Mackay airport had been closed due to the storm.

In Brisbane it was drizzling but nothing too serious. Caught a train to the city and found my hostel. There was an Irish couple in my room and a Canadia girl, two Dutch girls and some guy who never moved from his bed, just watched youtube videos of some Asian thing with the volume up full. I don't think we liked him.

I sent a few txts while I was here, to people I thought might be in the area. Some, unfortunately, we still stuck the wrong side of Rockhampton and others, it turned out were in Brisbane, but leaving in the morning . . . so, the question became, did I want to see Brisbane or roadtrip down the coast . . . ? Well, I'll be honest with you, Brisbane looked lovely and all, but friends, roadtrip, better weather in the south, roadtrip . . .

I said, yeah, guys I'm, going with ye! So following my tough day of sitting around doing f-all I got myself some dinner, some sleep and didn't even bother unpacking a thing from my bag, other than fresh clothes for the morning.

And since it appears that Brisbane is about to be flooded, I may have made the right choice after all!

And you can read about it next time on Shane's Epic Adventures in the Land of Not-Very-Much-Sun-At-All-But-We've-So-Much-Water-That-We'll-Charge-You-Four-Dollars-For-A-Small-Bottle - I'm not sure anybody actually calls Australia that, but they should.

Talk to you soon,
Shane.