Its a sorry story when the best thing about
a place is leaving there. Even more so when it is only for two days. With a
weekend off for Rachel, and the 'Australia' movie shrines and Big
Mango sightings exhausted, we decided to venture further afield. All we wanted
was a quiet spot on some secluded beach for a fire, to get drunk and high and
loudly practice natures most entertaining imperative.
Fortunate enough not to know the Bowen area
well, we had to stop at the information centre first. There I exercised my God
given right to acts of stupidity and locked the keys in the van. A kindly old
man and his charming wife gladly offered to rectify the problem as long as I
was willing to foot any expenses that might result from his 'assistance'. The
van company quoted me $100 just for a call out and openly recommended I try
other alternatives. This I may have chosen to do if my knight in faded armour
didn't whip out a screwdriver so large it made Excalibur look like a pen knife.
As much as I would have loved to see Arthur pull all four doors off their
hinges in 10 seconds flat, I opted for the cheaper option and had the luxury of
a two hour wait before a professional showed up with a more effective but less
impressive piece of packing tape. Luckily enough the Big Mango sat nearby so we
were able to gaze upon its expensive pointlessness for many a wistful moment.
Our destination of choosing was Cape Hillsborough
National Park, 180kms
south of Bowen. We stopped in at Airlie
Beach to see what the
shop 'Happy high herbs' could offer us in the way of non prison worthy
narcotics. A dazed but friendly dread locked dude recommended we sample one of
everything as he extolled its effectiveness through personal example alone. Not
wanting to take too much of the stock that he probably had designs on for the
afternoon, our 'cherry pop' and 'empathy' set us back the same amount of cash
as what their illegal equivalents would have.
Unbeknown to us, it was the first day of
school holidays so progress was slower than planned. The caravan park refused
to answer their phone so we were forced to go with Plan B. There was no such
thing as a Plan B, so come beer o'clock we stopped at Seaforth and offered them
our patronage. The advertised 'beach side camping' came with the unadvertised
benefit of being crammed in with a few hundred other holiday makers. Rolling in
with 'Hippie camper' blazoned all over our van, this tribe of red-necks took
great pleasure in staring at the spectacle we presented and sniggering about us
lovers not being blood relatives. Every family sported about 5 offspring, and
an extremely obese guy opposite us must have thought that 5 was too many and
had eaten a few of his kids for breakfast.
We pitched our half man tent, much to
everyone's curiosity, and headed down the beach. There we found a nice secluded
spot to set about fulfilling our wishes. I got a bonfire going with all the
tourist information we had on Bowen and we ingested our happy high herbs in
complete confidence. Ignoring the moral questions such behaviour raises once
the illegal aspect has been removed, we set about partying like a 2 person
dance-arama. A few nights previous I had bravely jumped straight back on the
horse after my $50 anxiety attack and had the sort of blissful night that
ecstasy is supposed to offer. Comparing that with the high that the happy high
herbs offered, I think I'll stay on the wrong side of the legal fence for all
future magical mystery tours.
Once the fire died down, the moonless night
opened up in diamond soaked obsidian blackness. A few wannabe shooting stars
teased us before big daddy streaked half way across the sky accompanied by our
squeals of delight. Blood suckers of every description were out partying too,
and Rachel has the dubious honour of being the worlds most effective mosquito
and midgie magnet. We returned to the tent to test its sturdiness before Rachel
ruthlessly scratched the skin of every square inch of her body.
Hundreds of kids woke us up making more
noise than we hoped we had made keeping them awake. We left before our
neighbour tried to eat us and made it to Cape Hillsborough
by mid morning. A 5km walk through widely varying terrain revealed a vast array
of animals, all of which Rachel believed were baying for her blood. Beautiful
blue butterflies, skinks and lizards, spiders, a snake, a pair of Brahminy
kites, manta rays and a few sea turtles were caught on camera in the first half
an hour. That's when Rachel's imagination launched an all out assault that prompted
her to warn the entire parks inhabitants to our presence with an ear piercing
scream. Needless to say, nothing more was sighted after that.
All in all the trip away was far better
than we had hoped, especially with its delayed and expensive start. We even
made it in to Bowen with a smile on our face after seeing a sign stating that
Baz, Nic and Hugh loved Bowen, so we would too. I once did, and I wonder if
time has changed the minds of Bowen's adopted Hollywood
stars like it has mine?
