Vagabonding

Airlie Beach, a cross between a backpacker ghetto and a playground for the wealthy and good-looking.  I have a theory that, in Australia, the further away from the coast you get, the uglier people are.  Of course this is a very general theory and it’s definitely not implying that the population of Alice Springs looks like the village of the damned but, Airlie Beach backs my theory nicely.  All you have to do is head down to the lagoon by the seafront and you’ll see the human form at its best.  Women with bikini perfect bodies and men with boobs (in the muscular sense) as big as the women.  Both sexes are perfectly bronzed and there isn’t a beer gut or mullet in sight.  My first morning in Airlie Beach is spent down at the lagoon and I feel like the pastiest, most pigeon-chested person there.  After topping up on my sunburn, I spend the rest of the day fighting with various computers around town, trying to upload photos from my new camera.  My previous camera died on my road-trip from Darwin to Cairns and my new camera currently has the status of an unloved ginger stepson.  I’m sure one day I’ll find it in my heart to accept him, but I think we have many internet cafes to struggle through before that time comes.  The only way to solve an afternoon of computer stress is to have an evening on the goon and a comprehensive poker victory over German & Norwegian opposition, so that’s exactly what I do…

The following morning I’m enjoying a coffee in a 5 star hotel and feeling like I’m about to be grabbed by the scruff off the neck and thrown out with an accompanying “get back to your caravan park you dirty backpacker…”  I hadn’t planned on being in such swanky surroundings but the jetty at the hotel is used by Ocean Rafting for their trips out to the Whitsundays.  I start to feel more at ease as people scruffier than me turn up for the impending boat trip. Then a couple of butch, tattooed lesbians appear, you can tell they’re lesbians by their haircuts…and the fact that they’re groping each other, and start frolicking in the hotel pool.  I’m surrounded by fellow minions, it’s comforting.  Ten minutes later we’re all on the boat and headed for the first stop on Hook Island to see the Aboriginal cave paintings.  As we approach the island, the crew start applying copious volumes of insect reppelent, an ominous sign.  We anchor up at a beautiful little bay with crystal clear water and a rocky set of stairs leading up the wooded hillside from the rocks on the beach.  As soon as the first flip flops/thongs/jandals hit the shore, the march flies attack like a bunch of starved fat people at a buffet.  There are screams and yelps from the Japanese and curses from the Westerners but collectively we make it to the cave, get a few photos and then take the guides advice and run back to the boat.

Despite whisking away in a speed boat, some of the flies keep pace and continue chomping people on board for another 5 minutes.  By the time we’re at Bell Island the flies have gone and everyone is looking their best in body-hugging, body-condom-style stinger suits.  We spend an hour or so snorkelling the reef and I find myself chasing the fish like a dog after its own tail.  I know I’ll never catch one but it doesn’t stop me trying.  After admitting defeat on the fish hunt I head back to the boat. I am, however, the last one to get back on board and as I tread the water, waiting for the Japanese girl to unravel herself and her flippers from the ladders, the only thing going through my head is the theme tune from Jaws.  Luckily though, my toothy friend doesn’t make an appearance and I make it to Whitehaven beach with the rest of the stinger suit crowd.  We spend a few hours taking in the splendour of the long stretch of squeaky clean white beach fringed by national park forest and the swimming pool like water in the bay.  The sky is blue, the sun is shining, the people are smiling and back home it’s deepest darkest winter, life is good!  

That last phrase sums it up perfectly, life is good in the Whitsundays…