Airlie Beach

 Day 1 – Down with the Kidz!!

At long last we were finally getting out of Townsville and after a bit of breakfast we were onto our next destination of Airlie Beach.  Airlie Beach is apparently a mecca for backpackers and is a hop-off point to go to The Whitsunday islands and after vaguely hearing the name (Glenn not Shelley) we decided we wanted to do a sailing trip around them.

Again it was quite a long drive of about 300km but thankfully for Muriel not too many hills to climb.  As we approached Airlie beach we stopped off at Woolworths to pick up some food and a bottle shop to replenish the bar.

On entering Airlie Beach we could see that it was quite a touristy town with bars and restaurants. Finding our camp ground for the next couple of days we checked in for one night and found our way to our plot.  It was immediately evident that this was a much more younger backpacker place and the facilities were not quite as good, especially the shower blocks which looked like they were used by teenagers…nuff said!  However the site was quite nice with lots of trees, parrots/parakeets and a couple of swimming pools and bars.

After setting up and having our customary set-up ciders we headed back to reception where there was a resident (very camp) travel agent that arranged the sailing trips to The Whitsundays.  We discussed all the various options and boats and finally agreed a very good deal on a two day/two night trip (£150pp – bargain!) that started the day after next, but the guy threw in our camping fees for the following night and the night that we returned together with parking for the two nights we were going to be away which worked out to be A$ 80, result!

Happy that we had sorted that out and we could just chill until our trip we headed back to our van for a few beers before cooking our evening meal.

In the evening we thought we would check out some of the bars as for the first time in a while we weren’t in the sticks.  Firstly we went to the campsites bar next to the reception, as we had been given a voucher for a welcome drink on checking in.  We stayed there for a couple of schooners but it was pretty  quiet so we thought we would move on.

A bit further on and we found an Irish Bar (I don’t think we have visited one place in the world that doesn’t have one) where there was a guy playing acoustic guitar.  Finding ourselves some seats we sat down and had a couple more drinks, then we noticed that there was a live band coming on later on and the place was starting to fill up so we decided to check them out.

Whilst sat there I offered a couple of spare seats next to us to a slightly older couple who were scanning the place for a seat.  We got chatting them for a while and had a few more drinks whilst the live band got into their flow.

A bit later we had decided that the lady (highly bottoxed and bleached blonde) was a bit of a gold digger (her fella had a yacht in the marina) and wasn’t a very nice person as she upset a girl next to us who was chatting to a fella ‘your type has no chance with him! ’, and then trying to get Shell to concur with her point of view.

Deciding that we had enough of their company and the fact the band was pretty bland, we slipped off whilst they were sucking the faces off of each other (Not a pretty site at 50+)…..Note from Shel, what a bitch, I told her too!.

Not seeing any other bars that took our fancy, we then headed back to the van and bed for the night.

Day 2 – Chill’n’Poker

Today we had a pretty lazy morning before heading down to the sailing company’s office (at the other end of town) to pay the balance of our trip.  The only trouble was when I tried to pay by card it was refused and I only had one card on me so we had to do the long walk back to the campsite and return again, this time with success.  Seem’s we had already drained our Aussie bank account!!

After settling our bill we had a walk along the beach front before returning to the campsite, I had spotted a poker tournament in the bar next to the campsite which Shell said she was quite happy for me to enter whilst she would chill reading back at the van.

I went to the bar and waited for the poker tournament to start, after a while a lady turned up and started putting up tables and chairs so I decided to give her a hand.

The tournaments started around 2.30 and far from being just a campsite game with a lot of young lads it appeared it was quite a strong local game.  Not knowing anyone I just played a tight game and then I started accumulating chips at which point I changed my game into an aggressive one and started bashing up the table I was on, bullying everyone without ever having to show my hand (using some techniques I had recently read in a poker book I had been reading on my travels). 

A couple of hours later I was sitting pretty with a chip lead on my table and it was time for a break, I went back to the van to check on Shell to see if she wasn’t too bored and to inform her that I may be a couple of hours more…to be honest she seemed quite happy to be without me for a few hours (Me time!!).

Anyway back to the tournament and an hour or so later with a couple of large gambles that didn’t pay off my chip stack was dwindling and eventually having to go all-in with half decent cards I was knocked out.  But after not playing for about 10 months, finishing 9^th out of 36 people wasn’t too bad (Just missed the final table!).

Returning back to the van we then prepared some food for dinner (It’s a very joint effort nowadays, well whilst we are camping anyway!!) and had a few drinks outside the van before getting an early night as we are sailing tomorrow!!