eh-lee beach

We take a night bus to Airlie Beach. I thought it would suck, but it didn't. I sat right up front and the bus was only half filled, so we got to have our own seats. Naomi and I pulled out our sleeping bags and that was that. I listened to Anuna and Nickel Creek and a Juana Molina episode of Radiolab and then fell asleep.

Airlie Beach is warm and HUMID. The beach is really a harbor, and Airlie has several colorful hotels perched on hillsides overlooking the boat filled bay. It is quite picturesque.

Today we checked in, met our roommates, and hung out separately at the “lagoon.” Nadine, Irish, told us about picking fruit at Bundaburg to get her worker's visa. Every day at dawn, the backpackers in the hostel would be driven to nearby farms, set in fields, given baskets, and remained there all day. She said they got covered in dirt and the farmers would come round every hour or so to refill water bottles and slather sun cream on them. At night, the backpackers would all pool their respective produce from their different farms, pack lunches, and fall into bed. She did this for six weeks to earn enough money to move on. I have to say, it sounds kind of fun to me. Nadine reported that there was a lot of comraderie in the hostel, a lot of sharing of food and stories. She complained that there was no bar nearby, but that wouldn't bother me. Nadine also did a few hours of cleaning in exchange for free room at one of the hostels in Cairns. We visit that hostel and ask about her and apparently she made quite a name for herself.

Today I hung out at the “lagoon” for several hours and read my 6th grade book. The lagoon is a wobbly shaped swimming pool right on the edge of the harbor, surrounded by grass for optimal tanning. I sat partly in the shade, but was surrounded by twenty-somethings simply BAKING on the sand and on the grass. Arlie Beach is the kind of place where you sleep in, lay out by the pool all day, drink at the bars all night. Every few days, you take a sailing or a snorkling trip, on which you do more laying out and drinking.

I took a long walk to Coles supermarket, walking through a neighborhood and practically falling off the mountain aside a busy street with no sidewalk. There were numerous lookouts over Airlie Beach and I think I took about sixty pictures enroute. I can't believe how much I sweat on the this twenty minute walk. I hung out in Coles for an hour just for the air conditioning.

In the evening, we booked our snorkling trip and bus ride for the following day with Jaime, who was really friendly and really upbeat and joked the whole time and was certainly gay. Then I internetted for a while at McDonalds, where they had FREE WIFI!!! Mickey Ds in foreign countries is way better than back home. Here, they also have a whole bakery section with tasty looking cakes and pies. After a while, the internet got messed up and I returned to the hostel and fell into a DEEP SLEEP. I didn't even wake up at 5:00 when Nadine was yelling with a friend for half an hour right outside our bedroom.

Australian thing of the day: Sun-dried tomato flavored rice cakes. Lots and lots of red, powdery goodness stacked on each rice cake. Get your daily sodium requirement in one go. Very tasty.