So we arrived in airlie beach, finally!!! After being stuck in Townsville, we were so excited about getting out and the sun actually shining a little, the whole bus was whooping and hooting with delight. We arrived in airlie beach and had a few days to relax as we had missed the boat we should have been going on for our 3 day 2 night sailing trip around the whitsundays, because of being stuck in Townsville with the floods.
The hostel (Magnums), we stayed in was crap to say the least, the 10 bed dorm we were in was dark, dank and smelt horrendous but the people we were sharing with certainly made it better and it meant not having to spend more money on accomodation because it was here we had a couple of nights included from the package deal we had bought. Anyway the weather had picked up immensely considering the floods we had seen in townsville so we spent the next day down by the lagoon which was right beside the sea making the most of it. Lucky we did really, the next day the storms had worked their way down and we were stuck in our dorm room for the next two days other than our little dashes to the shop for food and one evening when we ventured out to the bar at Magnums had a few beers. This was the night when as we were running back to our room from the bar after a few beers, henry went crashing into a door mat and managed to take off nearly all of one of his toe nails.
Saturday came about and the rain was coming down just as hard as it had been for the couple of days before but suprisingly the trip went ahead. On reflection this was not such a great idea as we soon found out...we were one of the only two boats to set sail that day, probably because we were on a big catermeran rather than an actual sailing boat so it was considered more hardy. So we set sail, the space below deck was small and damp smelling, above deck where we would have been sunbathing had the weather been somewhat decent, we stood drinking our beers getting absolutely soaked. The weather continued to get worse and worse, the boat was up and down and all over the place, we were all crammed down below where the smell of alcohol and damp began to smell like sick, and the crew were all panicking because the Captain couldn't even see the front of the boat. So much for sailing around some of the Whitsunday islands, instead we went straight to the island we were staying overnight on, 'South Molle'.
South Molle was supposed to be an island where we could enjoy 2 tropical nights and enjoy all the island facilities, the spectacular bushwalks, beach sunsets, swimming pool and spa, golf, and tennis. When we arrived the golf course was now totally underwater, as were the tennis courts, the pool was indistinguishable from the rest of the island, we never found the spa and it certainly wasn't possible to go bushwalking or to see a sunset through the black clouds that loomed overhead.
Our first night on the island having reached our rooms and being absolutely soaked through, we decided as there was nothing else to do but go to the bar for a few drinks which was down near the coast, we wouldnt get changed because we would only get wet again so made our way down in glorious stlye, including walking down stairs where so much water was rushing down them it looked like a waterfall and the steps weren't even visible.
On the plus side the bar staff hadn't turned up so the leading crew member from the boat opened the bar instead and declared free jugs of beer until the staff did arrive, this wasn't until much later! After a few drinks and some hot food, everyone began to see the funny side of the whole thing and the evening resulted in much more drinking and general foolishness.
The following morning, the weather was just as bad, suprise suprise and over breakfast we were told we couldn't set sail because it was too dangerous and that we were stuck on the island all day with literally nothing to do. It was at this point people were getting annoyed that the boat company had sent us out on our trip unlike most of the other operators as they obviously had some idea the weather wasn't suitable. Finally at lunch we all got told to pack up and that we had 30mins before we had to set sail back to the mainland because a storm was going to hit later that afternoon which would mean we would be stranded on the island for 4 days.
To cut a long story short, we made our way back, again in torrential rain and finally got off after what was possibly the worst but also somewhat amusing sailing trip. We were all still laughing and seeing the funny side though to an extent, becuase they had told us we would all recieve a full refund as they had cancelled the trip.
We made our way back to the hostels and checked in at a different hostel called 'Beaches' for the night as we had used up our free nights accomodation and decided on splashing out a bit on a double because we knew we were getting a full refund. We were both so tired and cold, our clothes were all soaked through, as well as those in our bags and our camera was broken we needed our own room to just relax and get a good sleep.
The following day the weather was still terrible and we had been hoping to try and get a bus out of town, buses hadn't been running though for the past 4 days out of Airlie and we were pretty sure we weren't going to be lucky enough to get out then either....our luck did change though and we got on a bus at 8pm that night. The driver piled us all on and told us he would check us in later because if we weren't out of Airlie within the next 10minutes or so we would all be stuck there for another night. This was because the police were threatening to close the roads again.
After an eventful few days in Airlie we finally got out and 12hours later we arrived in Fraser Island, hoping and praying the storm wasn't going to catch up with us there....
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