Airlie Beach

Trip Start May 01, 2007

115

209

Trip End Jun 17, 2008

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Flag of Australia Airlie Beach, Australia
Tuesday, January 8, 2008

When I fist saw the cop, I thought it was a taxi pulling up beside me. Then I realized that the car said Police, not Taxi. Then he asks me, How ya doin? Of course I want to say, Oh just fine until you pulled up. I could not fathom what he wanted to get me for. It was 8:30 in the morning. I had just driven through town at a snail's pace looking for a place to get a decent breakfast. Not seeing one, I went through the roundabout at the end of town and then pulled over to the side of the street, parked, and flipped through the Lonely Planet looking for a breakfast recommendation. Seeing one pretty quickly (I'm an expert Lonely Planet reader now. Or 'The Bible' I should say), I pulled back into traffic and then realized it was only like 60 meters from where I had just parked. So I pulled into another parking spot on the side of the street. That's when I looked up to see Mr. Aussie Police Man asking me how my day was. Bastard. You see, when I reached down to grab the Bible, I absent mindedly unclipped my seatbelt

Shute Harbor

. When I pulled away again only to drive 60 meters, I forgot to put it back on. The cop must've been watching me the whole time. This had to have been the one time that I had driven without my seatbelt on in, what?, the last 7 months? Fucker. I even had to take a mandatory breathalizer test. At 8:30 in the morning.

To make matters more ironic, while one guy's back in the car writing me a ticket, the partner's chatting me up in the window, saying, You know, there's no way we'll ever track you down if you don't pay this. It's not like we're going to come to California banging down your door about this minor offense. You understand? (Wink)

Well if there's NO POINT in giving me this ticket for this MINOR offense, then why are you bothering to waste our time? Your's and mine included?!

So it was in a highly perturbed mood that 15 mintues later I finally ordered breakfast at the Village Cafe across the street. I ordered an egg McMuffin and a mocha (they don't have just 'coffee' in Australia). That set me back $30. Yes, $30. (No one told me this, but Australia's EXPENSIVE). Well, I figured it would provide some comfort to my rage caused by Airlie Beach Police. Only once I started chewing this egg McMuffin, I realized: it tastes like crap. I paid $30 for a mocha that they served in a shot glass and for an egg McMuffin that lacked flavor and made a mess.

To really make matters even more ironic, Val notices they're we're eating next to a McDonalds where I could've gotten a good egg McMuffin and a proper cup of coffee (know what I mean Sis ;)?) for $4

Whitsunday Islands

! Grrr.

I have to say though, it hasn't really tainted my Australia experience. I love it here. Sure it's boring compared to India, but what isn't? (Ok, there's China. And Nepal. And Mongolia. But I'm getting off the point here.)

Australia is like white trash paradise. This is where saintly white trash come to when they die. And I say this in a good way. Meaning, when I die, this is where I want to be sent. Everyone drives around in brand new El Caminos with gigantic cattle guards and off road lights. If they don't drive a pimped out El Camino, then you drive a Land Cruiser with a flat bed pickup body, again with the same cattle guard and off road lighting. The more and bigger the better. I love it.

Everyone wears shorts to work. The height of fine dining is a place called Red Rooster, sort of a budget KFC. Towns are built around their pubs. Maybe on a rare occasion a town will have a church. Usually if it doesn't just have a pub then it has two pubs. Awesome.

Every town is stuck in the 1950s

Grass Trees

. There might be one strip mall with a Woolworth's and a Big W, but that's it. People still mingle on the little 2 block streets at the butcher or the John Deere dealer on their way to Red Rooster or the pub (or the ATM machine to get a small loan for breakfast).

We passed through a town today, Home Hill I think it was called, that looked just like the set for Pleasantville. I couldn't believe it.

The favorite thing to BBQ here are sausages. The main ingredient listed is: meat (75%). I asked the butcher at the IGA what kind of meat it was. He looked at me, laughed, said, I dunno. I must've been the first person who'd asked in months. Who cares? It's good and it's what we eat.

As for Airlie Beach, after the bad taste of my overpriced egg McMuffin and my seat belt ticket faded, the day turned out great. We bought a cheap tent at Big W, investigated ferries and island camping, and check into a wonderful campground complete with Internet, 3 BBQs (where we cooked 75% meat sausages for dinner...mmmm), a pool, two outdoor kitches with refrigerators, tons of showers, and laundry. Then we went for a hike (err, bushwalk, sorry) up Mt. Rooper which overlooked Chute Harbor and then over to Swamp Bay. We saw only a half dozen others and 2 gigantic iguanas! So cool. They just cruised right along the trail (err, sorry, track) next to us, not really too bothered by our presence. The views of the harbor and the Whitsunday Islands really impressed. Ah, white trash paradise.