The problem with making rash decisions is it is possible to loose your way due to the accelerated speed of travel. Its as if your body has arrived in a new place but your mental capacities are standing where you left them. For us we left ours in Christchurch. Arriving in Brisbane we circled the city looking for our next move. We striked out on visiting friends due to a bit of bad luck. My mom's friend, Merv, who we were very excited to meet had left for the United States for 6months and another friend of a friends was on his way to Sydney for the weekend. What to do? We couldn't hang out in Brisbane for too long due to expenses and we had not made real plans, we were hoping whoever the host may be would help us out with that.
I wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef. One of the 7 wonders of the world, or at least I think so. How could we miss that? We went into at least 5 info centers asking how to get there and what was the best deal if we wanted to dive. We should have known where we were headed after each desk manager insisted on a package that did not include what we asked for. It was high pressure sales.
We ask "Where can we go diving on the Great Barrier Reef? We cant afford anything extravagant."(simple enough question)
Answer "Well you could go sailing for 5 days and pay for a dive while out there and if you really want to see Queensland we can add a trip to Fraiser Island for only $150. Making your grand total $600 dollars each, not including the dive of course."
Hmmmm. It was that or a $1000 dollar trip to do 11 dives in 3 days. We trapesed back and forth on the city streets unsure. The day was growing to a close, we had no place to stay and we couldnt get it together. That's when while on a bench beside the growing evening traffice we decided to book a bus to Airlie Beach, one of the southern gateways to the Great Barrier Reef. The ride was 18 hours, so if we got on the bus at 730pm, we wouldnt need to pay for a room and we could find a good dive outfit when we got to the source.
What a mistake. We had decided to continue to accelerate our travel, thus leaving our brains only further behind.
We arrived in Airlie Beach in the late afternoon of the next day. Tired and hungry we trudged to a small backpackers on the hill. The welcome was not so bad. The place had a great breeze and a good view. After a shower and a feed we went searching for our trip to the Reef. Our options did not seem to be any better. We decided to sleep on it and figure out our plan in the morning.
Morning came, we were out of our room and things had still not sorted themselves out. We fought and I stomped off saying to save money we would camp at another hostel down the road. This place was right in the heart of it. Airlie Beach is a strip of loud bars and a few stores and restaurants. You can not swim in the ocean due to tiny jellyfish that can supposedly kill you and there is no where to go other than out to sea on a boat to escape the cement. They do have a lagoon, i.e. large public pool, looking out to the construction sites that dot the bay.
In our anger we decided to leave the next day and screw our plans to spend $600 dollars on a trip that may or may not include a dive.
That night we lay awake at 330 am listening to spring break exploding outside our tent and cursed the place. We did not travel half way around the world to arrive at the New Jersey shore at the height of the summer.
The next day, sore, still tired and a little less hungry we grabbed our bus and did not look back.
We rented a car in the town of Mackay and drove out to the rainforest of Eungella. The trees were dense, the clouds covered the sky and there was not one damn bar or silly teenager in sight. After a bit of thought, a platypus sighting and a rainy night in the cloud forest, our brains caught up with us over morning tea and we knew we had done the right thing.
Maybe we did not see one of the massive, overcrowded wonders of the world but we did spot an ancient living wonder while standing quitely alone by a rushing muddy river. The platypus is a shy nocturnal animal. Many people dont get the chance to watch it dive and swim in its natural habitat, we were lucky.
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