Australia Day in Airlie
26th January, Airlie Beach, Australia
After a brief drive down from Bowen - during which we stopped for a picture of the Big Mango - we stopped off at Airlie Beach to see what was happening there on Australia Day.
The Big Mango in Bowen, Queensland.
Although it's a national holiday, most of the shops were still open, and we ducked from one to another to keep out of the sun (pretty fierce today). I found an Internet café and checked up on the site then spent the next 30 minutes cutting through a whole heap of spam that had appeared on the site in the comments. For some strange reason, the text was all about mathematics (no, I don't understand either) that linked back to all manner of weird web sites that were completely irrelevant to ours.
Spam duly defeated, we had a break for lunch - pizza, yum. As we ate our food, we were entertained by some of the events put on for the special day, or rather I put money ($2) on what toad would hop from the bucket in the centre of a pen to the outer wall first. Yes, they were doing toad racing and I was gambling on winning a bottle of Champagne (I lost, damned number 2).
After losing on the toad racing, we decided to look for somewhere to stay. Although we have the van, it's still very hot to sleep in, even when at a powered site and with a fan on inside. Open windows? Only if you want the mozzies to join you, heh!
We found a place just off the main road through Airlie but it looked like it might be too expensive (holiday units rather than just a room). In the end, though, it turned out to be cheaper than the room we'd had on Magnetic Island and far bigger. A kitchen area! A fridge! With freezer! A TELEVISION! A toilet that is separate from the shower! And yes, I know that was a lot of exclamation marks! We had exclamation marks in our eyes when we were looking at this place, I can tell you.
We pretty much shut ourselves in that place for much of the afternoon and early evening, me updating stuff for the web site and Manda watching Minority Report on TV.
We stepped out later for a walk down the road and to have a few drinks at a local pub, finishing off with a box of chicken nuggets in McDonalds. Ah, such culture vultures, aren't we?