We awoke that morning to a heavy rain. That wasn’t surprising because we were still in a rain forest. Thankfully, though, the rain was intermittent for our 6 hour drive from Mission Beach to Airlie Beach.
The drive was uneventful. Perhaps that was part of the experience of driving through desolate parts of Northern Queensland (“QLD”), Australia. The landscape didn’t approach the Outback’s desolation, but it appeared that way.
We did make one stop halfway, in the town of Townsville, QLD. The uninspired naming certainly reflected the uninspired city. I’m not sure where Townsville has been nor do I know where it’s headed. The downtown area we walked around in was dead. We utilized the free McDonald’s Wifi and, eventually, found a place to eat at a downtown Pub and Hotel.
The Great Northern Hotel and Pub had likely survived the economic hardtimes of the downtown area only because it serves beer, and beer drinking is one Australia’s national pastimes. We chose this joint only after the process of elimination. That is, we eliminated the other options because they were no longer in business. A Hobson’s choice to be sure.
We ordered some staple UK pub grub and I figured I would try my hand at the pub’s version of chicken parm. The pub grub choice was fish and chips, which we had already tried. This time the fish was barra, but the chips were still the same. I’m happy to announce that this time the fish didn’t give us ajeda. The chicken parm came on the recommendation of the bartender. Strangely enough, it was a decent meal. I wouldn’t call it chicken parmesean though. The chicken parm had sliced ham in it (??) and the cheese was of unknown origin. We completed the UK pub theme by watching a cricket match on the telly and cheering at the wicked wobley. (I’m just throwing out jargon here, I don’t actually know what that means.)
After the pub, we continued down Townsville’s waterfront esplanade. We were surprised to see that the waterfront area got more attractive the farther you strayed from the downtown area.
We made a quick stop at the park to check out two interesting aspects of the park/beach area. We saw our first “stinger net”. Essentially, most parts of QLD’s coast is inhabited by beach-seeking humans and a host of other bad living things. During certain seasons of the year humans can’t go into the water because of deadly crocodiles, sharks, and jellyfish. The jellyfish (“stingers” in OZ speak) are lethal and can be as small as your thumbnail. Some will sting you and you will know that you just got stung. Others will sting you and you won’t realize that you got stung until about 20 minutes later when you fall unconscious. Both can be deadly.
To combat the stinger threat, some beaches have netted areas to keep out the bad threats. I’m not sure how effective the nets are because nobody was swimming in the netted area. To additionally address the threat, some beaches have lagoons adjacent to the beach. The lagoons provide similarly “safer” conditions. We noticed, however, a sign by the lagoon disclaiming that the lagoon used ocean water and could not guarantee the lagoon was stinger free.
Needless to say we went into neither the stinger netted beach area nor the lagoon.
We made good time in our longish drive down to Airlie Beach. We were excited to arrive because Airlie Beach is the jumpoff destination for the Whitsunday Islands. We checked into our backpackers hotel. The hotel was located right on the waterfront area.
Before hitting the hay after a long day, we scoured local offerings for worthwhile sailing trips that would fit our schedule. The process thoroughly annoyed us, but we remembered that -even if we couldn’t book what we wanted- we could still book something that would still be fun.
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