Airlie Beach and beyond

Thank you everybody for your comments and amusing emails. Frankie I absolutely promise you that David and I are both well, and he has both his arms! I certainly don't remember him wailing your name last night, so it must have been your overactive imagination. Unless it was a premonition...ooooh! Let me know about the tattoo, i want details! And your placement of course - how are your 'pretty crazies'?

Umm...where was I? Mision Beach? Well we left there late morning yesterday, Sunday, after a massive downpour. Serge gave us a lift kindly in his grandpas-like cavalier, even did that dodgy thing of rumbling itself forward when it's in neutral. Ooh he also told us something very comforting about the Cassowary/Sophie he said "it could tear you to pieces if it wanted, but it doesn't really bother - unles you stroke its face or something." I assume he didn't know from experience!

We took the Greyhound right down to Airlie Beach, about 8 hours journey, which was highly relieving as it was so cold. We both got very burnt despite wearing t-shirts and sun cream in the sea, you really don't realise how burnt you can get under heavy cloud in Australia until you wake up the next morning with youer face so burnt and inflamed that you don't recognise yourself!. I know, it's not very nice, but I moisturised and after-sunned literally all day all over my burnt bits and it's starting to look hopeful. My arm is going to look very silly once my leeds band come off!

Airlie Beach is pretty beautiful, a long main strip which combines a couple of zante-like bars and clubs with trendy bars and cafes, fast food joints, backpackers and generally every kind of shop you can think of. All this runs along the esplanade right next to a long but narrow beach, whcih looks over to the beautiful Whitsunday Islands. Every person who we've met has automatically said 'when are you going over to the whitsundays?' and then been very shocked when we've said we porbably aren't, but we've thought about it and decided we would rather do everything they could offer to us in other places on our trip. Though Whitehaven(!) beach does look simply stunning. There is also a lagoon here similar to the one in Cairns but open 24 hours, we paddled in it yesterday and will probably go for a dip tonight once the sun gets easier for our poor carcusses to handle!

There are so many cool critters here! There are still the same little geckos, but they are now joined by bigger very cool stripy black-and white lizards with red heads, and also even bigger salamanders with a black and brown diamod pattern, wandering along the esplande. There are loads and loads of little parrots in every tree! Most of them have green red and blue blotches, and they all fight with each other and make such a noise! There are also a couple of massive snow white parrots if you look carefully, who look pretty evil really, but still quite novel. There are gigantic fruit bats hanging from every tree, and they are so fun to watch at night. The have like a metre-length wing span, very massive. Unfortunately i have seen a few cockroaches which annoys david as every time something moves at night i scream and jump around.

We are staying in Magnums, a huge but very cheap backpackers at the centre of the strip, perfectly friendly but i wouldn't want to be in somewhere so lively most of the time. It's rather loud at night, though our dorm is far enough away from the action. They have a big outside bar and a club, last night they were having bucking bronko competitions. Rather amusing.
In fact most of Airlie Beach is lively at night, last night there were people on the beach with fire baton-thingies, moving them in time to the music other guys were making with various instruments, saxaphones and drums and didgeridoos and other interesting thingemybobs. Most of them were probably on acid but it was fun to watch, might join in tonight.

Tommorrow we're onto Rockhampton i think, steak capital of Australia! Yum yum. Think that's basically the reason we're going, apart from to break up the very long haul down to Brisbane, but will let you know if there's anything else to it!

Ta Ta x