G: Update

Hostel, Agnes Water/1770, 15^th, 9.30am. The Nomads in Airlie Beach was quite nice, as hostels go. You start to become quite an expert on what makes somewhere to stay better or worse. That’s why I look forward to my birthday – a proper hotel! Luxury.

So at this point we just relaxed again. Some things don’t change, even when backpacking; you spend time in the day doing activities, getting stuff done etc, and then some of the time just relaxing, and doing something comforting, or something necessary like cooking and eating, or putting suncream on, or laundry. And that’s part of the whole experience, the boring daily stuff as well as the more extraordinary stuff.

I read, Aiden went on the internet, and we went shopping for food, as we had had to finish or abandon any food we had before the Anaconda. I then got ready for the night ahead, my first opportunity to dress up, just a bit. We met some French girls from the boat in the same hostel at a pre-arranged time, and made our way to the Phoenix pub.

Australian pubs can be a little similar to the ones at home, but in busier places like Airlie Beach, it’s more like an American bar, with even a small club area at the back. We had a good time. The crew were there, letting loose, and Ondine and I had fun complaining about the quality of the music. We got free pizza, which was Dominoes would you believe, and Aiden had a whale of a time, drinking, and chatting up the girls, letting loose himself after the trauma he had been through. Echa bought him a beer as congrats for being a ‘real trooper’.

We danced some, and just generally had a good night out with all the new friends we had made. Because we got there about half 7, we left about half 10. Aiden had hinted that this sort of night he was used to would go on til the small hours, but because of the early start, he was as knackered as I was and so happy to turn in. Oh yeah, careful when talking to people for whom English is a second language – if you say knackered, they will without doubt here ‘naked’. Small note of warning.

I Skyped the rents in the morning, then we checked out, and went to leave our bags at Peter Pans. Whilst we were on the computers, I suddenly realised I had forgotten the bag of food, so ran back down the high street to collect it from where I’d left it in Nomads reception. After having our fill of the net, we went to the lagoon. Cairns had had one as well, man-made free swimming areas next to the beach in places where swimming off the beach in the sea itself is not an option.

Aiden was suffering still, so we quickly went to The Doctors and asked if there was a dentist. We followed the directions, and Aiden was able to put his name down for any cancelled appointments that day. We sat in a nearby café, called the Easy Café, and had some drinks, and Aiden had a bacon sandwich. And then we played cards for about two hours. Those cards are definitely going to wear out on this trip.

At half one, I went for my doctor’s appointment. I was taken to an exam room, after filling out a form, and half way through the preliminary tests, the nurse actually noticed that I had ticked asthma on the form. She said that it wasn’t often that asthmatics passed the dive medicals, but if I paid for another test as well, the saline test, that was my best chance. So we finished the preliminaries and after a short wait, I went into the doctor.

He was really nice, very casual and cheery. He didn’t notice my form either, so I had to inform him of the asthma myself. He commended me on my honesty, as that information might cause me to fail. He put me through the basic dive medical, which included the usual prodding, poking, say aah, tap tap, cough, yadda yadda, and a balance test. That I passed fine.

He sent me back to the exam room, and there I had the saline test. First I blew into an instrument I was used to, for testing breathing, thought it was connected to a complicated computer for more accurate readings. Then I had to put a tube in my mouth, and breathe normally, with evaporated saline solution (salt water) being pumped into my lungs. I did this for a minute, and got a minute break, when I did another reading for the breathing test, and this was repeated so I was breathing saline for two minutes, then four, then eight. It was hard not the hyperventilate, but it didn’t induce an asthma attack, which was a good sign.

Back to the doctor again, he said I’d passed, and commented (as I’ve heard many times before) that my lung capacity was higher than would be expected of my height and weight anyway. So now I have a wonderful piece of paper that means I can go diving.

This whole process too about an hour. We left, and went to a bench in the shade near the beach, to play cards again. Aiden got a phone call and was told he could see the dentist. While he was in there, I went down the high street, and bought a necklace to replace the choker that broke, and a lovely dress/skirt. I had just bought a coffee from McDonalds when I got a phone call from Aiden, who was just devastated.

Things had not gone well at the dentist. The dentist has been confident that he would be able to just pull the tooth. He took some x-rays to check, then injected Aiden’s gum with local anaesthetic. That didn’t seem to work, so he injected some more. That didn’t work either, and Aiden got a total of 5 injections into his gum, before the dentist said that was the limit of anaesthetic he could give him. He gave a small tug and Aiden yelled out, because it was still not numb. So the dentist gave up, and said to take a prescription for more anti-biotics and find another dentist when he finished them.

So Aiden’s tooth had been chipped a bit more, slightly loosened, and it hurt like blue murder. When he joined me at McDonalds, he was in so much pain. We went immediately to the chemist (for what felt like the tenth time that day), and got the drugs. Aiden also had two pills of codeine that the dentist had given him out of pity, so he took a lot of pills that day, including ibroprufen and paracetamol.

He went for a swim in the lagoon whilst I read, then we went back to Peter Pans, used the net, and picked up our bags. This was at like half six, and we still had five hours to kill until the night bus. We had a coupon for a place called Oska’s Bar & Bistro, and though we had no intention of using the coupon (for alcohol – how to kill Aiden-on-drugs nice and quickly) we went there for dinner, 2-4-1 fish and chips.

We briefly ran into Echa and Michelle, and told them our medical saga, and they were very sympathetic. We then realised that the plaza building that Oska’s was in had wifi, so Aiden got password, and that’s essentially what we did for the rest of the evening, because it’s not often you get the opportunity to have free wifi.

At about 9, the plaza shut, but the staff said to stay as long as we liked and just use the one way door on our way out. We got the bus stop at 11.15, then departed at 11.45. We both went straight to sleep for the entire journey.

We got to Rockhampton at 6am, got a McDonalds breakfast, then a shuttle bus to a village called Emu Park. We had nothing planned in Emu Park, just the hostel, which was really nice. We were in a four share, but I got the double bed, and we had a TV, and a nice swimming pool, as well as the usual kitchen, laundry, lounge rooms.

When we got there, we just took some time out. Aiden played a computer game, and I watched Aussie morning TV. I also stuck in more stuff into my scrapbook. When we felt a bit better after getting off the bus (we may have slept, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable) we went to the beach. We didn’t manage to find the path straight opposite the hostel, and walked the half hour trek in the sun down the road to the village centre. These country villages and towns are really spread out a lot of time, especially the less touristy ones, and Emu Park is definitely not touristy. There’s nothing to do there at all.

We found the beach and walked to the other end and back. There were lots of little crabs, and Aiden put on this weird high pitched voice ‘Ooh, the little crabbies!’ When we got back to the village, we went the only tourist attraction, the Singing Ship. It’s a monument the celebrate James Cook, as it’s near where he sailed and landed. It also names Keppel Bay. It’s about ten foot high, an abstract 2D ship made of white painted metal, and instead of sails there are three pipes with holes in. The wind blows through and makes a wonderful noise, and that’s why it gets its name. There were a few dead frogs around, but it was nice to visit.

We got lunch at a place called Mulligans Takeaway, and then headed back to the hostel. I went swimming, and Aiden went back to gaming. Eventually, I returned to reading, until we went out to the ‘grocery store’. It’s puzzling to find the mix of British and American influences here, as well the unique differences. In the UK we have off licences, the US has liquor stores, and here they have bottle shops.

Dinner was fish finger sandwiches, because we actually had an oven at this hostel (mostly there’s only a hob; where we are at the moment doesn’t even have a kettle). We played cards whilst it was cooking, then got absorbed into a cooking reality programme on the communal TV while we ate. We spent the evening in the room, watching Adam Hill on Gordon St Tonight, and then a glorious sleep.

We expected to woken that morning by a girl coming in, but we weren’t. Instead I got a ring back from the surf guy about our booking, at 8am. I failed to pick it up. We had a our first morning not waking up to an alarm, and we slept until midday. While we got dressed and a bit more awake, we watched Oprah on the TV. We got lunch from the bakery, which was a nice treat.

Someone had put Kill Bill on the communal TV, so we watched that for the afternoon, then put on our washing. By this time, we had got a roommate after all, a Dutch guy called Nick. After it was dried, we went for another walk along the beach, this time managing to find the nearby path. I scrabbled over the rocks a bit, but they weren’t that great.

I spent the evening reading and blogging, and Aiden went for a swim. We flicked through the TV channels and watched Epic Movie, then went to bed.

This time we spent in Emu Park, doing nothing, was wonderful, like a holiday in itself within the trip. No travelling to do, no times to keep, and of course the great lie in. The next we did have a scheduled activity. We had to pack and check out, and then we were shuttled to the ferry, that took us to Great Keppel Island. It took 30minutes, and Aiden was not pleased to be on a boat again. We got there about 10, and we had a map with some walks on it. On our first attempt, I took us down a wrong turn and we came back ourselves. We were successful on the second attempt. We went to the lookout, which was up a very steep hill, but the view was worth. We stayed there for a while, to wait out the rain that sprung up, then went back to get a drink at the Haven. They didn’t have a card reader, and we didn’t have enough cash for lunch, so we tried the shop, the Rainbow Hut, to get cash out. It didn’t work, and we got worried, because we really needed food, but the lovely woman behind the till, Karen her name was, listened to us, and then offered us her own cash. She took Aiden’s motorbike licence as collateral, and we agreed to pay her back at the ferry terminal, as we were all returning to the mainland that afternoon.

We were so grateful. We went to get lunch at the Haven. It took a really long time coming, Aiden had asked for no sauce but the first hot dog he got had to be sent back, then my chips had been forgotten, so the ones that came were uncooked in haste, and my tea was also forgotten until I enquired about it. But overall, the food was alright.

We walked around the sea to a place called Putney Beach, and found a small shelter with a table and chairs to sit and enjoy another paradise beach. Aiden got too hot, so we went back to the Rainbow Hut and read in the shade until we got back on the ferry.

To be continued.