Day 13

I needn't have worried about setting alarms this morning, as it appeared the rest of the people in our room were on a trip, and were getting up especially early. One of the alarms that was going off was a female voice saying "the time is 6am. Get up" this repeated a number of times, each time with the correct time, so I was effectively listening to a talking clock for the 30 minutes it took them to get ready.&nbsp; When my own alarms did eventually go off we were the only 2 people left in the room. I had a phone call to make, and last nights early bedtime meant I was refreshed enough for the day ahead. The aches and joint pains were gone, but my head was still throbbing. When I got through to the garage, the all important staff member hadn't turned up, so they wouldn't be able to do a service today. We decided to push on anyway, and try catch up on the servicing later. Leaving Doug to sleep a while longer, I headed for the common room to do some much needed blogging and prepare us for the next leg of the trip. We were planning on heading down to the Whitsundays, which last time I'd missed due to time constraints. Check out was 10am, and we managed to reach the desk at 9.58 - perfect timing. Once we were successfully checked out we set of to get breakfast from the amazing market next to the hostel. Last time I'd tasted exotic fruits and even drank cane sugar juice freshly squeezed. This time, not even the permanent juice bar was attended and the market was full of Asians moving boxes around and paying little attention to anyone in their way. Giving up on breakfast, we just walked to the carpark to see if the cat would start. 2 days enforced rest was clearly what the mechanic ordered as the wagon started first time! A quick stop at a garage to check tyre pressure and fluids and we were off. </p>
<p>Drawing on my memory, I navigated us out of Cairns back to the highway. Alas, as we've already seen in Cairns the 14 months since I was last here has done funny things to my memory, and we were soon heading out of Cairns in completely the wrong direction, and I only picked up on it as we passed the airport,which I knew to be north rather then the direction we were supposed to be heading - South. A quick Google maps check and we were quickly back enroute. As soon as Doug was driving down the freeway and my services as navigator were no longer required I took the opportunity to nap to clear my pounding head. Every 30 minutes or so,i I'd wake up, roll over in my seat and ask if everything was ok. Each time my reply was a disgusted look, before Doug continued driving. Taking this as an affirmative, I went back to sleep for another 30 minutes. After I'd been asleep for 3 hours, still having had no response from Doug than the disgusted look, I roused myself fully and asked how we were going. Still nothing more than a foul look in reply, I asked if we'd be stopping soon. Still nothing. Eventually we turned into a McDonald's, as Doug finally spoke. Explaining that he was knackered and had been unable to wake me to take over, we were stopping for lunch and a driver change. Apparently my frequent questions hadn't been heard (my ears were still blocked so it is entirely possible I was speaking quieter than I thought) and the dirty looks were just par for the course. Lunch done, we swapped drivers and powered on for Airlie beach - the gateway to the Whitsundays. I'd worked out in the morning that it was nearly 700km between Cairns and airlie beach, so it would take us all day of hard driving, with little to see along the way. There really wasn't anything, as I drove, the road was just monotonous and boring, the only thing of note was that the further south we came, the more the creeks and rivers had more and more water in them, compared to the bone dry creeks of the outback. It got me to wondering, when everything flooded up here, did crocodiles get washed down to areas they wouldn't normally have been seen? Did people dodging the flood water along high streets have to start worrying about being snapped up as well as washed away? And if they did get washed down, how did they make their ways back, or have they just stayed and are now living civilised lives in city centre sewers eating McDonald's and wearing designer clothes? Obviously, Doug had taken the break from the driving to nap, so I couldn't discuss any of this with him. Just shows how interesting the surroundings were for me to be discussing this with myself! After 2.5 hours of driving and 300km, I pulled in for break. Doug had woken up minutes before hand and was refreshed enough to take over the driving. I took this opportunity to start trying to gather tour information as there was no chance we'd arrive before tour offices closed. I found a couple of options, but nothing that really jumped until I found a kayaking tour. Doug had no idea of what any of the islands were so wasn't fused with seeing the famous ones, and I liked the idea of doing it differently to the standard cat cruise to 2 islands. I called to book, but they were no longer offering the full day tour, and Doug was anxious to move along towards Sydney so we only had 1 day. We reached a compromise, and just hired the kayaks and would navigate ourselves. With tomorrow planned, we were able to just think of sleep tonight. Surely there would be something in Airlie beach.

When we arrived I'd Airlie, we started hitting up the campsites. We arrived at the first one at 7.03, reception closed at 7. Hoping for better luck further along we continued, caravan park after caravan park, round and round airlie beach,  eventually on the outskirts of town we found a park, which when you arrived after hour allowed you to register and pay in cash through a box. Finally - a park owner with an inkling of common sense. We set up the tents for the night, and I took us the short drive back to the town, where we parked and wandered Long looking for somewhere to eat - there was no way we were cooking for ourselves tonight. We came across a menu, next to an outdoor beer garden, with a musician on a guitar... Perfect place found. Turns out this is a backpacker resort of types, with an accommodation block behind, a night club next to the bar, and pool tables ready and waiting. After dinner, with Doug relaxing on the beers we started playing pool and discovered the locals came here too, the girls we eventually played against were out helping their friend comiserate something (we both guessed a recent breakup) and she was absolutely off her face, asking everyone to clean her shoes. Turns out she also had an interview in the morning, I felt sorry. Pool games over, we headed back to the campsite. Tomorrow was an early start again, and we were both already knackered.