7 AM was the starting time again this morning, and with the same breakfast spread as yesterday, I opted to skip breakfast. We got to snorkel again in this new bay, but the water was much murkier, there were less fish and the coral was pretty dull-looking. So after about an hour, everyone in the group was sitting on the beach (which was made up of different pieces of worn-down coral that had broken off over time and washed up to shore. A whole beach of a variety of coral; so weird. So the deck hand came and picked us all up and boated us back to New Horizon in his little outboard 8-man boat. Then we got lunch (hooray!) of hotdogs (yum) and they even tasted like normal Canadian hotdogs (usually taste like dog food over here) so that was a treat. Then we sailed (literally - all sails open) back to Airlie and were dropped back onto solid ground (I've never been so happy to set foot on a dock). Everyone said their goodbyes and we hustled into town.
Since we arrived back earlier than planned (due to the short snorkel session this morning) me and B headed over to the lagoon for a swim. The lagoon is just a huge public pool, with sand entrances and completely free! It was perfect to cool off from the wicked hot sun (today was the first sunny day of the sailing trip) and to wash off the ocean salt accumulated on the skin. The quick, refreshing dip was much needed, then we headed over to the bank and tossed some money into our NAB accounts (debit cards worked fine this time). With the bus departure time quickly approaching, we went over to Peter Pan's to pick up our luggage, then walked to the bus terminal and played frisbee while we waited for the Greyhound coach to arrive.
The bus ride to Townsville included pouring rain, lightning and bumpy, twisting roads. But we did get to watch a movie (which seems to be rare on even long bus rides) and although my expectations for The Astronaut Farmer (with the crazy Billy Bob Thornton) were low, I was pleasantly surprised with a pretty decent film. When we arrived to Townsville is when the trouble began. I hadn't written down the name of the hostel we were booked into and there were no courtesy hostel vans waiting at the bus station (like there almost always is). It was dark and Townsville turned out to be a deceiving name, as it's actually a city of about 200,000 so it's not just a matter of wandering a couple streets to find the hostel. Brilliant. So we ventured into the CBD to try and find a McDonalds (they all have free wifi here) so we could check our booking and see where the place was that we were booked in at. But for whatever reason, in dozens of blocks in the downtown that we searched, there were no McDonalds restaurants to be found. Sooooo we flagged down a cab and said take us to Macca's please and along the way explained our predicament. He suggested a hostel that matched our description of where we booked, so we stopped there first to check, but it wasn't the right one. So he dropped us at Mcdicks and we hopped on the internet and found the name and address of our hostel - which was 4 km from where we were presently sitting. Soooooo we found another taxi anf flagged him down and said please take us to the most difficult hostel to find in all of Australia (sarcasm...sort of). We pulled up to the hostel about quarter past eight and I yelled to the cabbie "go home, smell ya later" I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air. (The taxis are wicked expensive here also - the first cost $12 and the 2nd cost $14 for short rides) Jokes aside, this place was MASSIVE and had an old colonial feel to it. But in keeping with the theme of the night, the front door was locked and reception was closed at 6. So we headed around the side and upstairs, where people sat playing cards around a table. "Are there any employees around who could check us in?" Oh yeah, the guy with dreadlocks outside is who you need. So we went back downstairs and into the backyard patio looking for a guy with dreads, who was nowhere to be found. So I asked another guy who I needed to talk to in order to check in and he went off and found a girl to help us. She checked us in (finally! hooray! success!), gave us our keys and sold us 2 hours of internet for $6 (Internet is a ripoff in this country). We tossed our stuff in the room and headed out to find food.
KFC was the closest, so it won and was delicious. But in the midst of eating our tasty meals, it began to pour rain (par for the course). We waited for a while, but it didn't slow down at all, so we walked out into it in search of a convenience store for some Aloe Vera (got a bit burned on the boat today). The rain is so weird - it was absolutely pouring, but we were barely getting wet, perhaps because the drops are really small or something... Hard to explain but the rain was odd (and warm, which is a nice change). Since it was after 8 pm, nothing was open (at least not in the area) and so we walked back to the hostel. The rain came down even harder on the way and we did get good and drenched. Hung up the clothes to dry when we got back and got to shower for the first time in 3 days. Then internet, TV and bed. What a day.
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