Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Townsville: From Backpacker to Flashpacker.

I went in the morning early to have my injection so I could catch the 930 bus to Townsville. While waiting for the nurse I went to get breakfast at the supermarket: just some fruit that i was goingo to make into fruit salad and have with yoghurt.. when some boy came up to me and asked if that was my breakfast.
"yes."

"can I join you?"

"no, sorry, my hostel doesnt allow strangers"

"that's okay, we can go and eat at the lagoon"

"oh, but I need a knife to cut things and what not"

"dont worry, I have all that".

So I couldnt get out of anymore, and I sat and ate breakfast of fruit salad and yoghurt with a frenchman who had been sleeping on the beach for the last week because he didnt like hostels. Bizaar.

Lucky I had a good escape, since i needed to get my injection. I swear I'm getting better. The Irish Rockstar came to hold my hand, and it was over and we were off on the bus. Irish Rockstar came with me, he wanted us to go to magnetic island. The only way i could think of ditching him (since I had already expressed NO INTEREST in seeing magnetic island) was to get Derek to come pick me up (since he was already in townsville) and have it seem like I was meeting up with him and the irish lads from the boat (who had actually all gone their seperate ways). He got the hint eventually, and I parted with mr.Rockstar, and his stories of meeting Damien Rice and Gwen Stefani, and all the tales of sex, drugs and rockandroll you'd expect from such a character.

Derek took me to the hostel he was kipping at, and we decided to be flashpackers for the day, living it up beyond our means (or at least mine, anyway!).

We wandered around townsville, which hasnt got much, other than a picturesque marina..



and a waterfall in the middle of nowhere.



Spending the afternoon wandering we headed to the bar for a drink (early afternoon really) and sat out on the patio watching the people go by and just chatting.
Derek gave me carte blanche to choose where we were having our flashy dinner, so naturally I went for the tapas bar.

Gorgeous food! Empanadas (well, not really, but close enough), Chorizo, Breaded Salmon, Morrocan Barracuda, Garlic Chicken wings, and Savoury Beef.. not to mention all washed down with a yummy merlot. We definitely enjoyed the food, and since Derek was kind enough to get dinner, I bought us the Chocolate Fondue for dessert. By the end of the extravegant eating affair that my body was completely not used to, i was knackered, so home and tucked in by at least 9:30pm!

The next morning I spent fighting with airline company after airline company who kept trying to send me elsewhere to change my flights to Fiji. Fiji, now in military unrest due to a cou, is no longer a desirable vacation spot, so I need to go elsewhere.. but the assholes want to charge me for it, even though STA TRAVEL has told me that I should not be penalized for changing those tickets since I have no choice due to advice from all foreign affairs offices in any decent country.

After all that hassle and no success, Derek and I went for breakfast and a wander before he got his boat to magnetic Island and me my bus to Cairns.

I arrived in Cairns at around 8pm and bumped into Colin, who had been on my bus but i was too asleep to realize!
We went to his hostel and I immediately was grabbed into the conversation of three lads who were completely wrecked. I ate my meal humouring them, and ended up in a poker match (only a $5 buy in, and since i wasnt drinking its the cost of the drink, no loss). I did eventually lose, though later we played pool doubles my team one. Hurrah.

Early to bed though, since I had to catch my flight to new zealand in the morning.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home