Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Queensland Vacation Day 12-Airlie Beach

Our lives will be forever changed as a result of stuff learned on this vacation more so than any other vacation.  It turns out that I like camping. I already knew that I don't care about showering in a communal shower, going to the bathroom outdoors and cooking in weird places.  It turns out that I am happy to put all of this things together and hang out for several days.

We've loved the Australian campgrounds with their outdoor grills.  The last two nights we have been sleeping in a backpackers hostel type caravan park.  What an awesome vibe!!  The vans are parked so tightly that the guys in the van next to ours use our outdoor light to read by whilst laying in bed.

This photo is us with an empty space on either side.  Every night around 9 or 10 a tiny little (in comparison to our monstrosity) van would pull in and we'd all be cosy together for the night (I could tell you if they snore or not cosy).  This was the tightest by a significant margin, of any of the campsites we've slept in.  Yet, it was the most fun!

Today we decided that we would skip our scheduled stop in Townsville and just stay in Airlie Beach.  We were keen to stroll through the town and spend time by the water.

The park we've been staying at let us move the van out of our space, but keep it parked on their property for the day at no cost.  That also meant that would could have an early dinner, showers and fill up on potable water before heading out

This guy loved his day of digging in the sand, cracking open (macadamia?) nuts and making friends down by the public lagoon.
 This guy hung out next to me and did absolutely nothing. It was awesome.
 
He was as happy as a kid in a big sandbox...wait, yeah, that.
He was pretty sad when I reminded him that tonight is the last night in his camper van.  He would be happy to stay here for another week, month, year.

As I type this we have been driving for more than three hours and are just passing Townsville (the town we would have been visiting today).  We're keeping a watchful eye out for kangaroos and will start to look for a place to park and sleep in the next hour or so.