Bye Bye Byron

On Saturday, I left Byron and headed north to Airlie Beach, with the final destination to be the Whitsunday Islands, where I will embark on a 4 day, 3 night sailing trip. Excited.

Leaving Byron was a little sad. It was my first beachy stopover here in Oz and...I loved it. It was super chill because, despite being a tourist destination akin to a Cannon Beach, it was absolutely devoid of actual tourists while I was there. It was pretty much random folks like me and mostly locals, who were getting psyched for the summer season. Peter was a really nice Aussie dude who worked at the beach house where I stayed and I saw him the day I left, down at the beach in the morning. We were sitting there looking out at the water and outta the horizon we saw a whale breaching and blowing water high into the sky. It was a cool sendoff.

I boarded a speedy 2 hour shuttle to Brisbane at noon. (Normally this bus ride can take 4 hours, but I sprung the extra few bucks to cut out any stops). The ride was great - quick and half on highway, half on backroads where I got to see stuff. I'm just not into taking a day to pay a car to drive me around in a circle; I prefer to see my in-between sights in between other stuff I'm doing.

Arrived in Brisbane around 2 pm. Or wait. It was 1 pm. I still have no real idea why the fricken time zone changed back an hour when we drove 2 hours north...but it did. In Brisbane, I stayed in - by FAR - the crappiest place I've stayed yet. I've done hostels but with a strict adherence to the private room thing and this did not change here...but city hostels are waaay diff than beach hostels. They run about 30% less money and about 60-80% less quality/comfort/niceness. I think: OK. Suck it up, you're in this city for < 24 hours. I did a lot in the time.

A few sad happenings had to be dealth with. Brisbane was for biz nass.
- My iPod died. !@#$%%#. I know. SSSOOO not good. I mildly freaked out a few days back when it happened, put it away, and then checked on it every day at the same time, hoping that magically she would come back to life. No dice. However, the zitty awkard dude at teh Mac store in Brisbane fixed her. For FREE. Almost kissed him.

- My small camera died. My SLR is doing great and taking amazing shots...but lets be honest, she has no home in, oh, say, Nimbin. I need a tiny credit card sized camera for my various afternoon and evening adventures, Jordache jean style. I took my broken Coolpix to a camera store...knowing the dissapproving looks I was about to encounter. Sure enough: "did you take this camera to the beach??" came up right away. I looked away. I blushed. I smiled. I said yes. And then I bought a new camera for $148 AUD (about $100 usd -- everything is about a 30% discount right now w the given {{{crappy!!!}}}} exchange rate.


I leave these 2 errands JOYOUS. Things have been fixed. Am walking down the street w my new ipod cranked in my ears...and hear some heavy bass coming from across the street. WTF? Earbuds out, I see there is "Grape Groove" going on - a FREE wine party in the middle of Brisbane w a big stage set up in the middle of the "Queens Gardens" - basically at the steps of city hall. I walk in -- and ALWAYS feel weird about whipping out a passport when asked for ID in a city scenario because you can not be LESS local than that -- and instantly get handed a glass of delish white wine (Marlborough sauv blanc).

Few glasses and random new friends later, I leave, go for a ferry ride around the city. Picture a snake that's making a figure 8 ish type shape and then drop the city around all sides of the snake -- that's the layout of this city. It's about the size of Seattle (smaller by a bit probably) but by riding a city ferry, appropriately named CityCat -- you see it all. Sun sets, I get off ferry, head back to the west end where my dumpy, I mean qaint, room awaits.

Fit full sleep persists...because I want to get outta town and get back to the beach. It's my primordial ooze a'callin....