Evacuation of the Whitsundays

I was probably more shitfaced in Airlie Beach than any other place in Australia. When we arrived into Airlie Beach on the bus our female tour guide took us on a quick tour- “And here’s what we call the Shagoon” she said as she pointed to Airlie Beach’s lagoon. There is in fact no beach in Airlie Beach despite its name, so they have the ‘shagoon’ to make up for it. “There’s only one reason you will go down to the lagoon after 5pm guys, and that’s to spread your sperm. So if you meet a nice lady and fancy getting it on, head down to the shagoon!” She also gave us a quick tour of all the hostels. “Just don’t stay in Koala’s guys. If you’re booked in I advice you to go somewhere else, and if you’ve got no choice, then good luck.” I’ve heard many stories about Koalas, including one about a girl who went away on her Whitsundays trip, only to return to find her bag had been chewed right the way through by rats! Julia and I had a few friends who stayed in Koala’s and told us all about their pet mouse named ‘piss’, aptly named because their room stank of piss. When the cleaning lady came around one morning, she walked in, took a look round the room, and walked out. They asked her why their room smelt like piss. “This room alway smell like piss. It’s the carpet.” She replied. They had a TV, which apparently only had one channel, and the main problem with the hostel was bedbugs. Lots of them. If you stay in Koala’s I advise you to sleep on the floor in your own sleeping bag.

Airlie Beach is the main base for sailing the Whitsundays. It consists of one street with a few shops, bars and hostels, the lagoon, and a marina. We stayed in Backpackers by the Bay for our first night, which was a bit too far out really for our liking. It was a friendly enough hostel with an outdoor cinema but a fair walk into town. On our first night we had to do the 15 minute walk in bikini tops and shorts to go to the foam party at Magnums.


I had booked ‘Budget Sail’ and whenever anyone asked me what boat I was on their mouth would drop. ‘You’re on Budget Sail?’ they would reply. Yes. Yes I am. At the time of booking I had no money and I went for the cheapest thing available. Whereas all the other boats had pretty magestic names like ‘Pegasus’ and ‘Matador’, mine was called ‘Freight Train’. I imagined it to be pretty much what it said on the tin. When I got to the meeting point at the marina I observed the group of people I would be spending the next few days with; a couple of boys I could guess were English because of their orange tans, a group of 40 something Italian couples, two French identical twin sisters, a Canadian mother and daughter and a girl with a guitar. “At least we have the guitar for entertainment” I thought to myself. When we walked along the deck to the boat I could see people’s smiles drop with disbelief. The boat was rather modern but very small, and it seemed impossible that you could fit 15 people on a boat that size.

Now just before the trip I had bought some Travelcalm to deal with sea sickness- I had never realised I got sea sick until my best friend hired a boat for her 21st birthday and the swell was really bad. I felt so rough and when we got back to land I felt like I was still on the boat the whole evening. So just to be sure I popped a couple of tablets. ‘They might make you a little drowsy’ the pharmacist said. Drowsy was an understatement. Within 5 minutes of setting sail, I lay on the deck in the sunshine and effectively passed out. I was dead to the world and when I woke up I got the distinct feeling people were looking at me. Had I been drooling? We had moored next to a coral reef and it was time to go snorkelling. ‘Nooooooooo’ I thought ‘Let me sleep….’ Every time you get in the water in Australia you have to wear a stinger suit. It was stinger season and you don’t want to be stung by a box jellyfish; it’s extremely excrutiating and you’re more likely to pass out and drown from the pain before you reach the shore. You can even die from it.

So off I went snorkelling with childrens flippers on and two boys from Essex who I could imagine would take more time in the bathroom than all the girls put together. The snorkelling was pretty average; we were swimming along quite happily looking at the clown fish, when all of a sudden I was tapped on the shoulder. I was looking at a pretty cool fish at the time and nodded to signal that I had seen it. No. I hadn't. I looked up and coming towards us was the biggest beast I had ever seen. A Napolean Rass it was, but it was the size of a small dolphin and to be honest for a fish it looked like an angry bugger. I got the distinct impression that the boys were a little scared of the fish and we quickly swam in the other direction.


After that we helped to make dinner. Our hostess was a little bit over the top for my liking but she tried her best. One thing I’ll never forget was the amount of herbs she put in the food. That night we had herbs with spaghetti bolognaise on the side, with herbs and side salad. I watched her in the kitchen as she put literally a whole jar of herbs into the Bolognese, and poured a whole jar over the salad and the garlic bread. The following lunchtime she cooked chicken covered in 3 jars of herbs. I would sit there trying to blow them off my food just so I could see it.

The travel sickness tablets were still making me super tired, and combined with the goon, I couldn't stop falling asleep. We all sat on deck, watched the sunset and sang along to the guitar and I kept having people hit me over the head every time my eyes started shutting.