...and tawdry Townsville (+shocker!)


I left Maggie Island finally on the 5th, having stayed 4 days, having planned to stay one night. There's a aquarium in Townsville (and not much else) where you can go diving with sharks, rays and groupers, but it turned out to be about $95 for 20 minutes, which was a bit too pricey for me. A girl at the hostel, however, got a job on a dive boat in Cairns for 4 days, getting all her dives free, so I'm going to check that out when I get there. I may have a place to stay already, as I met some guys at Geoff's Place who are getting their own place there in a week or so. Would be very handy. Went out for a couple of beers to the pub - with 4 women! Bonus! We watched the State Of Origin rugby league game, between NSW and Queensland. NSW won, much to the disappoinment to the local apes, sorry Queenslanders. A typical example - the guy who runs the hostel I'm staying at has a fine mullet haircut and sports a vest that has scrambled egg encrusted on it. A supermodel he isn't, but the look works for him! As it does for many others from around here. And they just love their country music ("Oh my wife well she drowned in the secretarial pool...." etc).

But I digress. We also went on to the club next door - free to get in and only $1.20 a pot of beer, practically giving it away. I got a couple of freebies as well, as some guys I was chatting to kept on leaning across and helping themselves to the stuff straight from the tap. Almost a knee-capping offense back home, but here all the barman said was "Next time you're out!", about three times. Then again, it was the cheapest of the cheap beer!

Went to the same pub the next night - to watch England stomp on the Wallabies. But no - 78-0!!!! I hung my head in shame, and picked it up a again at a nightclub called the "Playpen" with a local girl called Consunthi. Won't forget that in a hurry.

Extra - shocker!

Went to quickly check my email yesterday, and was suitably stunned to find out that my darling sister had ruthlessly abandoned me and is planning to sod off to Fiji with Tim (which incidentally, I learnt second-hand from Dad). Perhaps I was complacent in assuming that when she said, "I'll probably see you next in Darwin", she didn't actually mean, "Have a nice time in Darwin and the rest of Australia, as I'm jetting off to sunbathe on beaches even more exotic". Well ta very much, dear sister. Aussie adventuring - now with added vitriol!


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