Kicking Back...

YOU ever seen people that come back from holidays in need of a holiday?

You know the type: they've spent their entire holidays travelling to some exotic destination, researched all the major sites then spent the whole time trekking from sight to sight without relaxing properly, which always seemed to me to be the whole point in going on holidays in the first place.

In honour of this - and some fabulous weather - I am proud to announce that I spent my first couple of days staying at Base Magnetic Island doing pretty much nothing.

Actually, that's only semi-true. I arrived on the Saturday and simply had to get out to watch the Queensland vs Auckland rugby semi-final. The guys on the desk were kind enough to point me to a sports bar about 20 minutes walk away, where the good guys (the Reds) won to set up a fantastic few days.

The next two days were spent basically reading and sleeping. Base Magnetic Island is located right on the beach, so I had the choice of sitting in a hammock and swaying myself to sleep; or grabbing a chair right outside my room and going through the books I'd bought at the Airlie Beach Book Exchange.

Night times were a little more exciting, with a V8 supercar on site Sunday to help promote the Townsville 400 the following weekend. Monday was time for Bar Wars, where teams did everything from a scavenger hunt to tossing water balloons to musical chairs with a difference...

Tuesday I decided to actually get off my bottom and grab a bicycle for the day. There's plenty to see on the rest of the island, including any number of bays and an old World War II fort built to help protect the Townsville shipping industry.

Unfortunately Magnetic Island is a wee bit hilly, meaning that the first part of my trip up to Horseshoe Bay was largely spent pushing the bike up a 14% incline and swearing and cursing that I hadn't hired a scooter instead. About the only things that kept me going were the stunning views around every corner and the knowledge that while 14% is hard to ride up, it's also a lot of fun to ride back down.

One sore bottom and a memory card full of photos later it was time to relax as Will gave us bingo with some bango - a funny way to finish a great stay on Maggie.

A great place for a proper holiday!

Finally There!!!

We resume our story at a rest stop some 170km south of Mackay, Queensland. Our hero has managed to set off his car alarm and try sleeping in about 30 different positions before the sun comes up and awakens him for the last time...

WITH just over 300km to go until Airlie Beach, I decided to try and push straight through in the hope there was already a spare bed waiting for me. This was naturally foiled by my stomach wondering just where the hell breakfast was, and with that threatening to bring other parts of my body on strike, it was into another little service station for what was actually a half-decent bacon and egg roll.

This part of the Bruce Highway is dominated by sugar cane: all around were signs warning of cane trucks and train crossings. Eventually though I got through Sarina, Mackay and Proserpine without any problems before taking the turn-off to Airlie Beach itself, only to discover that a) the main road was closed and we had to detour; and b) I was stuck behind a large campervan whose driver had apparently forgotten the accelerator was the pedal on the right...

The scenery made up for Captain Slow though. Tree-covered hills rise over the town itself as you drive in while the blue waters of the Coral Sea tease you on the left. Even better than the view though was the available bed at Base Airlie Beach, complete with bath! One relaxing soak later and it was off to Whitsunday Sailing Adventures to check in for my cruise the next day.

The rest of the day was pretty chilled. I'm staying in Airlie Beach again after the cruise, so after a quick mission out to the docks to see where I leave from it was back to Base for a snooze before heading to their very own Down Under Bar for a $10 meal and pint deal, a few beers - and most importantly of all a few cracks at the pinball machine.

Next stop: Great Barrier Reef!!!