The fake Cairns - Airlie Beach / 08.11.2018

After spending the whole day yesterday to get to Airlie Beach, we finally checked into our hostel at 6:00 PM, which was a huge compound that resembled a rainforest with lots of small cabins. We were sad to realize that the two French guys, the Frenchies, were assigned to a different room than us. But it wasn't a big deal because we had already bumped into them a few times and besides, they owed us pancakes since we had lent them some change for the bus to the ferry on Magnetic Island (which was their own offer! That's really nice).

After finishing our shopping for the next 2 days before our Whitsunday sailing tour at Woolworths - we treated ourselves to something different than $1 noodles with sauce, namely wraps with delicious salad (sausages were too expensive) - we chatted with a new nice roommate named Anna and kept looking up at the ceiling out of fear because there was a dangerously loose-looking fan running at full speed. It's great that I got the bottom bunk.

Then Linni and I headed to the kitchen and each prepared a wrap. After that, we walked along the small alley in Airlie Beach, where there were many clubs and cute clothing stores that we wanted to check out the next day.

▪

This morning, we set out to experience Airlie Beach in daylight. The little clothing stores were really cute, and since I somehow didn't have enough T-shirts with me, I treated myself to 2 of the really cool shirts on sale - a black one with flowers and the inscription 'Take your time' and a blue-turquoise one with a small world globe and the signature 'Mother Earth' on it.

But we quickly noticed that this little town was just a copy of Cairns and was mainly focused on tourism because of the Whitsundays - it also had a lagoon, which we visited briefly.

There wasn't much else to do here, so we're just chilling in bed for now and will go shower later. We might even visit one of the clubs with the French guys tonight before getting on our retired racing sailboat and heading to the Whitsunday Islands tomorrow at 8 o'clock.

Meanwhile, we're praying for the weather forecast to change because it's supposed to be quite rainy in the next few days.

▪

Update: In the end, we didn't go out with the French guys, but with Anna. First, Linni and I ordered a jug of cider at the bar of Magnums (cider is so delicious here) and enjoyed the live music. Then we went to a club called Mama Africa, which truly lived up to its name with its nice wall designs. However, we had some funny problems when we entered - the Australians take ID control very seriously here, so the ID and your face are scanned and checked for inconsistencies (I'm pointing at my nose here haha). It was quite interesting to see that even such small differences can be detected by these machines - in the end, I still got in but had to show my passport again.

When we arrived upstairs, there weren't many people yet - it was only shortly after 10, so we stood around for a while, ignored the bartender's question if we wanted to order something, and eventually got 2 rounds of champagne for free.

Slowly, the dance floor started to get lively - but it was very bizarre what we saw there, so we kept ourselves out of it: one guy took off his shoes and socks, and two others started holding one sock at each end and spinning around underneath. I don't need to say more about that.

We decided, just out of curiosity, to go to the next club on the street - the Boom - and see if I would get in without any problems with my ID this time, which strangely was the case, although there was a similar scanning machine - probably the bouncers just didn't care and let me in.

It was already crowded with people here, and there was also a lot happening on the dance floor. We briefly observed everything and suddenly noticed the familiar faces of our Cairns Waterfront English guys Harry and Ollie, whom we had also seen again on Magnetic Island, and we were super excited to meet them again because after Airlie Beach, they would travel to Rainbow Beach right away and surpass us by miles, as we would make 2 stops in Agnes Water and Hervey Bay after our sailing tour before finally reaching Rainbow Beach. We made our way to them, after they had noticed us and laughed as well, and then suddenly saw our two French guys, who with their funny accent and broken English assured us that instead of pancakes after our sailing tours (they were also doing one, but unfortunately a different one), they would treat us to a beer on Sunday.

After some time, another familiar face appeared in the crowd - Hannes, from Magnetic Island, who was the biggest surprise because we didn't know anything about his plans to come to Airlie Beach. So the fun evening reached its climax at the #boommeeting, as somehow all my cool favorite people had spontaneously gathered here, which was a really nice coincidence.

▪

At 2 o'clock, we were in our beds at Magnums Backpackers. We had already packed our things for tomorrow's trip, so everything was prepared for the departure.

Song of the day: Get Low by Ying Yang Twins and co, because even though Ollie didn't seem to be much of a party person, he really got into it when the song played at the Boom.