Airlie Beach, Qld

*** Happy Birthday Paul ***

Who's a cutie then?

Made our way down to Airlie Beach, negotiating the non-stop road-work from Townsville to Ayr – they may even be duplicating the Bruce in places, one can only hope so. We thought we’d go into Bowen and find a nice place by the water for lunch, all we found were empty streets as it was after 12 noon on a Saturday. Finally we found the bakery and had our choice of 1 pie and cake, but hurry, they closed at 1pm, even while other lost vans were prowling around looking for a feed that didn’t involve large yellow ‘M’s.

Our van park is actually at Cannonvale, about 2km from Airlie Beach itself and is excellent by van park standards. It even has a … heated … pool, which needless to say was full of people swimming and sunbaking and generally having a good time. Can you imagine that, a van park providing amenities that you can actually use, what will they think of next? We grabbed a few brochures on day trips and now can’t decide which boat to go out on. No sign of the old Ragamuffin unfortunately.

We had to go the huge shopping centre right around the corner and stock up on food, butthen couldn’t resist t, we just had to go and have a look at Airlie Beach proper keepingin mind it must be nearly 20 years since we were here last.

Wow! What a change, the old place is barely recognisable. For a start, the swampy mud flats opposite the place we stayed in has been replaced by a fabulous marina and big houses out on a point I can’t remember being there. They have reclaimed more land and put in a big lake / swimming pool, flash looking shops everywhere and of course apartments right up the hillside.

Sadly, the old pub, where they used to have cane toad races, has also been replaced by a hig rise.