The day had finally arrived – my friend Laura Burns who is the former Suffolk Reporter for ITV Anglia was in a place that I was going to be in. After 2 months our paths were crossing!
The bus to Hervey Bay was a dream. Not only was it just a few hours compared to fifteen, but those girls I know from Agnes Water were on it so I had someone to chat to during our enforced meal break at Gin Gin. I was picked up by the man from ‘The Friendly Hostel’ which ingenious Laura had found and I was with her by mid afternoon. We managed about one glass of coke before cracking open the wine and we talked and talked until we decided it was time to go to the pub.
The bus to Hervey Bay was a dream. Not only was it just a few hours compared to fifteen, but those girls I know from Agnes Water were on it so I had someone to chat to during our enforced meal break at Gin Gin. I was picked up by the man from ‘The Friendly Hostel’ which ingenious Laura had found and I was with her by mid afternoon. We managed about one glass of coke before cracking open the wine and we talked and talked until we decided it was time to go to the pub.
As if we hadn’t talked enough for the last four hours we sat outside an Irish bar called Houlihan's to gossip even more and eventually we had a bit of a boogie to the live covers band – Sons of Jen – who were playing. It was a bit tricky to get out of the bar at the end of the night as a group of intriguingly dressed women had taken rather a liking (so Laura says) to me and were trying to tempt us onwards....we managed to avoid Hervey Bay's one and only club...we had to save some excitement for the following night!
The next day we hit the beach. It’s the first time in my life I think I’ve purposefully gone sunbathing. And I paid the price. I thought I’d put loads of screen on but I must have missed a bit on my arms. It’s no fun being ginger in a sub-tropical climate! I had a swim but then got scared because I thought there was something floating next to me. I was probably right as there were loads of dead jellyfish on the beach.
So sunbathing was out and swimming was out, so we went food shopping. We came back for sunset and invested in a bottle of vodka. This geared us up for what has to be my weirdest clubbing experience ever. We went to Vipers and I loved the house music, but the people in there were dancing so weirdly that at times I was laughing so much I had to grip onto the wall! It was sort of wildly enthusiastic dad-dancing with some mad facial expressions thrown in and a total lack of self-awareness or awareness of others’ personal space. And we were probably the oldest people in there by about a decade!
On Sunday there was a cultural festival in town. It was a great day. Laura had a head start on tanning while I tried to sort out a place to live in Sydney, then I got to the beach and while I was on a phone call Laura spotted a TV News cameraman who she approached. She eventually got interviewed! I had to go back by 3pm for a skype tour of my new home and then it was cider o’clock. We spent the evening having a pizza and a couple of glasses of red to celebrate a relaxing but productive day.
On Monday I booked a tour to see Fraser Island and we then took a big walk around the ‘city’ which took us all the way up until lunch time. We had a little beach time after lunch and watched the sunset, and then enjoyed a TV dinner watching the news, followed by Home and Away. Laura had been to Palm Beach and met some of the cast so it was good for me (I stopped watching in the early 90s!) to put faces to names!
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