Aussie Kindness and Airlie Beach

After realising I'd left my phone on Magnetic Island yesterday I was in tears! But thanks to Aussie kindness I've got it back. I rang after the bus company Sun Buses emailed my mom to tell her they'd found my phone, and the boss, a lovely lady called Jane said that she was coming over to Townsville anyway so she'd bring it over for me, so we changed our bus from the 11.30am to the 2.15pm. She was coming over on the barge with her car, the barge was meant to dock at 2.10 so she had 5 minutes to drive to us. By 2.15, she wasn't there and we had told the bus driver our situation and although he wasn't happy, he was waiting. After waiting almost 20 minutes we spotted Jane's car, which luckily she had informed us was gold, but as she hopped out the car with Luke running towards her like a psycho, she told him she had thought we were on the other bus so she stopped that one and gave the phone to the driver. Oops!

So the greyhound lady at the terminal had to call the other driver and ask him to drop the phone at the freight place at the other end of Townsville, and she booked us onto the next bus at 7.25pm, while Jane drove us over to the freight place at the other end of the city, bless her! On the way we found out she was planning to travel to Thailand and Cambodia, so as our thank you, we bestowed all our knowledge upon her, of all the best places to go, and she loved it! We were so thankful for her kindness and it meant that I got my phone back! 

After all this drama, she dropped us back at the bus terminal. We put our bags in a locker and headed into the city to get some lunch and kill some time til the next bus. We ended up finding a cool little barbers for Luke to (finally) get a haircut, before going for lunch at Cactus Jacks (best burgers ever!).

We then walked back to the bus terminal and I sat reading my book and Luke played Pokemon until the bus arrived. The journey took over 4 hours, with a 40-minute stop at a BP garage. We got a taxi when we got to Airlie, and the friendly driver pointed out all the main points of interest on the journey to help us out. We'd called ahead to let the staff at Bush Village Cabins know we'd be arriving late, and a friendly Aussie called Bryan had helped us out, and although the reception closed at 8.30, he left a box outside on the table, and a note inside along with our key! 

The cabins are so lovely, our bed is absolutely huge, and we collapsed in it as soon as we opened the door. 

This morning (or rather, this afternoon) we went up to reception to thank Bryan for the note and to introduce ourselves properly, and he helped us out showing us the best value tours to Whitehaven beach. We ended up booking one for Monday because it was full tomorrow so we're staying here a night longer than we planned but it's okay because we really like it. We walked to the shops around the corner, and bought a load of meat, before bringing it back and cooking it on the barbie at our accommodation, which is right next to the pool. Then after cleaning up, we went for a swim. So far, we love it here, tomorrow I think we're gonna take a walk down to the lagoon.

Bryan has got three cute little white dogs, a few chickens including a Silky (?) not sure how to spell it but it's fluffy and cute. There are also tonnes of cockatoos and lorikeets. We even saw three kookaburras! Luke took heaps of pictures as usual, so here they all are.