We almost changed our minds when we saw the van park. It looked old, run down and greatly needing some repairs. The idea was to stay here and head off to Airlie Beach tomorrow. Why not just take the van with us and spend the night at Airlie Beach? The price. Airlie Beach is a high tourist destination and the prices of the van parks reflect it. Since we would be coming back this way we though we would save money on Van Park and fuel by staying at Gunna Go after all it was only about 20k away.

We gave the van park anther look and decided as we were only going to stay two nights and it was away from the town it should be ok. We would just have to be cautious and make sure everything was secured.

We were given a site back from the road. Great. No. Right behind us was a train line for the sugarcane trains. The first night I am sure I heard every train that went through and there were lots.

We drove to Airlie beach the next day. The town looked very much a tourist town, without the tourists. Cyclone Debbie had smashed the area. We walked by many businesses with signs on the front doors letting people know they were closed because of Debbie. I think the town will have a big job trying to convince the tourist to come back to Airlie beach if the lack of people was anything to go by.

We walked along the tourist strip and then down to the beach. It was a deserted as the town. The only business seeming to be doing well was the sightseeing tours with a helicopter.   It only seemed to stop long enough to swap passengers.

We drove up to Shoot harbour. Boy what a view you could see to forever.

We watched a barge pull in to unload. We guessed it has come from one of the Whitsunday Islands. The barge was carrying four trucks and when it docked they just drove off. We had worked on Barrow Island and barges would bring nearly all of the supplies to the island. Unloading on Barrow was never so easy but that is a different story.

We grabbed some lunch and then headed back to out van. All in all it wasn’t a very interesting day.

We had talked about visiting one of the Whitsunday Islands but decided to give it a miss. I am sure they are lovely but as we worked on an island for two year it didn’t to grab our attention.

After we arrived back Adrian went for a walk. He told me later how he has spoken to the van parker owners. They were in the same boat as Airlie Beach. They had been hit by the cyclone as well and they were in the middle of a claim with their insurance company. They couldn’t make any repairs to the van park until the claim was finalised. As there were so many claims logged at the same time it was a long and slow process to get everything finalised. It made sense now why we were put down the back away from the damaged buildings. Side note: I slept thought the trains the next night. Exhaustion does that for you.