Airlie Beach Friday 3/14/08

We are rethinking our objection to being across the street from a huge gravel pit. The crew gets started over there at about 7:00 this morning and we count 6 huge diggers, each with a pair of those big mining dump trucks and bulldozers galore. The diggers fill up the trucks with the dirt where there will eventually be water (6 scoops per load), the trucks haul the dirt up to where the dirt is going to be land and dumps the load to be spread out by the dozers. While one truck is hauling, the other is being loaded and on it goes. It is fascinating in the same way as watching one of those cross sections of an ant colony at the zoo. We have had so many fabulous ocean views on this trip that this turns out to be an interesting diversion. We have never seen a harbor being made before.

We explore town this morning. Airlie Beach is a jumping off point to the 74 Whitsunday Islands just off shore and the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. We will be doing the reef during the last week of our trip and have little interest in the islands so this is a relax and read stop for us. The town is once again a collection of bars, restaurants and surf shops with the addition of dozens of boat-booking agents. There is a nice park at the rocky shoreline with a block-long man-made swimming lagoon. It is raining on and off and we are dodging rain as we duck in and out of the shops and book a sidewalk table for tonight at a nice restaurant. We finally decide to grab take-away lunch from a sandwich shop and head back to our room. Mary gets the smoked salmon on pumpkin bread and John has the roast beef and onion on Turkish bread and we have some chips and diet cokes in the room.

Mary watches a movie, John reads a book and late afternoon the sun peeks a bit and we go down to the pool for some lounging and a dip. Very exciting! Our table is booked for 7:00 and it is a pleasant walk into town center. Mary has the Mangrove Jack with leak-mashed and John has the lamb roast and we have a great bottle of Barossa Valley Shiraz. Our server, Jenny, is an Adelaide girl so she is big on the wines from her part of the country and she is right about this one.

How does the day end? Mary watches a movie and John reads a book. We can hardly wait for the heavy equipment to get started in the morning.

Today's local headline: Twenty-four hours to decision The Whitsunday Times (local elections are being held on Saturday)