Roadkill

Any faint hopes that the demolition gang would start either late or not at all at the weekend were brutally crushed at 6.30am. Fortunately, I was already awake by this time, thanks in most part to my fellow dormers, three lads from Miscellaneous in the Home Counties. I went out for a few beers with two paediatric nurses and some grimly serious gym teacher - we invented life stories for the covers band - returning about 1am I tripped over Suspect no.1 passed out lengthways across the doormat outside our dorm. I tried to wake him - he was having none of it. I left him to his catatonia and moved inside. Suspect no.2 was comatose across his bed, head wedged firmly against the wall. There was an unconscious girl laying crosswise on top of him. Everyone was fully dressed. Suspect no.3 was also in a vegetative state, but - and here's the rub - making the most extraordinary noises I have ever heard in my life. Until now, I thought Calum Carr had the worst snore in the world. I have on occasion been forced through sleeplessness to rise, cross the room barefoot and beat him solidly in the head with a pillow in a vain attempt to make him stop. Suspect no.3 was in a different league of nocturnal noise-making altogether. His snores - I am not exaggerating - noticeably increased in volume over about ten minutes until the point where he woke himself up. With his own snoring. He choked, snorted, raised his head, looked directly me, said something along the lines of "Snargllfush" and crashed back to his pillow. Within a minute, the noise had begun again. It is quiet to start, like the distant approach of a dirt bike from over the hill, but soon reaches incredible volumes before the perpetrator rouses himself again from this horrific slumber. Calum, you have something to learn from this boy.

This performance was repeated several times before I finally fell asleep - and woke me again at 6am. I watched another full cycle in stunned disbelief. The only thing missing was Sir David Attenborough crouched beside this slumbering behomoth, talking in hushed tones about the regurgitative processes involved or the eco-system evolving from his socks. Neither was Suspect no.3 the only irritating animal in the dorm that night - I found myself the victim to the repeated attacks of the common bed bug. The little savages had a field day on my legs, a lamb to the slaughter. How do they survive without backpacker shanks? I was itching to get the hell out of Townsville.

The ferry for Magnetic Island is a sedate affair, and - the frantic, queue-jumping arrival at the terminal aside - the island itself is a very laid-back affair. The kind of place that students with Guevara posters and bad beards or middle-aged housewives heavily into their yoga might refer to as 'chilled'. They are, of course, scum, though their point is clear. I spent two happy days on the beaches here, and tore my fingers open on the granite. There are boulders everywhere - the island is covered, riddled, scattered with bizarre totemic structures that appear man-made but are clearly formed by the accidental tumble of ten thousand years. The climbing was pretty good with nice sandy landings and some hair-rasing top-outs. I found a fair bit categorically impossible, and entered into the state of the hard-done-to boulderer when confronted by the chalky hand-holds of a previous climber who is evidently better than me. I spent a huge amount of time glaring in quiet fury and confusion at handprints two feet higher up the wall than I could manage. Weasels.



The hostel was good and free of vermin, and I spent my nights drinking beer and reading in a quiet bar. Early to rise this morning, and back onto the Greyhound for the five hour trip to Airlie Beach. It wasn't too bad, but I'm getting the first suspicions that I will be ready to kill someone by the time Sydney rolls around the corner. The Greyhound is all very well, but the monotony is becoming oppressive and I have now seen the Jennifer Aniston chick-flick 'Rumour Has It' no fewer than three times.

Everyone on the bus will die, if - by some horrible, unhappy accident - that becomes four times.

We stop in the most bizarre places - garages, black with oil - sugar cane railway stations - hairdressers - public toilets - cinemas. For a short while today we drove a red dirt road that splits the railway from dusty back lots. There are cattle in identical fields, birds of prey wheeling by the roads. A wombat, roadkill on the verge, spread out like a fireside rug. Jennifer Aniston, roadkill on the verge...

Airlie Beach itself is a ten-minute walk from one end to the other. It's a bit like Perranporth, although the weather is a little better. The heat is oppressive. I'm considering a three-day sailing trip round the Whitsundays - I didn't see so much of these islands when we shot through here the first time, sporting a camera and a mindless trigger finger. I've said it before, but it remains true - the Campos effect - digital is a lazy medium and quantity inevitably replaces quality. This is truth. Selah.