The Motel By The Beach

On paper it should have been the best ever overnighter. In reality, it wasn’t. It wasn’t the worst, but both me and James had tried to make use of the extra seat and found that it was almost a hindrance and had eventually settled on the original position, leaving the spare seat free. I had attempted to lie across them both with my knees up to my chest and my head in the aisle, but one tight corner that nearly put me in the aisle put paid to that plan. We had heard the drivers change over at half 2 in the morning and overheard them talking about coach crashes and how the company was going down the pan. Not ideal conversation in front of passengers, sleeping or not.

After we left the coach and got our bearings we noted the Greyhound office inside the terminal and still needing to finalise the details of the trip to Australia Zoo we took a trip inside. The helpful chap behind the counter was happy to help us out and organised all our stops to get to the zoo and end up in Brisbane. But for the princely sum of $3 each, which he said that we had agreed on before he had begun sorting the tickets, but both me and James had no knowledge of whatsoever. However, $3 each to have it all sorted? We went with it, and crossed it off our list of things to do in Hervey Bay.

It was a 5 Km walk to our hotel, or a short bus ride……so we saddled up the backpacks and set off east towards the Beach Motel. We had nothing else to do so a nice long walk to get the blood pumping was just what we needed. The motel told us to come back at noon, but were happy to keep our big bags in reception for the two hours, so we mooched around the few shops available looking for places to eat and drink later. We found only over-priced supermarkets so James set off in search of more reasonably-priced fodder whilst I made myself comfortable on the beach. It only took a few minutes for the reality to hit me again; that I was sitting on a beautiful beach in Australia in glorious sunshine. Brilliant. Just after 12 we opened the door to our room and were nicely surprised. After having to put up with grotty/basic hostels/greyhound seats we had a large clean room with another single + double bed combo, coffee, tea, kettle, TV, the works.

Not a bad beach eh??

We spent the first few hours taking the edge off the day and sorting a few bits and pieces out before heading back into “town” to find some food and drink. With the lack of anywhere good (cheap) to eat we grabbed a Sunway and a bottle of wine each and retired to the hotel and relax with a bit of telly – something we hadn’t really been able to do for many weeks. Unnervingly, we had both become mildly addicted to some US TV shows, especially The Big Bang Theory. Three episodes later and a failed attempt to SKYPE mum and dad on their wedding anniversary (the Wi-Fi code locked both netbooks and my phone out for some reason) the wine was going down nicely. However, I needed to be up early in the morrow so hit the hay to get some decent shut-eye in a nice, clean, comfy bed.