Meeting up with Kelly and Charlie in Mackay

Well, I certainly didn’t think that within 3 months of me leaving SITS I would be meeting up with Kelly and her friend Charlie over here in Oz!! I don’t think Kelly did either! It was so strange when she called my mobile saying she was in Sydney, even though it’s still a few hours flight away, it was the nearest anyone I knew had been to me for what seemed like eternity. Kelly and Charlie were flying straight from Sydney up to the Whitsunday’s airport near Airlie Beach, spending a few days there and then driving their way down the coast back to Sydney to fly home a month later. Andy and I had originally planned to meet up with them at Airlie, but it dropped on that his shifts meant we couldn’t do that. So last Wednesday Andy, Ben and I drove to Mackay early in the morning. We were going to have a day sunbathing (or sunbake as they call it, rather more appropriately, here) at the hotel and then meet up for a meal and drinks later.

A tale about Ben…

After a quick dip in the sea and run along the beach we went to drop Ben off at kennels I had found in the Yellow Pages. There isn’t a great deal of choice in the kennels department round here, which is odd considering that every second person seems to have a dog. I had gone for one that was also an animal refuge/animal ambulance as I reckoned they would have good standards somewhere like that. When we drove past a rubbish tip, a water works and found the kennels situated next to a cemetery then things didn’t seem as idyllic as initially hoped. When the mulletted man opened the gate to us, alongside a co-worker with blood oozing from a bite on her hand and a tea towel wrapped round it, we were starting to wonder whether our darling beloved pooch would be ok here. They showed Ben to his cage for the next few days which consisted of a tiny run and a wooden pallet for a bed, there were dogs incessantly barking next to him. The lady with blooded arm said they never stop. We commented that we were looking for a place for him to stay for 3 weeks when we come back to England next year and here’s the clincher, she said, “I work here and I wouldn’t leave my dog here for 20 minutes, it’s not bad when me and mullet-man are working, but the guys in tomorrow don’t care at all”. Obviously, this isn’t really the re-assurance you are looking for when you are putting a $6000 dog into kennels. We went back to the car silently with Ben sat watching us as we left to make us feel even worse. “He’s not staying there”, we both said the minute we left. We decided to go to the hotel for dinner and the afternoon and then find somewhere else to take him for the night. We phoned one that was about 20 minutes away but said it was new, which sounded hopeful. I phoned her and told my tale of woe, she said to bring him there straight away. We rescued Ben with some excuse that Andy had been called back in to work and drove to his new kennels. Well, they couldn’t have been more different, the owners were lovely, it was up in the hills with amazing views and the dogs even had televisions! We happily left him there and decided whatever the cost that is where he will stay from now on. Turned out it only cost a few pounds more than the Alcatraz one.

After a chaotic day with probably only an hour spent sunbaking, we got ready and met Kelly and Charlie at the Mackay Marina which is the new, trendy area with nice bars and restaurants, the best hotel in the area and a fair few boats about too. We had a really nice meal at a restaurant there and didn’t leave there till 10ish.