One month in Airlie

Well, we’ve been here a month – and things just keep getting better. We feel like we’ve been here a lot longer. It would be easy to settle into this lifestyle (especially if I learnt how to sail and overcame my history of sea-sickness)! We are slowly digging out the musicians hidden in the hills, (and in the yachts) and meeting lovely people and other music lovers. Bob Eden is a lovely English folk guitarist/singer/larrikin who lives on his yacht up here, who has done a fair bit of the folk festival circuit in his time! We were fortunate to meet him in our first week and play some music with him. He’s helped make a few connections for us. In particular, he put us in touch with a lovely woman named Pam Poll, who is now organising a house concert for us just before we finish our stay here at the end of July. We performed with Bob last weekend for a 60th birthday on a farm at Gregory River. Nice to get out of the tourist domain and into the hills to meet some locals. The birthday boy was a Scottish Piper, and there were 4 pipers strutting their stuff during the evening! The weather continues to be beautiful – sunny and warm in the day, though getting a bit chilly at night now. I’ve just learnt the term “Sundowners” from Pam – very appropriate – refers to enjoying a beverage while watching the sun go down over the bay. We’d already been practising that for a while though, before we knew the official term! And I mustn’t forget the Proserpine Show, now called Show Whitsunday, it was the centenary show…. we watched Guy Maclean working his stockhorses…. a real horse whisperer in action!