Cardwell – Townsville, Australia
As has been the case lately we woke up fairly early. I struggled out of bed and slowly packed up my things. Spizz took on the gargantuan task of walking back to Diversity and gathering the rest of our belongings. While he was gone B and I showered and relaxed in the room.
Spizz returned just after 10:00 (checkout time). He gave us our left behind possessions and we headed to the Cardwell bus station (this consisted of a café located next to a gas station…). Once there we purchased some phone cards and began trying to sort out the van mess.
B called Root-1 (our rental company) and explained to them what happened so that we could get our money back or get a new van. They told him to call back in a few minutes and then they could discuss the situation. When B called back they informed us that they would not give us any money back and could not provide an alternate vehicle. They claimed that the breakdown was our fault and that we should pay for repairs!!
Needless to say, we were totally shocked. We has basically poured our transportation and accommodation money for Australia into the vehicle. Furthermore, it is almost impossible that the breakdown was our fault…We began to feel like we had been scammed.
Not knowing what to do, we started calling home for advice and help in formulating a plan. We were forced to cancel credit cards, contact the US embassy, and yell at the Root-1 employee…
We spent nearly the entire day at the bus stop café. At 16:45 we finally boarded a bus for Townsville, the nearest large town. The bus ride was uneventful. We basically sat and watched the rainfall for 2.5 hours…all of us were quite depressed.
When we arrived in town we unloaded our belongings (Spizz was nice and did all of my lifting and bag carrying for me because of my surgery) and found a hostel representative. We loaded into his van and got a courtesy ride to the establishment.
Considering our luck, it is not surprising that it was a horrendous hostel. The room was somewhat expensive and tightly packed. We did not even have room to put all of our bags down. Even so, we were too frustrated to look for anything else.
After eating dinner at a decent seafood restaurant we went in search of the internet. Unfortunately, none of the internet cafés were open in the evening. Instead we returned to our hostel and settled on using their expensive computers ($5 per hour).
In an incredible stroke of luck, B found a piece of paper lying on the counter and was treated to 30-minutes free internet. After showering, I took my computer to the internet area (3 old, rundown computers) and stole one of the Ethernet cables out of the back. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly and I got almost an hour of free internet (at which point the owner came and told me this was illegal).
We all reconvened in the room and settled in to watch some Deadwood. It was nice to relax and take our minds off the days happenings. When we finally settled in to fall asleep, I found that I was no longer tired.
I tried to fall asleep for almost an hour before giving up and deciding to steal some more internet. I took care of some business and then retired to the room. I climbed back into bed just before midnight.
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