We arrived around 06.30 am and took the bus (30 min) to Airlie Beach. As the bus just dropped us to our hostel, it started raining, of course. Babs and Sydney were staying at another hostel, that was a pitty. I stayed at Nomads, the manager told me we could check in at 10 am instead of 2 pm. I was so happy, because I needed to have some sleep. While waiting, we had breakfast with the whole group at a local bar.
Finally it was 10 am and I went to the reception to check in. There was a man, the husband of the manager, who was so rude and said I could not check in and had to wait until 2 pm. I was kind of devastated about that, not really about the hour change, but more the way he spoke to me, that was really not customer friendly. We could put our luggage in a storage, but had to pay for that.

Sydney, Babs and I explored the town and went together to her stop at the pier. She had to be at 1 pm at Barcelona Cafe to leave for Whitsundays for two days. I felt sorry for her, as the weather was really bad and the water was rough. I looked the weather forecast and saw that it was going to rain the next three days. I was in panic, as I know I had to go on a sailing trip the following day for two days and two nights. I immediately went to the office who booked my trip and asked if there was the possibility to postpone or cancel the trip.
They told me: “ We only cancel trips if they forecast cyclones”. I was in shock, only the word ‘cyclones’ already gave me goosebumps.

In the evening we had dinner with the group again. After that, I went to my room and started packing a little bag, as I had to leave the following day to Whitsundays. I had to leave my big backpack at the luggage store, as there was not enough place on the boat.