We’ve spent the last two days hanging out in Airlie Beach, mostly by the pool. It has been delightful. Airlie Beach is a pretty typical touristy beach town, but with a couple of Australian twists.

The sunset view from our balcony has been beautiful, as has the visitor we’ve had watching it with us.

The boardwalk includes a Ferris wheel and a beautiful (free) community pool, but also comes with warnings we haven’t seen at any other beach.

And we’ve never been to a bar that offered CANE TOAD RACES in between musical sets.

The hype man had a bucket of cane toads and auctioned them off one at a time. If you were the highest bidder and your toad won the “race,” you won all of the money that had been bid. The first toad went for $250, the second for $600, and the third went for a whopping $1400 after the hype man said it had won five out of the past six races. We did not stick around to see which toad won, but someone had a good night.

We also enjoy Australians’ love of shortening words. So many Australians call McDonald’s Maccas (sounds like Mackers) that McDonald’s calls itself that in ads. Maccas serves brekkie in Brizzie. Rich ordered a chicken parmy the other night. And this ad made us smile:

Tomorrow a new adventure–we are renting a car and driving–on the left!–about 8 hours up the coast to our next stop, Port Douglas. It is another beach town, a bit more upscale than Airlie Beach. We are going there to do some more snorkeling (yes, the Great Barrier Reef extends that far-it stretches over 1400 miles up the coast) and to see the Daintree Rainforest and the Mossman Gorge. There is also some ziplining on the itinerary.