BootsnAll Travel Network



No More Eatin’

Airlie Beach Seafood

While most people adopt a strict diet and exercise regime during January, to get rid of the Christmas flab, my policy is to travel during this time whenever possible. Hauling a backpack around the tropics and engaging in plenty of outdoor activities means the pounds veritably melt away.

So far in Australia, my travel-to-diet plan hasn’t worked out, partly because lavish breakfasts and ample meals were included in our stays or activities. Not so, however, when you find yourself stranded in some backwater. This is because Australia, like Britain in the mid-Eighties, still adheres to mealtimes. Woe betide you if you arrive late, or find yourself hungry outside the hours of 12-2 p.m. or 6-8 p.m.—especially during the evening when all the smaller cafés are closed. It had happened to us in Yeppoon, and now I dig why so many places sell nuts, dried fruit and beef jerky.

Among the backwaters, I count Magnetic Island, which after all only has 2000-odd inhabitants. And on Maggie Island, I have to include Xbase Backpackers. Nobody told us when we were checking in just before 8 o’clock that the kitchen would close—as barstaff repeatedly pointed out later—at “8 p.m. on the dot.” We didn’t find out about this until the shutters came down in our faces. And I was fresh out of jerky.

After a fruitless trek up a dark, winding road leading to a sleepy settlement to which the manager had sent us on a wild goose chase, we managed to catch the last bus back, but it was by now after 9 p.m. Things happen slowly on the island and so the driver and all the passengers engaged in a lively discussion until they agreed that at this time everything was definitely closed. “This island just shuts down, mate,” the driver said, nodding sagely.

When everybody was satisfied that there remained no unresolved issues, and that we would just have to consume a liquid dinner at the bar, the driver only charged us 1 Dollar “for your troubles” and dropped us back at the door to Xbase.

At least the early shutdown did not apply to the bar.

What I don’t understand is that, on a place like Magnetic Island, a late Bar & Grill could rake in a fortune.

Another thing I don’t get are the advertised opening times. Most restaurants will advertise their lunch hours up to the minute (some even *gasp* opening before 12 p.m.), but almost none advertise their dinner times except in vague terms such as ‘6 p.m. till late’ or even ‘6:30 onwards’. What do they mean ‘late’? In the UK, if a pub has a ‘late’ license, it means it shuts at 2 a.m. Anything before midnight isn’t late. And as for onwards—I expect to see that outside a club in Ibiza, which won’t close until the following morning.

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