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Magnetic Island - New Year's Eve

On December 31st we took the bus from Airlie Beach up to Townsville and across to Magnetic Island. We stayed at an old resort that had been made into a Backpacker Accomodation called Arkies. If the owners pumped a little money into the place it could be really spectacular. As it is it was a little run-down, but still had a lot of things to do.

Arkies was packed with people, and to our surprise, the people were not tourists like ourselves, they were townies. People from the island and from Townsville at Arkies to celebrate New Year's.

The people seemed to have 3 goals and in this order 1. Get Drunk, 2. Pick Someone Up and/or 3. Start a Fight. We could feel it in the air that the potential for a scrap was there. That was at 3pm. The feeling was even stronger than that later in the evening.

First we checked in and went to our room. Arkies was sold out for the night and we had been given a cabin that used to be staff accomodation. We got the room for the low low price of $35/per night. The room was OK, but the cabin looked like it had been out of commission for a while. Inside the room, the walls were painted a nice bright shade of mint green. The squashed bug marks all over the walls added an interesting contrast to the colour. There was an air-conditioner in the window or I should say where the window once existed now. It was just a boarded up hole in the wall.

At night it was the darkest room I've ever been in. I could literally hold my hand up to an inch from my face and not see it.

Anyway, we relaxed a bit and discussed the evening's events. There was a live band in the bar and before that there was Cane Toad Races. Patrick and I decided we'd go watch the races and decide about the bar later.

At 8pm we made our way down to where the races were being held. We had to walk through a patio full of tables to get there. People were well on our way to accomplishing their first goal for the evening - getting hammered. To get a better understanding of what these people were like all you have to do is picture the characters from The Trailer Park Boys and that would give you a good idea. It was a little intimidating. Particularly when we saw the security force that had been retained for the evening. These guys meant business.

Anyway, we get to the race area. The race is held on the pavement, there is a big circle painted on the ground and at the middle of the circle there is a smaller circle. I told Patrick that we should keep a low profile as I didn't want to piss anyone off - especially if we won.

At the races there is an MC, in this case a 60 year old, bushie. (Farmer type, loud, brash) He auctions off each of the 8 toads that will be in the race. He has a spiel about each of the toads i.e., this toad's from Texas, he's a fast little guy that's the champion in America etc. Then the bidding starts at $5. The first 6 toads went at around $25 to $30 dollars. Each time a toad was up for auction, Patrick wanted to bid. Finally, on the 7th toad I agreed and Patrick started bidding. He created a bidding war, we got the toad for $46.

People at the tables near us were saying stuff like "Stop bidding" or "Are you mad?". I thought to myself "we're gonna get killed!"

Once all of the toads were auctioned, they are put in a plastic circle type bucket that is clear plastic and broken up into 8 compartments. it is placed over the middle circle and the toads are dropped into it.. It has no bottom to it. Then the MC lifts the plastic bucket and the race begins. The first toad to make it out of the circle wins the race. It's a lot more exciting than it sounds. Everyone gets into the race and is cheering on the toads.

Our toad won! We won $115. And, surprisingly, everyone around us was congratulatory. There were no hard feelings. We also got a t-shirt. The best part is that when you go to collect your winnings, the MC picks up your toad and you have to kiss it. I got a great picture of Patrick.

We stayed for the following 2 races. Then had to decide what we were going to do for the rest of the evening. We took a look around at the crowd and decided to go to the Bottle - O (liquor store) to get some beer and wine to take back to our room. We were going to watch a count down show, and have a quiet evening.

It was even quieter than we thought because there were no countdown shows!

New Year's arrived and we went to sleep... boring!

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