Otherwise known as “the day Phil got arrested”. Leaving Airlie Beach behind, we continued our journey south, next stop Dingo. Dingo was to be our first real taste of the outback – a cattle ranch considerably inland from the coast road we had been using up to now. The plan (as conceived by OzExperience) was to arrive by about 4 or 5 pm, and have a tour before the evening entertainments began.

We didn’t quite get that far. About two hours out of Airle Beach, our bus was stopped at what seemed to be a police checkpoint. Phil got out, walked across the road to the police car, and to the general amusement of everyone on the bus, blew into a breathalyser held by the policeman. He then re-boarded the bus and announced cheerily:

Ah, guys – looks like we’re gonna have to go back to Airlie Beach” [everyone groans] “so, err, sorry ‘bout that, bit of a bummer ay?”

Then one of the police officers drove us back the way we had come. Phil, having clearly got himself into a hole, decided that the best thing to do was to keep digging. He continued with his charm offensive, offering the police officer the mic, saying “I’ve heard the Queensland police are the best in the world”. The police officer predictably declined and suggested to Phil that it was probably not a good idea to use a hand held microphone while driving.

The bus stopped in the town of Prosperpine, about a half hour back towards Airlie Beach, where apparently the police had the necessary ‘facilities’ to deal with Phil. As it turned out, Phil had been in possession of Cannabis, which is illegal in Queensland. Since this is a fairly minor offence compared to being high on the stuff while driving a ten ton bus filled with tourists, the police wanted to check his blood. While they were doing all this, we had a look around Prosperpine.

Prosperpine had virtually nothing of interest to the regular tourist, and several members of the tour group were bored very quickly. One American girl even started asking everyone whether they would like to join her in complaining to Oz Experience’s HQ in Sydney by phone. Quite frankly I thought that Phil had performed his role brilliantly – this was after all an adventure holiday, and he was turning a routine bus trip into a real adventure. So I declined. Actually, despite initial slightly dull appearances, Prosperpine is an excellent example of an agricultural centre in Queensland. There was a big sugar cane mill churning out steam nearby, and an enormous railway station where the sugar cane and sugar would be loaded for transport. The town existed for the sugar industry, and the sugar industry is a very important part of the economy of northern Queensland. This was clearly lost on many members of the tour group, who felt much more at home once we got to Dingo.

Getting to Dingo, our destination for the evening, could have been much more complicated had the police not released Phil without charge an hour later. We were back on the road, and Phil was as upbeat as ever. As we moved further inland, and passed the point where we had been turned back earlier in the day, the endless fields of green sugar cane was replaced by endless plains of pretty much nothing at all (see picture). Arriving in Dingo three hours late, the evening was dedicated to party games, drinking round the campfire and line dancing, all to a pre-programmed schedule. The food was good though.