Drinking beer in Queensland #1

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On the weekend I did a funny thing…. I flew 3000kms north to regional Queensland just to surprise my dear mum for her birthday. It was 7 hours worth of travelling. 7 hours of delays. 7 hours of avoiding all forms of liquid lest I should need to use that vacuum-sealed suction-cap they try to pass off as an aircraft toilet. And finally, 7 hours of trying to avoid the lolling head of my fellow passenger as she dozed, completely oblivious to the fact that she was becoming increasingly and uncomfortably intimate with me.

And she had bad breath. Poo breath. I personally believe that she was was put together upside down and hiding somewhere beneath her jeans and between her butt-cheeks is a perfectly formed mouth.

So you can see that by the time a reached my destination I was not only horribly dehydrated but also horribly sober. It’s ok. I found an Irish Pub called Dicey’s. They had Guinness on tap.

In order for you to truly understand my delight you’ve got to have have a brief outline of this town. It’s an industry town, so basically it exists to employ workers to refine aluminium and oil, make cement, toxic chemicals and other things that are too messy/dangerous/ugly for the rest of Australia to deal with. The people that live and work here work damned hard and they party hard. It’s honest. It’s down-to-earth. It’s naive and it’s corrupted all in one. It’s certainly not a place where a woman such as myself who lacks both the ability to swear like a man and look like one would drink alone. And yet, an hour and a half after stepping off my odourous flight that’s exactly what I found myself doing.

I was curled up in a cute leather lounge in a massive, dimly-lit pub drinking Guinness and reading Shakespeare by Bill Bryson. It was like I had stumbled across a little oasis in the middle of desert that knew no full strength beer. Hmm, this is sounding just a bit too refined…. I should mention that at this time there were four other patrons sharing the pub with me who insisted on shouting Fuck to each other instead of using actual words. I have no idea how one knew what the other was saying - but somehow they did.

Aside from the conversation being conducted entirely in expletives, it was a beautiful moment. I know some of you are recoiling in horror at the thought of drinking alone but it wasn’t as knobby-no-friends as you’d think. In the middle of a town where I felt out of place and a bit nervous, this beautiful Irish Pub was my security blanket. Well, actually, I think it might have been the Guinness. Whatever it was it was the perfect pre-surpise calm I needed.

Just for the record, the look on my Mum’s face when I walked into her office made the 7 hours of Hell On A Plane well worth it - the Guinness was just a bonus!