disillusioned beach bums

Gigi and her boyfriend, Gerard, became disillusioned trying to keep pace with job hunting, flat hunting and paying the bills in a big city so decided to move to North Queensland and become beach bums.

"It never occurred to us," laughs Gigi, "that some of those beautiful golden beaches depicted in the tourist magazines were actually not made of sand at all - they were made of coral and some of it is as sharp as glass."

"We had spent months planning our new lifestyle and drooling over pictures of remote sandy beaches with palm trees swaying in the breeze," says Gigi, "but most of the small islands we visited were very inhospitable as far as sleeping rough were concerned."

"Gerard and I wanted to get off the beaten track - keep as far away from tourist resorts as we could," laughs Gigi, "but we learned the hard way that all the tourist resorts are on the best beaches - and the further you travel away from the tourist resorts the worse the beaches."

"We started island hopping from the Whitsunday point of north-eastern Australia and of course we realized that we were in the Great Barrier Reef area but we just didn't expect so many of the beaches to be devoid of sand."

"It is a good thing we took stout walking shoes with us because our feet would have been cut to shreds on the coral."

"On our first night on one of the islands we were so tired from walking over the crunchy beach - trying to find a soft spot to bed down for the night - that we finally settled for the place where we flopped," laughs Gigi. "I don't know how we slept that night - it was so uncomfortable sleeping on coral - but we did!"

"We were woken up at dawn by a woman walking a dog."

"She was very concerned for us but not for sleeping on the coral - she said we were lucky not to have been robbed or murdered."

'She took us back to her house for breakfast and advised us that the money we would save by sleeping rough at nights was not worth the risk."

"Actually," laughs Gigi, "one night of sleeping on a tropical island beach was enough for us!"

"We weren't concerned about robbers and murderers but we were concerned about our beautiful bodies that were now bruised and sore from the experience."

"Australia's Great Barrier Reef area is spectacular -- we had an amazing snorkelling experience there,” says Gigi, “but we’re too soft to become beach bums so it’s back to the drawing board for us.”

“We can’t return to the city – there are no jobs, accommodation is expensive and the cost of living is far too high to live on with a small income,” says Gigi. “At least in the tropics it is warm enough to go without heating and other expensive costs, so that’s a starting point we can work on.”