CSI: Airlie Beach

AIRLIE BEACH, QUEENSLAND - 11th January 2010

No point beating around the bush here. About 2 hours ago I had my digital camera stolen from my hostel room.

In the 5 minutes I was out of the room walking to the laundry room and back, or the 5 minutes I was out at the supermarket, a French girl staying in the same room was stupid enough to not just let in a complete stranger when he claimed he'd "left something behind", but leave him alone in the room. 20 minutes later, I'm making a sandwich and the girl comes asking if I've seen a man from our room, because her "camera is gone". With mine gone as well, it doesn't take much imagination to guess I was far from impressed.

Thankfully, the summer 2008 theft of my mobile phone with 4 weeks of travelling photos in Kho Pangan, Thailand - unofficially known as the "Curious Incident of the Berghaus Bag" - left its mark on me in terms of securing my photos, and everything up to and including Brisbane is safely backed up on my portable memory stick. Unfortunately, all my photos from Fraser Island - which were both plentiful and, arguably, the best photos from all of Australia (particularly of Lake Mackenzie) - as well as those from the Whitsundays are all lost... which is pretty gutting.

One other blessing is that as a result of doing four dives on the Wings II Whitsundays cruise, I got a free DVD with hundreds of photos from our time there, including many duplicates of ones on my camera. The police (who blatently agreed with my assessment of this girl's stupidity) said CCTV might give them a lead on this one, but even for a camera that has been lost twice before finding its way back to me (most notably at the Reading Festival in August, when these kids picked it up, snapped a load of photos of themselves, then returned it to Lost Property), I can't say I'm optimistic.

Silver linings are always around though, and in this case it means I can get the money from insurance and spend it on buying myself a fancy new SLR-esque camera in duty free before I leave to New Zealand in a few days time!

THE DAILY ROD's Top Travel Tips:
#9 - Trusting the French may be fine, but trusting those trusted by
the French will probably end badly.