Our Troubles at Dunk

Today I woke up at 4am to being trying to troubleshoot my little internet problem. I had promised my colleagues at Root that I would send them a script for the documentary we are making for Hampton. I spent quite a bit of time writing it on my travels, only to discover that the promised internet at Dunk Island was a bit spotty at best, that there is no wireless and only one computer, and on top of that you can’t download any files to that one computer to send out.

I argued for a long time with the manager about how my file would not corrupt their whole system, and offered her all my credit cards and my brother (it’s not really a safe bet at my age to put my firstborn on the table) if she would let me send this stupid word document. Nothing.

So at 4am Cairns time, Brian, myself and the IT team began trying to solve the problem. We tried printer- no. We tried Bluetooth to Blackberry, no again. Brian called AT &T and got me set up for international on my wireless card, no again. Finally at 6:30am we agreed to wait until the staff was up and see what else I could wrangle.

In the midst of all of this intense frustration I managed to slam my thumb in the sliding glass door of their awesome tech center. It hasn’t stopped throbbing yet and Garrett assures me that the nail will probably fall off. I've noticed he's quite a beacon of optimism.



Meanwhile, Garrett’s luggage saga continues. They finally found his lost bag and promised to send it out to Dunk. 36 hours and several phone calls later it still hasn’t appeared. Last call he was told that it was surely on a water taxi of some unidentifiable service on it’s way here. It was supposed to arrive at 4. It’s 5:30 now. He is not a happy camper in his dirty undies and the same white t-shirt he’s worn for the last 3 days. (Sorry Elizabeth- just chronicling history.)

The important point in all of this is that while the manager here at Dunk Island refused to do ANYTHING to help me in my frantic state except shake her head with a patronizing smile and say “Sorry.” There ARE service oriented people in Australia. One. I continued to beg anyone I saw for wireless service or access to their computer when I finally stumbled back in to the reception and found someone new at the desk. A lovely girl named Peta who went way out of her way to help me find a solution and finally when all else failed went and retrieved her laptop on her lunch break and let me send it from her computer at the end of her shift. I could have kissed her.



On top of that, Garrett and I have also had the bad luck of not being able to get on to the snorkeling/diving trip to the Reef (the whole reason we’re here) because it is too full. We begged the activities people to ask the other guests who were here for longer (we leave tomorrow) to trade their spot with us since we only had one day to do it. No. They acted like they would try and then said, “Oh, sorry, can’t find them.”

Peta heard our story and (again) went out of her way to try and re-arrange everything including our flight and when all that failed called someone off the island/resort who agreed to come out and pick us up in his boat and take just Garrett and I out to the reef tomorrow to snorkel.

After being wowed by Hampton two weeks ago and Hilton a few days ago, I was less than impressed with this shoddy service, but will still leave with a good taste in my mouth thanks to our angel…Peta.

By the way, I do realize the irony of me being upset about my inability to have full technology access on a vacation to a desert island where I should be enjoying the “escape.”

On a positive note, Garrett and I did have some very enjoyable moments today. After our rocky start battling the powers that be, we started our day with some stress-relieving pilates. Garrett was worried he would be the only guy, but he wasn’t - there was one other. We were a group of 7 people laying on mats on a tennis court surrounded by dead (and live) cockroaches. “Just a part of the island folks!” It was actually quite relaxing, although not very strenuous. I kept one eye peeled for the roaches though—no worries mate!