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14-17 June 2002
To be held at the Whitsunday Terraces Resort, Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia
Committee: Eric Lindsay and Jean Weber
We plan to hold a relaxacon on the weekend after the Australian NatCon, but our concept of "weekend" is fairly flexible. You can come for two days or two weeks (or more).
As it's a relaxacon, programming will consist mainly of meals and optional activities. We'll have the Resort's function room available for gatherings, tea/coffee/snacks, fanzines, games, and anything else you might want to do indoors in public.
Fans can also gather by the main pool (see photo left), next to the bar and restaurant, and just down the stairs from the function room. (If enough people are interested, and if the 3-bedroom unit next to the pool is available for rental, we'll use that as the function area instead.)
The rooms at the Terraces all have sea views (see photo right), kitchenettes, cable TV, and telephones. They can sleep between 2 and 4 people, or you could rent two connecting rooms or a two-bedroom suite and pack a lot of people in.
If you prefer accommodation on the beach, we'll book you into the Whitehaven Holiday Units. Joe and Gay Haldeman and Gregory Benford stayed there before Aussiecon 3. Those units sleep 2 to 4 and have kitchenettes and clothes washers/dryers.
For the even more budget-conscious, there are numerous backpackers' hostels and other low-cost places (with private rooms as well as shares), all within an easy stroll.
Why Airlie Beach?
It's a fabulous area in tropical Australia, with a great climate, lots to see and do, and very different from the southern cities. It's also where we live (in the Whitsunday Terraces Resort) and we like to show it off. You've heard of Cairns? We think the Whitsunday Islands area is better! Not as hot, not as humid, not as crowded, and with a greater variety of offshore islands and reefs.
Things to do include: swimming in the lagoon, windsurfing, parasailing, jet skiing, paddleboating, kayaking, golfing, visiting the wildlife park, walking, or just goofing off around the pool or in one of the many bars and cafes in town. You can also take one of the numerous motor or sailing boat trips to the islands or the reef, where you can swim, snorkel, scuba dive, ride in a glass-bottom boat, or just goof off... You could also take a sightseeing flight in a small plane. There's something for everyone, no matter what your fitness or energy level.
Other features of Airlie Beach include lots of eateries, from McDonald's through a variety of reasonably priced places serving excellent food, up to a few more upmarket eateries - none of them expensive by city standards. There are more internet cafes per metre of sidewalk than we've ever seen anywhere, so you'll have no excuse not to keep in touch with all your friends, who will be incredibly envious when they find out where you are.
Time for an extended visit?
Want to see some of outback Australia? Even if you've been to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock, you'll have seen only one type of Australian outback.
We're looking into hiring a minibus and taking a group of interested fans on a trip to Normanton and Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria, stopping at the Undara Lava Tubes and some other places of interest if we have time. Check this Web address for our report of a trip there in 2000 http://www.avalook.com.au/newsletr/oznews19.htm
