Martinique Whitsunday Resort Airlie Beach

At first I didn't think I cared too much about sailing, but then after a bit of consideration, I thought "Beth, are you crazy, sailing through the Whitsunday Islands is sure to be a major highlight of the East coast trip." That's right I talk to myself in third-person. I think the reason for my initial lack of excitement is that I didn't have too many expectations about it, which I actually prefer. Too many times I've felt a slight disapointment because something didn't live up to someone ...

... sac pour ma croisière dans les Whitsundays, fait quelques achats et chiller au Lagoon. En fin de journée, je me suis dirigé à la Marina qui était le point de rencontre pour le départ en catamaran sur le « Pacific Star ». Malheureusement, le nom du bateau est un peu « boboche » considérant le plaisir qui m’attend pour les 3 prochains jours. Un nom comme le « Swedish Penish » (Ce nom est spécialement pour Yannick – tu remarqueras que ...

... Jo and Sharon offered to clean the windscreen but this proved impossible, so I did it myself.

We decided to take the coastal route back to Rockhampton so started to back track.

Home Hill awaited us just 100 km away and then onto RV unfriendly Bowen. Not a free camp within 50 km of the township, so we had to park at an expensive caravan park, but the luxury of being plugged in to shore power with ...

... we a had a bit of a drink in the bar and booked a sailing trip and had an early night. the next morning we went down to the port to find our sailing boat! there were 11 people on the boat plus 2 crew so it was nice and small and was more of a couples boat than a party boat! there were 4 couples and 3 single guys who i think must have booked the wrong trip because they wanted to party! anyway we set off around lunch time and although it was on spitting on land, as soon as we got out ...

... Unfortunately after about an hour on the beach the sky turned black and it started to rain a little bit so we headed back to the boat. We then sailed out and anchored up next to some of the reef and we got out and snorkeled for nearly 2 hours. Celia had been feeling pretty sea sick and drinking so much sea water made her feel worse so she got back on the boat early, whereas they nearly had to drag Lee out of the sea! There were so many fish and colorful coral that once you got use to ...

... clearly, it was just incredible. I wish I could've got a photo, but my camera's just not good enough. Dammit. The other passengers on the boat were all great fun, and we all met up in Airlie Beach town for a meal the night we got back to shore. After three days on a small boat, we all had wobbly legs and felt like we were still swaying! The best day of the trip was the second day, we spent the morning on Whitehaven Beach marvelling at the almost pure silica sand ...

... while on the way we had some lunch. It was a bit of torture for the blokes as they did a ladies first policy (equal rights only when it suits them) and with more women than men on the boat it took a while before we would get to eat.
After a chilling out after lunch for a while we pulled up in Blue Pearl Bay for our afternoon of fish watching. I'd signed up for a dive and after our safety briefing we all headed to the beach. Laura didn't fancy it and was happy ...

... on my ipod, the American Hire car special and forgot how funny that was, Laura kept giving me the stare that I was making to much noise giggling. As soon as first light comes there's definitely no way of sleeping but I always enjoying watching the sun rise on a new day. We got dropped off just before 7 am and headed blurry eyed towards our hostel hoping they had a room ready for us. Thankfully they did and we did the ...

... and camera were fine and tried again, with success, this time ensuring that ass went over at the same time as her leg, basically rolling over :-).

After the fun & games, and beauty of Whiteheaven beach we had a couple rest days in Airlie which gave us some rest time, which was much needed! Airlie Beach was a nice town to stay in, we stayed in a hostel in the heart of the town, food was great, and we found an awesome pizza place, excellent ...

... unbedingt mal googeln, da bleibt euch die Spuke weg!) umso atemb**aubend**. Sowas hab ich noch nie gesehen. Das war wirklich so, wie wenn du in ein** Postkarte spazi**en gehst! Einfach unbeschreiblich! D** Quarzsand ist so fein wie Pud**zuck** und ist als Kam**a-Kill** b**ühmt-b**üchtigt, weil dies** extrem feine Sand so fein ist und somit üb**all reinkommt.
Genießt die Fotos, es war einfach traumhaft dort!
Liebe Grüße
V**ena