|
  | |  |
Day 71 - Townsville to Whitsunday Islands
Entry 72 of 243 | show all | print this entry |
|
We got up early, had some cereal, and then started driving.
We'd seen nothing of Townsville, but there didn't seem much to see, and we knew it would be nothing compared to the Whitsunday Islands, which were our next stop.
The weather was still poor, very grey and with rain threatening, all we could do was keep our fingers & toes crossed...
The drive itself was without a doubt the most boring journey so far, the road curved away from the coast, giving us absolutely nothing to see apart from fields and trees, and the odd petrol station.
There was one nice lookout though !
We also passed one of the "big things" which are dotted around the Aussie roads, there's a Big Banana in Coffs Harbour, a Big Shrimp somewhere else, and our first "big" experience was a Big Mango !! I like, is nice...
A few hours later we arrived in Airlie Beach (launch-pad to the Whitsundays), at about 2pm, and I fired off a few snaps of the harbour area, which was rather nice..
We then headed for our hostel, and judging by the queues outside the tour agencies, we thought it made sense to try and book a boat trip asap.
Sure enough, after booking a room and chucking our stuff in it, there proved to be practically nothing available to sail tomorrow.
We'd intended to book a 3 day/2 night tour on a mid-range boat, but the only spaces available were on a luxury 5 star tall ship, or a small fast racing boat. The only other option was to get back a day later than planned, which would mean losing a day further down our Oz adventure, which was not good.
So we looked at both options in detail (I've never seen a busier tour agent's office, there were 2 staff and about 30 people trying to book trips), and decided that the luxury boat was our best option. It cost a bloody fortune, but we thought "it IS our honeymoon...", which is a bit like our trump card in any sticky situation !
I think Katie prefered the racing boat, but I thought that if the weather was crap then we were better to be on a big boat in relative 'luxury' than crammed in with a load of drunken teenage backpackers !! I'm also not great on water and REALLY didn't fancy being thrown around on a bloody fast boat with strong winds...
The only problem with the luxury boat was that it set sail at 4pm... TODAY !!! So we had less than 2 hours to get everything sorted and get on the boat !
The tour itself was a 3 day/3 night adventure, so we also got an extra night on the water, and it fit our schedule perfectly, so we didn't have to miss out on anything else later...
So we paid the exorbitant charge (we did get a $100 discount each for booking at the last minute), ran off to move the car into the hostel car park, frantically re-packed into our small backpacks, grabbed some food and waited for the bus to take us to the docks.
The other people on the bus were mainly older than us, there were a few girls our age or there abouts, so it looked a good mix of people.
After completing the formalities at the docks, we all went off to board our boat, called "Whitsunday Magic" for those of you that may want to Google it !
It was really cool walking to our boat in the harbour, it looked wicked. It had 3 huge masts, and a total of 9 sails. (The sails weren't up yet, so you had to use your imagination !)
We had a quick welcome briefing on the 'aft-deck' (back deck), where the layout of the boat was explained, with the various rules & regulations.
Highlights were: multi-location snorkling included each day, happy hour deals on drinks, surprisingly low drinks prices, comfy sunloungers on the 'sun-deck', free water & coffee/tea, 3 free meals a day plus snacks, and loads of other stuff I've probably forgotten...
15 minutes later we'd been shown our rooms (which were MUCH nicer than our boat at Halong Bay in Vietnam !!), and gathered upstairs to see that we'd pulled away from the docks and were using the engine to drive off towards our first stop in Hook Island.
Unfortunately the weather was still crap, with dark rain clouds all around us. When the sun did come out for a few minutes it was even worse, like being teased: "ha ha, this is what it COULD be like you scum-bags !!"
All we could do is pray that we would have some good weather over the next 3 nights & 3 days...
Sailing among the islands was lovely, it was just such a shame that their famous colours were so dulled due to the weather conditions.
That evening we moored in a quiet bay on Hook Island, and had our first dinner. Again it was so much better than our previous boat experience, but I guess it was an awful lot more expensive !
Can't remember what it was, but it was lush, like food from a good restaurant. We ordered some wine with it, and were delighted when a dessert appeared afterwards. We could get used to this...
After dinner the weather was still awful and it was getting dark, so they kindly made an early start to Happy Hour, which became a Happy 2 Hours !!! Nice work ;)
This was a good chance to get to know some of our ship-mates, who were generally a nice bunch of people. We liked an English couple from Chiswick (where I used to work and where 2 of my best mates live !), an Irish Mum & daughter, a German girl & her Austrian friend, and a German guy.
We were both really tired after her long drive so we had a relatively early night, figuring we had another 2 days to get stuck in to the drinking !
We went to sleep dreaming positive dreams of bright sunshine, white sandy beaches and shimmering seas, praying that we would see these when we woke up tomorrow...
Lots of love,
Al & Katie xx
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Australia or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
34 votes 
