East Coast Australia
Trip Start
Apr 21, 2008
1
18
26
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Airlie Beach,
Queensland,
Australia
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Anyway Airlie beach has alot of backpackers and tourists, mainly as you can get to the Whitsunday islands from here. We think we may have wrecked our suspension too as they have alot of huge speed bumps here. Anyway Airlie beach has a really nice feel, there is a nice walk which we did along the coast and explored the area. We visited the lagoon ( an area where you can swim in a sea salt pool, and lounge on the beach have bbqs etc to avoid the stingers in the sea and as an alternative for those who don't like the sea)
We spent some time at the marina and admiring some of the architecture. The main section of this part was the trip to the Whitsunday islands, we chose a trip that took us to Hook Island, Daydream island and Whitsunday Island. Unfortunately the weather was not very nice for this trip, it was cold, dull and raining. We could imagine how Nice the beaches etc would have been in the sun. First stop was Whitsunday Island and Whitehaven beach. The beach is beautifully white, clean and soft ( and i don't really like Beach's), i saw my first sea plane take off here which wasn't as exciting as i had hoped!!
Then it was back on the catamaran to Hook Island, here we looked in the underwater observatory at the coral reef and the fish, which was really cool and there were some huge fish!! We also went on the Reef explorer, a boat with windows in the bottom to see the reef without having to get wet, this was a good idea but because the weather was dull we didn't see a great deal and as it was the outer reef the coral was not as colouful as you imagine ( sometimes caused by bleaching). We were then allowed to do what we wanted for a little while as some people went snorkeling but it was far too cold for that, so me and Craig headed to do some rock climbing ( well clambering) ....when we returned the beach was dead and there was no one around...we ran to the jetty but there was no boat!!! They had left us on the island!! There is one tiny hostel on the island and when we got there they radioed the boat who said they had the correct number of passengers....someone hadn't updated the list to include the staff returning on the boat from the hostel so they had took our place....luckily the boat returned after about half and hour otherwise we would have been stuck on the island until the next day...it was quite embarrassing.
Final stop was Daydream island which is a whole resort where you can do what you want for a while so we wandered and explored the island.
Oh i also got attacked ( well jumped on by a dog here) so my fear of dogs is even worse now!!! It emerged out of the woods and was awful...so much for our relaxing walk in the national park...altough at the end we found a lovely secluded beach.
Overall the day was good, and the Whitsunday islands are beautiful....there are soo many places we want to return to...
