Airlie Beach & The Whitsunday Islands, Australia

  Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia
Saturday, December 6, 2008

We took the ferry from Magnetic Island to Townsville on Saturday morning and drove to Airlie Beach. Airlie beach was a lot more touristy than I expected. Everything there seems to revolve around tourists and sending them on trips to the Whitsundays. We found a caravan park on the outskirts of the town and collected Dan and Ema from the greyhound bus as they were going to stay there too. We spent a quiet night on the campsite playing cards, very competitively, and got an early night. We were up the next morning at 6.30 to go sailing. We went on a racing boat called the Hammer. There were 22 passengers and 3 crew. Apparently the boat goes at an angle of 45 degrees when there is enough wind but it was very calm that morning so we just headed straight to White Haven Beach. We had seen postcards of the beach but we were trying not to expect too much but it was amazing. We walked up to the look out point and when we went around the corner all we could see were perfect white beaches and tourquoise water. We stayed up there for a while to have a look but it was too hot. We raced down the path to get into the water. Unfortunately we had to get into our sexy stinger suits first. Karl thought he was great in his suit (see pictures).

Whitehaven Beach

Karl in Sexy Stinger Suit

Just standing in the shallow water we could see large sting rays and fish swimming around us. We had a few hours there before we had to go back to the boat. It is supposed to be one of the best beaches in the world and it was definitely the best we have seen so far on our travels. We got back on the boat and started sailing towards Pearl Bay where we would be anchoring for the night. We had a really nice dinner and a few drinks with the others on board. There were Canadians, Norwegians, Swiss and Germans who kept to themselves and then us and an English couple and a Liverpool girl going out with an Aussie. If it wasn't for the other two couples we would have been bored out of our tree. We were getting annoyed with the "foreigners" because they didn't like the rule that everyone should get some food before they should go for seconds and thirds and then they made us listen to a Cyprus Hill album for hours and one of the germans had the tighest most hideous swimming shorts on. The girl from Liverpool wanted to take his shorts that night and hang them out of the sail, he didn't take them off though. After drinking some more goon we headed off to bed. It was quite hot and cramped downstairs but managed to sleep ok. Think the goon helped. Most people slept up on deck because it was too hot downstairs.

Us at Whithaven Beach

Our Sailboat

The next morning we had breakfast at around 7am and then went for a snorkel around Pearl Bay which is also known as the fish bowl. When we were having breakfast we noticed a lot of big fish around the boat and also a lot of jellyfish. So on went the lovely stinger suits again and we headed for the beach. Karl was told he could have pool noodles when he was snorkelling but some of the foreigners had decided to take them to relax with or something. We were liking them less and less. When Karl asked for them because they could swim and he wouldn't be able to snorkel without them they grudgingly handed them over with a big face on them. The snorkelling was amazing. there are so many fish there and a lot of coral. Some of the coral is dead which is really sad to see but there is still a lot of colourful beautiful coral there.

Captain Karl

The Goonies

We were told on the boat that there is a huge Maori Wrasse that lives in the area and we would be able to see him. His name is Elvis. We thought they were exageratting but when we saw it coming straight for us I got a bit of a fright. The thing is massive! It really is like swimming in an aquarium. After snorkelling for a few hours we headed back to Airlie Beach. The wind was still really light so it took a while to get back. I think Karl was relieved that we couldn't tilt 45 degrees cos he was afraid he would fall over board. It was a great trip and i'm glad we booked the 1 night trip. There are a lot of 2 or 3 night trips but 1 night on the uncomfortable boat was enough for us. We were supposed to meet everyone from the boat that night in one of the bars where a table was reserved but the Liverpool and Aussie couple were getting straight on a bus and we didn't want to hang around with the foreigners so we went to a different bar with the English couple.
We had to say goodbye to Ema and Dan that evening too because they have to get to Sydney before us. We had such a a good laugh with them that it was sad to see them go.