Airlie Beach

Trip Start Sep 11, 2008
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Trip End Jun 05, 2009

Flag of Australia  , Queensland,
Friday, December 19, 2008

We took a flight from Melbourne to Mackay at 7am and arrived at 9am Queensland time. We flew East but went back an hour as Queensland aren't using daylight saving time. We waited 3 hours for the Greyhound bus in the little airport with adverts for mining machinery everywhere as its a mining and sugar town. The bus up to Airlie Beach was 2 hours, we found the hostel in the small village and went to the beach. Except you can't swim because of stingers so theres nobody on the beach, but theres a purpose built lagoon with loads of backpackers round it. Its a proper party town but we laid pretty low relaxing for a few days. We met a Welsh couple and got hammered one night, Lucy did karaoke and we were the last ones to be turfed out of the club at the hostel before we moved on to another. The day after that we had to check out at 10 and our bus wasn't til 6 so we sat under a tree in the park by the beach all day wrecked.
We went on a trip to the Whitsunday Islands which is why everyone goes to Airlie Beach. We just took a day trip to save money but did a dive as an extra which was awful. The gear was crap, the dive was rushed, the divemaster and a korean guy were smashing up the coral, everything about it was bad. We did see some good coral and went through some ridiculously tight swimthroughs again with no regard for the corals. Never dive as part of the day trips there, we felt so guilty for playing a small part in damaging the reef. Its not technically part of the Great Barrier Reef though. The rest of the trip was good, we went to a lookout point over Whitehaven Beach one of the best in the world then went there for a couple of hours. The sand is 99.86% silica and so fine it can damage cameras, polish jewellery or teeth and exfoliate skin. The photos have come out a wierd colour because of the reflected light. The water is a perfect emerald colour even far off the beach. It was pretty good even after the beaches in Thailand but I think my perfect beach is one with palm trees over the sand and there ain't any there, just a few gum trees. The weather was perfect, as it was for all the time we were in Airlie Beach.
Apart from that we did a bit of fishing off the rocks, tried to book camper vans with no joy, ate Dominos pizzas which bizarrely was the cheapest meal in town and got stuck into upping my total of different beers round the world which now stands at 65. We also polished off all the duty-free Tanqueray and considered ourselves flashpackers. Some big green tree frogs hung around outside our room which were cool, and didn't make any noise!
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