Millennia ago I was
telling you that some friends were coming all the way from Spain (sorry, from
Catalonia) to visit us. So finally they came. And of course, to be a proper
cicerone, I had to prepare a nice and eventful route for them.
Not to be too original,
the biggest events of the eventful route were the mandatory cruise around the
beautiful Whitsunday Islands, and the no less mandatory 4WD trip in the wild of
Fraser Island. And these two events will be the ones narrated in the two next
posts.
It seems they are
uncountable operators in Australia that offer you the typical East Coast pack,
consisting on Whitsundays + Fraser Island. Some of them even add stuff in
Cairns and Missiom Beach, but the most common one is still the first one. All
of them seem to have more or less the same, at the same price (300$ + extras).
We got ours through the Magnums Backpackers in Airlie Beach, and we are not
insatisfied at all, so I can recommend it.
If there are
uncountable operators offering boat trips, they are infinite boats serving
these trips. The one who had the honour to carry us was the Habibi, a handsome
and tight yacht with a nice and friendly crew. We were about 25 in the boat, so we were
not necessarily spacious, but was more than fine for the two days and two
nights we spent on board at the price that we paid.
Sailing the
Whitsundays is probably one of the most relaxing activities you can do around.
Doesn’t go much further than laying on the deck (if you find a free spot) and
line up for the food when they ring the bell, while meeting fellow travellers
from all around the world.
But is not just
laziness what is all about. Whitehaven Beach is a stunning white silica beach.
They say that is one of the top 5 beaches in the world, though I would like to
know who and how is this ranking built. Undoubtably stunning. But not very
active either.
The other main
activity is to snorkel around a little bit. And doing it at seven o’clock in
the morning should be considered something very active. Though technically not
in the Great Barrier Reef, the sites around the islands are absolutely
magnificient, and I didn’t feel it was worse (at all) than snorkelling outside
Cairns. We even saw a huge number of huge wrasses (a big big ugly fish)
swimming around us. I remember that in Cairns they said that, if we were lucky,
we could see the one inhabitant wrasse of that part of the reef. So that.
And that was about
it. Not an activity for adrenalie junkies, certainly, but absolutely beautiful
for those who like the sea, who like to relax, or who like beautiful places.
Oh! And my friends
also good, thank you!
