We got off our bus from
Townsville and arrived at Airlie beach the place to be to get to the
Whitsunday Islands. We hadn't booked anywhere so went to the first
hostel we saw which was a YHA. We booked to stay in a dorm and
chucked our stuff in the room, had a shower and went with Gem to try
and get some standby rates. We found a travel agent and got a trip
for the next morning on a sailing boat with 14 people on it for $300
each, we booked it and we were staving so went to a place which the
hostel had given us free pizza vouchers for, we couldn't say no to
free pizza and headed over there.
When we were walking
over to the place we bumped into our friend Kristen who we thought
was on her boat trip already, apparently she was a day early and she
had a free pizza voucher too from her hostel. So we all went for
pizza and had to wait about 2 hours for it, their way for us to keep
buying more drinks while we waited for the pizza.
We went back to the
hostel as we still had to pack our bag, we were given a small blue
bag which we could only take on. We got an early night as we had to
get up early to get to the boat.
When we got up in the
morning we chucked our stuff in the storage and checked out. It was a
gorgeous day and we had to walk about 20 mins to get to the harbour,
perfect start.
When we finally got to
the terminal, there were a few other people who were waiting to go on
the same boat as us, of course with their goon the same as ourselves.
The owner of the boat
then came over and introduced herself and took us to the boat, she
wasn't coming on the boat. She introduced us to our crew which was
two young Aussie lads.
We got chatting and
made some friends with the people we were on the boat with and we
sailed over towards White Haven Beach which took a while to get to.
Went we arrived we saw
a big boat with a helicopter flying above it taking stuff over to the
island, it looked like they were installing a toilet.
We also saw some logger
head turtles pop their heads up for air every now and again,
eventually we got onto a smaller boat to be taken over to the island.
We walked through a
little forest to get to the other side and my we were being attacked
by horse flies – another insect added to the annoying insect list.
But then we came out to
White Haven Beach and it was breathe taking – it was beautiful. The
sand was very hot though so we had to leg it over to the wet sand.
Most of us were
straight in the water, it was like bath water, lovely and warm.
We were on our own
until some day tour boats came over to see the beach. It didn't
bother us, but the mad tourist guide did. There were baby sharks in
the water which would swim past you now an again, but then this tour
guide came running in shouting towards his tourists to come and see
them and scared them all away!
There were also some
sea eagles flying ahead too, the tour guide went over to them and
started chucking some kind of meat up to them. But the birds had no
interest in him, it was quite funny, serves him right for being
cocky.
Soon after they all
left and we all had the beach to ourselves again, we had a radio
which we had to us to call one of the lads from the boat from, then
they come over and took us for a little walk to a platform where we
got some amazing pictures of the Whitsundays.
We went back on the
boat and had some lunch and drinks, we then sailed to where we were
sleeping for the evening. It was amazing seeing the sunset, we even
saw some dolphins too.
We were all chatting
about our trips and drinking our goon and soon it was dinner. After
that we all went back on deck and watched the stars, it was amazing
to see without any light pollution and there were hardly any clouds
either, you could see millions of stars.
That night when we went
to bed and I struggled to sleep that night since the boat was rocking
a little to much and I felt like I might fall out of my little cabin
bed. I could also see the stars through the window above me so made
it more difficult as I couldn't stop looking at them. Eventually the
rocking did help and the lapping of the water soon made me doze off.
We were up early for
breakfast as we were going snorkelling in the area where we stayed
the night.
We got our gear on and
had to wear stinger suits as it was then the beginning of the season
and had to wear them for precautions.
It was amazing, there
were so many fish around and they were very curious of us so came
right up to us and the camera, we got some really good photos.
We got back onto the
boat and had some tea and coffee and sailed over to another place
where we could go snorkelling which was just a strip of sand, it does
connect an island but since the tide came in it covered the walk way
to get there.
We took some stuff to
play with too which was a frisbee and a cricket set, we put our
snorkelling stuff on when we got over to the little sand island.
There wasn't many fish there but something even better, turtles!
They were hard to spot
at first because they were right near the coral and blended in really
well. They were going under bits of reef to stop floating up so they
could sleep. They came up every now and again for again so we got to
swim with them then.
We then played a bit of
frisbee on the beach before realising it wasn't working out to well
as the frisbee went flying right over into the water, we weren't
really suppose to go into the water without our stingers suits.
Then we all played
cricket, most of the boys joined in but I was the only girl to play,
we all had a really good laugh, I don't think they thought I was
going to be as good as I was haha.
Soon enough we were
back on the boat again and had a buffet lunch, we were then sailing
back to land as we said goodbye to the Whitsunday Islands.
We said goodbye to the
crew and to some of the people we were on the boat with who where
carrying on with their travels. The rest of us were meeting up for
drinks later that evening.
After we had our well
deserved shower we headed down to the bar to meet up and have some
drinks, some of the guys were leaving that night to catch the
overnight bus (which we would be doing the night after). Me, Matt and
Gem were shattered but had a quick drink at the hostel before going
to bed.
The next day we were
expecting Kristen to be coming back, she was now coming with me and
Matt to our next stop Agnus Water – Town of 1770. She came later in
the afternoon and told us about her trip. We just had a chilled out
day and headed down to Airlie's man made beach for a look.
We had to put our stuff
in Gems room because we already checked out that morning and our bus
wasn't until midnight. We had a couple of drinks as we wouldn't see
Gem again and watched tv in her room. Eventually it was time for us
to go so we grabbed our stuff and said our goodbyes to Gem.
The bus did turn up
late, all we wanted to do was sleep. We then left Airlie Beach and
down to Agnus waters – Town of 1770.
