the whitsundays... christmas and new years.
Well, on the first day it was a bit of a mess, we drove to Airlie each with the car so badly packed it was unbelievable. Rob dropped me off at Shute Harbour and went and parked the car. When the woman eventually arrived it took ages to sort everyone out with everything like snorkell and stinger suit. Then the boat was about two hours late because they were fixing the steering arm or something. The boat ride took about an hour as we were the first drop off with 4 german people. It was lush weather though and it was really an amazing view when we first set eyes on Crayfish Beach, Hook Island. The water was crystal clear and looked so inviting!! We got off the boat and went onto the island to the campsite which was just a bit further up the beach. Rob looked at the compost toilet and immeadiatly chose the site furthest away from it! We set up the tent and just chilled out for a bit before cooking dinner of steak and chicken with fried onions and potato. It rained during the night and woke us up as it came pouring in the tent through the windows and the door. It was an interesting night, especially as we slept with the case!! Not the best night sleep but oh well. The next day we went snorkelling in the reef, I got a little freaked out by a bit of weed growing on the reef and Rob had to drag me out onto the reef but once I was out there I loved it, Rob didnt though because he complained that he didnt have an arm left because I was holding onto it so tightly. We went snorkelling about 4 times that day but the jellyfish started coming in with the tide in the afternoon so we just sunbathed and played cards under a tree in the shade because it was just so hot! It was a bit weird that it was so hot on christmas eve!! We covered the tent in tarps before we went to bed. We stayed dry that night!! I woke up first on christmas day then when Rob woke up I wouldnt let him go back to sleep. We opened our presents and read our cards (thanks everyone!) then put on the suncream and the bathers and sunbathed for a bit then went for another snorkell where we accidently came across a really beautiful stingray. We backed off a bit but it swam away really fast so we didnt get a picture. Snorkelled and sunbathed and played cards all day just chilling out in the shade and not stepping on the sand in the sun because it just burnt your feet so badly it was just so hot!! We had fried chicken and steak again for tea but it didnt really feel like christmas...it was just too hot!! Boxing day we just did the same, snorkelling, cards and sunbathing, creaming our ears as well as somehow they got burnt!! In the evening some people that were staying further along the beach came up and said did we want some fish and proceeded to give us this huge fillet of fish which was about 50cm long abd about 2 inches thick!! We ended up sharing it with the Germans. It was a spanish mackeral and was actually really nice! On sunday we went out snorkelling to a crack in the reef that the Germans had told us about and it was so amazing!! the reef was more colourful and everywhere you looked there were fish swimming about. We got lots of piuctures a lot of them were just coral though because you couldnt see the screen on the camera so I was a point and shoot jobby! Got some good ones though! The rest of the time we were there we couldnt go swimming because there were lots of jellyfish around and it rained most of the time and was windy so we jjust sat around playing cards. The tide during this time was coming in really high and going out really low. One night we slept on the beach next to the happy christmas that the people that were on the island before us had written in coral on the sand. That morning when we were back in the tent the tide came right up and washed it away and went right around the campsite into the dry creek behind us. On the last day the tide went out so low the whole reef was out of the water and we went out onto it and had a look around. It was weird seeing it out of the water. After that we caught the boat back to mainland where we could eventually have a shower and a proper toilet!!!
