So i left Australia almost 3 weeks ago and im only just getting round to completing my description of our australian adventure. Disgraceful. Ill pick up where i left off at the start of our second day in the Whitsunday islands...
After having such a small amount of sleep the previous night i slept most of the way to whitehaven, and was awoken by Freya to the sight of reputedly one of the top five beaches in the world, and pretty nice it was too.
I didnt think it had quite the same WOW factor as Lake McKenzie, but maybe im just becoming immune as we have seen alot of beautiful beaches on this trip. We had to wear some particularly attractive stinger suits as its Jelly Fish season,so once we were in the water we were staying in, there was no way i was struggling in and out of a wet wet suit, i do enough of that at home, after a few hours of playing about we were about to retreat back to the boat for lunch when we spotted a little reef shark in the shallows, not the typical shark scenario as we were all following it trying to get a better look whilst it swam away, rather than vice versa as you would expect. Once back on the boat we put up the sails and headed for the dive site. Luckily for us this day was the opposite of the day before with bright sunshine, and everyone got burnt in some amusing patterns from where they had been sat on the side of the boat. The hand print on kates leg was my favourite.
Once we were at the dive site i was eager to get in the water so did abit of snorkelling whilst waiting for my turn, and saw an eagle ray. Sadly it was the most exciting thing i saw that day, ive seen more in english waters and in better vis so was more than a littl bit disappointed with my first experience of Australian waters. After we had managed to get everyone back on board without losing anyone we headed off to Hayman island, this is the most exclusive resort in the Whitsundays with suits costin up $200,000 AUD a night. Needless to say riffraff like ourselves were not allowed to set foot on land so we anchored up in a sheltered bay for the night. The nights entertainment was somewhat depleted from the previous nights antics, however Laura, James, Shaz and myself still managed to put away vast quantities of goon, whislt playing the name game. You may note here that i suck at the name game however my faculties were still intact enough to notice when James attempted to use "Gari Baldi" as a person. Bedded down on deck for the night and slept peacefully untill Fiona woke me at 6am to inform me it was starting to rain, so relocated downstairs for another couple of hours sleep.
Emerged later to discover there were loads of bat fish off the side of the boat so considered doing a second dive until the wind picked up and i couldnt be bothered to pay for another dive in shit vis (they will turn me into a warm water diver yet!) so just opted to snorkel. Had a slight snorkel related incident (there was no mouthpeice) much to Ryans amusement that "a dive instructor hadnt thought to check her kit before she got in the boat" but that was soon rectified and i saw a turtle and play with lots of parrot fish. Just as we were about to leave, the wind which had so considerately picked up and ruined the vis for snorkelling decided to drop again so we had to head for home under motor! Check out the video Renee made of our whitsundays adventures.
Made it safely back to Airlie Beach, at whic point Shaz and I had the great idea that we should change our buses so we got the 0245am bus straight from the boat return party in the pub, Jen as less than enthused by this idea, being the sensible kinda girl she is, but i soon managed to persuade her so after a quick shower at Shaz's hostel the drinks began to flow.
Just before 0200 we relocated ourselves from the pub to the bus stop, only to discover our bus was an hour late, so i slept on the floor then on the bus. Jen and I finally reached Carins at 1300 and made our way to the hostel for a few more hours kip. This was Australia Day so we felt we ought to be out doing something, but we were cream crackered so just claimed our free meal from the hostel and went to the movies to watch "Australia" as we thought that was suitably Australian to do on Australia Day.
We did really very little on the 27th except sleep and explore the night markets where we discovered a 40min massage for $15.. Bargain. Whilst looking for the night markets we wandered past the harbour, there was one of those huge P&O cruise liners in port and a discussion followed about whether or not it was bigger than the Titanic. We couldnt agree so eventually decided to go ask the ships security, they informed us it was 60m bigger and for some reason we heard laughing as we walked away.. Jen doesnt beleive them and is going to Wikipedia the size of the Pacific Sun and then size of the Titanic.. ill let you know the results!
The next morning we were up early once more for a trip to the Outer Barrier Reef, we got to Harrison Reef kitted up and hopped into the water, just me, the guide and a newly qualified OW lad, he was down to 70bar after 20mins so the guide took him bac to the boat whilst i played with a turtle and then we continued with the dive, the reef here was much more what i had been expecting from australia, and i saw 3 turtles, although i still dont think there was as much fish life as in Egypt. Had a chilled out lunch and wasnt going to do a second dive but after abit of coersion and the promised that if we didnt see sharks my guide would cut his arm off to attract them i paid up. Sure enough 5 mins into the dive we saw a beautiful 2m white tip reef shark, which swam around with us for about 5mins. Absolute magic. I could have made my guide cut himself because he swam straight past the Shark without noticing it and i had to point it out to him. But im a nice girl so i didnt! Got back from the dive and went snorkelling with Jen and saw another eagle ray. Good stuff. made better by an embarrasing incident for one of the dive instructors on board when a jelly fish swam up his boardies and stung him all the way round his legs, groin and butt... quite amusing for the rest of us as he locked himself in the toilet with the vinegar. Saw Shaz for dinner that night and had a few drinks before retreating to the hostel for an early night before our early departure for Cape Tribulation the next morning.
We headed north for an hour or so then stoppedd for brekkie at which point Jen discovered she had forgotten her purse. What is she like.. It was quite a good trip, we went on a cruise up the Daintree River and saw a little Crocodile, and then went on a Rainforest Walk where we learnt alot about the ferns etc and saw a Dragon lizard
We had lunch by the beach and then drove down to Mosman Gorge stopping along the way for photos of Alexandra Heads and Snapper Island. The gorge was very pretty
and swimming in the river was amazing especially when a tropical rain storm began
until we realised all our stuff on the bank was getting VERY wet, so we ran back to the toilets to change, where we discovered a huge (as big as my hand) golden globe spider
We then headed back to Cairns via Port Douglases amaing ice cream shop with 42 different flavours of ice cream. Whilst it was a good day i did feel like a i spent most of the day on the bus and had very little time at the places we stopped. I think a better way to do it would be to hire a car and stay there overnight and it probably wouldnt cost much more between a few of you. Of course we returned to the night markets once we got back to Cairns for another massage!
Our last full day in Australia was throughly unproductive, we slept late and then discovered the Aboriginal Centre we wanted to visit was miles away and extortionaly expensive so finished australia in the way we had spent most of our time, wallowing in the lagoon.
A most incongrous although very fitting end to the first part of our adventure!
