Advertisement
Published: October 8th 2005
gr, just wrote this whole entry and then managed to delete it!!!!!! lets try again shall we...
**WARNING** those prone to insane jealousy are advised that they read this entry at their own risk 😊
Left magnetic island super early (it actually was, as in i was up at 5am!!eep!!) to get the 7am bus to airlie beach. bus journey long and boring, etc etc. was expecting airlie beach to be horrific and ugly for some reason not even known to me (i think it had something to do with the disappointment of townsville...), but was pleasantly surprised! its basically made up of just one street and not a very long one at that. along that street you have many many bars and cafes and restaurants and shops. and there is a lagoon as the beach is um, practically non-existent. all very lovely 😊
got to the hostel, sorted all my whitsunday/fraser island tickets out and then headed into town to have a little bit of a mooch around. didn't get very far, got hauled into a bar and spent the rest of the day at a bucks party, lol, don't ask. there were quite a lot of
us and a thoroughly good day was had. at some point i managed to aquire a cowboy hat but eventually had to give it back 😞 aw well! but yes, like i say, twas a super fun day for sure. pool was played and i won all of my games!!! yeah, go me! i obviously have hidden pool playing talents. either that or they let me win... hm, didn't think of that one before, hehe!
throughout the evening i managed to bump into (pay attention, this is quite an impressive list): the irish blokies from mission beach, sarah and laura from mission beach, claire, ian and nathan from townsville and jenny from pizza express!!!!!!
after the super excitment of my first day in airlie i rose bright and early the next morning for the beginning of my sailing adventure in the whitsundays!! yay!
i went on boat called summertime which only had 13 of us on it (went for one of the less lively boats so to speak so that i could just chill for a few days 😊). everyone was dead nice. i was the only one who was there on my own!! most of them
me, real live scuba lady :)
my first dive as a 'pro' in blue pearl bay, whitsundayswere couples (well, all apart from 2 people!) but they didn't once make me feel left out, really good bunch of people. there were 3 crew members who all had totally brilliant surfer dude voices (and were very nice to look at too 😊) called erol, chris and tom.
must say, yay me, didn't get travel sick at all for the whole 3 days!!!
the boat was really lovely, it had a hot tub and everything!! (obviously a main factor when booking it... 😊) it was a proper sailing boat too, not one of this white super fast catamaran thingies - tis all about the atmosphere don't ya know 😊
we set sail (hehe!) to blue pearl bay which is just off of hayman island and anchored for a few hours. me and another girl called nicola were the only certified scuba divers (how cool does that sounds 😊 😊 😊) so tom (one of the crew members) took us cave diving! it was awesome! we had to a backward roll entry from the dinghy too which was actually a lot more fun than it sounds 😊 saw the hugest batfish and at one point we realised
that we were totally surrounded by a huge shoal of parrotfish (i think...). and when i say huge i mean huge. as in we were totally surround by them. as in there were hundreds upon hundreds of them. it was so so weird because if we changed direction, so did they, like they were following us because they were curious or something. brilliant!!! and parrotfish aren't small, they're each about the size of an a5 sheet of paper maybe? it was so different to any of the dives that i've done before. the visibility was amazing and there were oodles and oodles of fish! the coral was beautiful too. and being able to just swim around and not have to worry about skills and sticking with the group was ace!
after the dive we swam up to the beach which was actually made of coral! random. and very pretty. but it made for very uncomfortable sunbathing!! so i went back in to the water and did some snorkelling. the coral actually came right up to the shore and the water was crystal clear. its amazing, all these big fish are just swimming around in the shallows and you can see
them from the beach. oooooh! when i was snorkelling i saw the biggest fish ever!!! i have no idea what it was called or anything like that (not down with my fish names i'm afraid) but it was the size of a medium sized dog, honest to god!!!
once back on the boat we headed to tongue bay, just off of whitsunday island where we anchored for the night. the sunset was awesome, and when the moon came up it was a full moon and absolutely huge!!! kind of like the harvest moons we get back home i guess? and it was a fiery red/orange colour. none of the pictures came out though 😞 aw well. the sky was amazing too - forget the amount of stars that i saw at uluru, this was 10 times better!!!
the next morning we got up and had breakfast on deck watching the turtles come up for their morning breath!!! soooo cool! tongue bay is a turtle feeding ground, so as we were sitting there all of a sudden you'd hear a really loud gasp and then see a turtle pop his head up and have a quick nosey around, hehe!
must have seen maybe 20 of them? it was cute as anything! turtle watching complete we packed our bags and hopped into the dinghy which took us across to whitsunday island.
we walked up to hill inlet lookout which looks out (duh!) over whitehaven beach.
oh. my. god.
its the most breathtaking sight that i have ever set eyes on. whitehaven is the second best beach in the world (according to national geographic, very official and stuff, not just the obviously very reliable gospel according to lindsey 😊). its AMAZING. the photos don't even begin to do it justice. i can't even describe what it was like to look out over it. it was a feeling of being in total paradise. nothing else mattered. i was speechless. (which is a rare occurence i'm sure you'll agree 😉) the view was stunning. the blues. the whites. the wow factor! eep!
spent the next 3 hours sunbathing and swimming and walking along this amazing beach and really didn't want to ever leave. i could live on that beach 😊 hehe. (don't think they'd let me though...) the sand was so so white that it looked like snow. you had
can we all say "paradise"? :D
whitehaven beach from hill inlet lookout, whitsunday island to wear sunglasses or the brightness was just too much. and it squeaked under your feet because its actually made of pure silica. the ocean was like glass, so beautiful and clear, it was like being in a swimming pool. and there were little fishes swimming around you in the shallows 😊
a few of us went for a walk a bit further up the beach to where the mangroves were and there were stingrays and sand sharks swimming around our feet!!!!!!!! tres exciting!
seriously though, the whole whitehaven experience was just out of this world. was obviously very sad to leave 😞
oooh, we saw a dolphin at one point! on the way to our next dive point i think it was. well, it was a dolphin fin, and in books that totally counts as dolphin 😊
went scuba diving with nicola and tom again in the afternoon. the visibility wasn't as good and there was quite a strong current, but it just made the whole dive a little more exciting 😊 saw some amazing coral and actually saw a big huge stingray that no one else did - its so frustrating trying to get people's
whitehaven beach
tis officially the second most beautiful beach in the world don't ya know? attention underwater!!!!!! when i got back on the boat, jumped straight in the hot tub! how awesome is it to be sitting in a hot tub with the sun beating down on you, looking out over the ocean?!! hehe, jealous some?
awww, my last morning on the boat 😞 - we were all up uber early and treated to another fantastic turtle show, all before breakfast!
we all went ocean kayaking, which, despite my initial reservations was brilliant fun!!!!! we spent about 2 hours kayaking down a gorge just off of whitsunday island and saw turtles and rays, it was great! bit of a pain on the way back though as the current was against us - blimey, did my arms hurt the next day!!!! the whole thing was just totally beautiful and calm and serene and i loved it! everyone was knackered when we got back on the boat and we all slept and chilled below deck for the trip back to airlie.
i can't even begin to describe the number of "pinch me" moments that i had over those three days, sitting on the deck sunbathing, feet hanging over the side of the boat. the
rush was just amazing. i don't think i've ever felt so content. the whole experience gave a new meaning to the term "wow factor". if you ever get the chance to go sailing in the whitsundays DO IT. its the most exhilarating fantastic super amazing thing that i have ever done in my life.
eep, how totally weird was it to be back on dry land, civilisation and all that! bumped into sharna back at the hostel, random! so that evening me and sharna and blue haired steve from the boat (it was meant to be everyone but a lot of them had already caught buses north/south) went out for something to eat and had a few drinks which was good fun.
tried to book my bus and accomodation in agnes water (next stop on the trip) but there was no room on the bus the next day!!!! so i had to book a few more days in airlie beach, but sharna changed her bus and everything to stay on with me, which was fab 😊
wasn't overly thrilled at the prospect of spending mre time in airlie - its a totally full on party town, bit insane
really!!
spent the next day chilling by airlie lagoon, topping up the tan etc etc. that evening me and sharna went to a brilliant little cocktail bar called capers (rozi, you'd totally approve!!) then went back to the hostel for a bit. we were meant to be going out, but all of a sudden there was an almighty screech outside our balcony and some poor guy had been knocked off his scooter by a yute. not good 😞 needless to say, after that we weren't really in party mode anymore :s
um yeah.
so anyway, the next day was spent in a similar way, sunbathing, swimming etc etc, because our bus wasn't till 11.30pm (it was a 10 hour bus ride so we thought we'd make it a bit easier on ourselves by doing it overnight.)!!!!!! but argh - the bus was an hour late, how rubbish it that!!!!! totally not impressed! still, finally got on it and settled down for a 'good' nights sleep. lol. yeah right 😊 sleeping on buses=not fun!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0258s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
