Whitsunday Islands

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Arrived in Airlie Beach on Thursday - this is the stop for the Whitsundays so we checked into our hostel and boat before getting ourselves ready for our trip on Friday! Airlie is tiny but also has a big lagoon which was much nicer than the one in Cairns and looked less like a swimming pool !

We were up early on Friday to make our way to the marina to board our boat for the Whitsundays. We were on a boat called Kiana which is a 16.4 metre ketch and it was meant to go to the Outer reef as well as around the islands but unfortunately the weather took a bit of a turn for the worse so we didn't make it out there ! Instead we did lots of snorkeling around the reefs at the islands and visited the amazing Whitehaven Beach. There were 14 of us on board all from different countries and 3 crew. The entire trip was great fun and we did so much snorkeling and saw so many amazing fish ! We were in the water by 7 am the first day and 8am the next which was pretty impressive! Each time you were getting in the water you had to get into a stinger suit with hood which was very attractive altogether! Even though we were covered from head to toe by the suit I still managed to get stung on the lip just between my mask and snorkel ! I didn't even see a jelly fish so think it was just a bit of one as the turtles eat them and spit bits out ! Luckily it was fine and after the captain had thrown a jug of vinegar over my entire head I was fine, although smelling of a chip shop !! The snorkeling was amazing we saw so much coral which was so colourful and also saw millions of fish including a shark (which was very scary), giant parrot fish (which are an endangered species and 2 metres long), bat fish, dolphins, turtles, a sting ray and after 3 days of searching a family of nemos including a little baby nemo! We had good craic on board and amazing food, including a roast lamb one night !! One of the most spectacular memories will however be Whitehaven beach - we landed on this small rocky beach and went for a climb through the rainforest to a lookout - none of us really knew what to expect and the view when we reached the lookout was breathtaking. The sands change each day so you never get the same view again which is pretty cool! Made our way from the lookout to the beach itself and chilled out there for a while. The sand is 98% silicon based and Nasa are the only ones who have ever been allowed come and take some of the sand for use in the Hubble telescope. It is so soft you would not believe !! One of the crew on board the boat took photos of the entire trip and we got a cd at the end so we have some funny photos of us at Whitehaven and throughout the trip.

Arrived back into Airlie on Sunday and met up with the crowd from our boat that night for drinks before heading off on the Oz bus again the next morning ...

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Comments

[anna]

michelle you look fantastic. paul-yum yum