Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays!!

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Hi Everyone!

Hope that all is well! Australia is still just as amazing!! 😊

Yesterday, after a 2 hour flight and 2 hour bus ride, we arrived here in Airlie Beach, which is up the coast from Sydney. It's close to all of the ferries that go out to the Great Barrier Reef, which makes it an ideal location! Along with that, it has lots of neat shops, a little beach, green mountains, and cute little houses... I really love the place, it's quite beautiful and a lot of fun. Our hostel is actually very nice as well. We are in a 10 person room (which in the past, I haven't had the best experiences with), but it's actually quite nice-- very clean, spacious, and we have 2 showers and a toilet within our room-- most hostels you have to share a bathroom with everyone on the floor, sort of like dorms. The hostel workers are very helpful as well and have been great to talk to about things to do here. The people in our room are really nice too; a few from Melbourne, one from France, England, and a few others. I'm sure there are new roommates tonight though as well! When we got here yesterday, it was about 3:30 and a little rainy, so we went to the hostel and settled in, booked a few things to do, etc. Then we walked down by the shops for a little while and the beach, took some nice pictures, then went to the lagoon and sat with our feet in the water for awhile as we wrote some postcards. Then we headed to dinner at a place that had a special for $10 steaks-- I'm not normally a steak person, but being my cheap self, that sounded good to me, and the steak was actually really good! I also got to have some Strongbow-- my favorite!! Afterwards, we walked by the beach a little more and as we were leaving... we saw a PYTHON!!! AHH!!! It scared the crap out of us-- I thought I was going to step on it barefoot!! Another man came by us when he heard us scream and was like "aw they won't hurt anything"... easy for him to say!! haha. Anyways, it was an interesting experience. After that we headed home... a long day of traveling (woke up at 5 am!) and we were exhausted, especially since we had to get up at 6:30 again today.

Today we got up early to go on a beach cruise. We got on a bus in the morning which took us to a ferry. The ferry to us to 3 different islands: Daydream Island, Hamilton Island, and Whitehaven Beach. These are all part of the Whitsundays, which is where the reef is. When we first got to Daydream, it was pouring down rain. Kind of a bummer, but we made the best of it. We walked around a little bit and were drenched from the rain, so when we found a lagoon to swim in we jumped right in-- it actually ended up being a ton of fun, even though we were soaking wet when we got back on the ferry!

We then met a few girls on our cruise both from Australia- one from Sydney and one from up here in a place called Townsville. They were both our age and very friendly. When we got to Hamilton Island, the sun started to come out a bit and the 4 of us practically ran to the beach! The ocean water here is SO warm, it's like bathwater!!! We took a few pictures and played in the ocean for a little while, and then found a pool that had a swim up bar with bar stools! Naturally, we HAD to try it out! By the time we finished a drink, it was time to head back to the ferry and depart for Whitehaven Beach. When we got on the boat, they had an all out BBQ for us with so much food... kabobs, steak, trout, salads, noodles, bread... basically everything....After stuffing ourselves, we arrived at Whitehaven Beach. Whitehaven was BEAUTIFUL. Kara had told me about it before, but I've never seen sand so white and water so clear blue!! We actually had to put on wetsuits before we even got in the water in case stingrays or jellyfish were there-- which obviously made me paranoid about it already! It was nice to spend a few hours there, but after a little while it started to rain. None of us really minded though, it was so pretty anyways, although it would have been nice to have a little more sun. Oh well! Once that was done we headed home. Kara and I just grabbed a little dinner and I stopped at the market to pick up a few groceries so I stop buying food here!! Tonight we're going to explore the nightlife at Airlie Beach, which we've heard is pretty fun, and we'll probably meet up with our friends that we met today as well. Should be fun!!

Tomorrow we're going back up to the reef on a boat that's supposed to be like a raft but to a few different islands on the northern side, and we're going to do some snorkelling. Well I better go, my internet minutes are running out!!

Take care!

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