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Published: August 19th 2009
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The next stop after Brisbane was Rainbow Beach. What a lovely little place it is! A tiny little town, with 3 hostels in a row on a road 200metres from the beach. Lovely little fish and chip café’s and such lovely people. Our nice little hostel was really cool. The staff were so helpful and friendly we immediately felt at home. We had our eye on a sea kayaking with dolphins trip in Rainbow Beach so we booked it for the next day.
Picked up at the hostel after our lovely free breakfast, we embarked on a trip along the gorgeous beach in the back of a 4 x 4 with 6 other eager beavers. It was a good 45 minutes before we arrived at our launch spot, and the drive was quite interesting. It took in coloured sands and swerving around trees that were had littered the beach, caused by sand slides at the Carlo Sand Blow. We also had the opportunity to handle little soldier crabs as we passed thousands of them as they scuttled back towards the sea after feeding in the sand.
The launch site had a few more waves than we, as inexperienced kayakers,
would have liked and sure enough less than 60 seconds into our time at sea, we managed to hit a wave side on and got toppled. Luckily enough we were still in shallow water so we could jump back in from a sanding start. Less then 30 seconds went by this time when another wave came along and tossed us straight back into the shallow water!! So now that we were completely soaked and acclimatised to the chilly Pacific Ocean, we gave it some elbow grease and caught up with the group. We got into a rhythm then and the rest was tough work at times but totally worth it. It was a great spot for dolphins, and soon enough, the curious buggers came over for a look at us. At times we were literally a couple of metres away from the pod and the experience is one we’ll never forget! Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures, because we decided not to bring our camera. A decision which turned out to be correct I’m sure you’ll agree considering we were unmercifully capsized twice! We did have a disposable camera, and we’re not sure if any of the photos will come
off it!
The home of beef in Australia was our next stop. Rockhampton is a lovely little town set upon a river. We only spent the 1 night there and decided that it would be rude if we didn’t have a steak in the home of beef! And boy was it tasty!
After Rockhampton we continued north and arrived in Mackey. Yet another town set upon a river, this one apparently full of crocodiles! We didn’t see any unfortunately. We did, however, come across the cheapest off licence in the country - Dan Murphy’s. Typically enough it would be Irish.
Mackay and Rockhampton were nice places, but we were happy to only have 1 night in each. We felt we would have gotten pretty bored pretty quickly otherwise! Something we were quite sure wouldn’t be the case in our next destination. . Airlie Beach.
The gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, Airlie Beach is a lovely small town with a real holiday vibe. We booked accommodation right across the road from the beach and everything in the town was within 2 minutes walk. We wasted no time booking our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef and
our day trip sailing around the Whitsunday islands.
It was an early start on the morning of Saturday 8th August. We were up and standing at the bus stop waiting to be picked up at 7.15am. We did manage a breakfast, but were nonetheless thankful for the complimentary tea and toast after we boarded our catamaran. Followed by muffins we were nicely fed and highly anticipating our arrival at Reefworld, a purpose built pontoon that stands by Hardy Reef, 72 kilometres from mainland Australia.
Upon our arrival we made straight for the mobile semi submersible. It took us on a 10 minute jaunt along the edge of the reef, giving us an amazing underwater view as we sat dry and comfortable. We saw so many colourful fish and coral, not to mention a turtle which really whetted our appetite to see them up close. Once out of the semi sub, we got straight into our wetsuits and organised our snorkel gear and were ready to go. After a false start with me picking the wrong size mask, we got into our rhythm soon enough. Such amazing sights we saw. The fish were otherworldly. It was like they were
designed by man. The colours were absolutely astounding. So bright and mind boggling. The best thing was that they weren’t afraid of us two big black bodies looming over them and they were quite happy to swim close to us, which made it hard to follow on of the rules were told before we started - no touching! It was so tempting to try rub them, but somehow we resisted the temptation.
It was about half way through our near 2 hour stint in the water that I called Lynsey over under the pretence of showing her something on the reef, but when she reached me I asked her to marry me instead! She thankfully said yes, despite the fact I hadn’t got the ring with me. It thought it better not to bring it in the bag with us in case she found it! I had hidden it from her for over 8 months, I couldn’t get rumbled this close! So I told her that I hadn’t got 1 yet but that we could go shopping for 1 together.
Later on that night before we went out for dinner, we went for a stroll along the beach,
and just as we reached the perfect spot, I stopped Lynsey, took her hand and dropped to 1 knee. I produced the ring and repeated the question. Thankfully she hadn’t changed her mind! She made me the happiest I’ve ever been, and the buzz still hasn’t worn off. It’s quite surreal still for both of us, but it’s slowly sinking in.
The excitement in Airlie Beach didn’t end there though, we still had to get a relatively early night, before rising to be picked up a 8am for our day of sailing! We were out on the Maxi Ragamuffin, an 80 foot long yacht that apparently had won some competitions over the years, can’t remember which ones, all that information all sailed right over our heads! Haha. We weren’t too far out on the open water before the boat began to list - tilt on its side. We had expected this, but not quite the severe angle it managed! We weren’t seated in a great position, and by the time she levelled out to serve tea and coffee, we had sore bums, arms and legs trying to steady ourselves and not fall overboard ! A quick repositioning to the
starboard side made the rest of the journey a lot more pleasant as we sat back and enjoyed our sail to Whitehaven Beach.
Whitehaven Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Its white sand is as fine as salt, and can be used to exfoliate the skin or to even clean jewellery. The sea is a perfect match, clear and blue and the kind you just want to submerse yourself in as soon as you see it! We disembarked the boat and after lunch on the beach had a couple of hours to do as we pleased. We spent most of the time swimming in the warm crystal clear waters.
The sail home was extremely enjoyable because this time we’d asked which way the boat would list and positioned ourselves accordingly!
Our last day in Airlie Beach was spent relaxing, we were quite worn out after our 2 day trips and subsequent early starts. We wandered in and out of the shops and spent time by the man made lagoon, designed for swimming in the summer months when the ocean is heaving with stinger jelly fish.
As we set off on
the Tuesday morning we felt something we hadn’t felt for a while. The realisation hit us that we had come to really like Airlie Beach, more so than most places we’ve been to on our current road trip, and we were quite sad to leave it. Aside from the obvious memories made by our engagement, we’ll always have a fond recollection of the nice seaside holiday village with a laid back charm.
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