Arriving at Airlie Beach

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Today we were flying up to the Whitsundays on the North East coast for a 3 day sailing trip. It was an early start, waking up at 5am to catch the shuttle from our hotel to the Airport. Once at the airport we checked in and got some breakfast – a Boost fruit smoothie and a Mc Ds sausage and egg mcmuffin.

The flight was a little delayed leaving Sydney, so we missed our connecting ferry from Hamilton Island to Able Point Marina. But when we arrived at Hamilton Island it didn’t seem to be a problem as they have ferries leaving from Hamilton to Airlie Beach every 30mins so they booked us on the next ferry that was just about to leave. The ferry made one stop in Hamilton Island Marina on the way over to Airlie Beach. We were going to be staying on Hamilton Island for a night at the end of our trip and we were all excited by how nice the Island looked. From Hamilton Island Marina it was a 30min journey across to Able Point Marina and then a 20min coach journey across to Airlie Beach where we were going to be staying.

We checked in at our hostel X-Base, at the end of the high street in Airlie Beach. The hostel was nice, with a short walk through the gardens to our room which was made out of a block of 4 rooms. Once we had sorted out our bags we packed up some beach stuff and headed along the high street to get some lunch. We then spent the afternoon sunbathing by the lagoon. As much as the name would suggest, there isn’t actually a big sandy beach at Airlie Beach – it is mainly rocky, so they’ve built a large man made lagoon instead.

In the evening we headed back to the hostel to shower and change before going to the local bar ‘Down Under Bar’ for a quick drink with the other backpackers. We took a walk along the high street to find some dinner and settled on a pizza restaurant overlooking the lagoon, which did great pizzas. We had a couple of drinks on the high street before going to bed – careful not to have hangovers for our first day on the boat!

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