Airlie & Bowen

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We had spent some time in Airlie Beach (and the beautiful Whitsunday Islands) in 2007. For a lot of places, though, I hadn’t matched the memories with the towns’ names, so I had one of those déjà-vu moments as we drove into town.



We actually spent our first day and night in a caravan park outside of town, catching up on stuff and generally vegging out. That night I went to the most challenging yoga class I have ever been to. It was a very though and humbling experience and I was VERY sore for several days afterwards. I’ve been trying out so many different studios on this trip, and mostly I find that the classes aren’t quite challenging enough, so this certainly made a change!



Once in Airlie, we re-explored the town and did the beach walk alongside the lagoon. I found the cool bead shop where I had spent close to 3 hours creating necklaces and bracelets on our last visit. Much to Dean’s relief, I spent no longer than 10 minutes in there this time.



Airlie is a very busy little hub, mainly because it’s the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. It’s also very popular with backpackers and a real party town. Once we had had enough of that energy, we drove out to Shute Harbour from where the island ferries and many cruise liners depart. There are some good walking tracks around that part and we did the bush walk to Swamp Bay in the Conway National Park. Our efforts were rewarded with stunning views in this untouched secluded bay. One person had already pitched their tent and if we had been more organised, we could have spent a night camping there too.



The following day was Dean’s birthday, yay!! At the outset of our trip, Dean said that he didn’t want to be working on his birthday (that’s one of his rules, regardless of whether he is traveling or not) and he was successful with that one. Last year’s birthday was spent on Hamilton Island and this year’s was spent just 30km from there! It was a beautiful sunny day and we started it by going out for brekkie. Yum, we should do that more often! And being Saturday, there was a nice market along the esplanade where we spent the rest of the morning.



After sneaking in to our old caravan park for a shower (we felt the exorbitant rates justified that!) we hit the road to Bowen. As it was his birthday, Dean insisted on some comfort that night, so we checked into a holiday park on one of then northern beaches. Bowen is home to the Big Mango… You really couldn’t miss it if you tried as it’s a huge orange blob (complete with a couple of green ants) on the side of the road as you pass the tourist information centre. Bowen itself is an interesting place: it covers quite a large area but it has the atmosphere of a somewhat deserted country town. The streets are very wide and most of the shops look to be privately owned and operated. It is famous for the colourful murals all around town, depicting notable events in the area. We cycled all around town, down to the southern beach and along the jetty with its rickety wooden planks.



There is also an outdoor display for the Catalina ‘flying boat’ aircraft (am I the only one that hadn’t heard of these before?) which were used by the allied forces during WWII. Apparently they were used for night bombing missions, patrols, rescue missions and transporting supplies and personnel; and they were famous for their precision laying of mines in enemy waterways and harbours.



What we hadn’t realised about Bowen is that it featured in the 2008 movie Australia. It was the stand-in location for Darwin which was, presumably, too hot and wet. The film attracted 38,000 visitors and the Tourism Bowen website received a record 190,000 hits in the lead up to filming.



One thing that you certainly can’t miss is the fact that Bowen is crazily windy. We assumed that it was just a particularly windy day but we soon learnt that this is the norm. In fact, the locals joke that the town is actually called Blowen, but somewhere along the line the “l” got omitted.



The evening of Dean’s birthday was spent by the beach, adjacent to our park, with a nice glass of Argentinean Malbec. Very nice. The following morning we strolled over to the Bowen Sunday market, but there was no need to spend much time there as the stalls were exactly those that had been at Airlie Saturday market!

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