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Eungella NP
View of Pioneer Valley.Day 89 - Hervey Bay - Mackay
Today we just drove, drove and drove some more! We covered about 750km (look at the map) of road and apart from one town we passed through we saw about 10 other houses! We were really tired when we got to a campsite to stop at for the night and felt pretty rubbish.
Day 90 - Mackay - Airlie Beach
We set off early to have some time in Eungella National Park before making our way to Airlie Beach. We started off heading to Broken River, where we did a short walk to a platypus lookout. We were so lucky to see 2 platypuses as it is usually very rare to see them during daylight. They are so cute and a lot smaller than you would expect. We have been pretty lucky on seeing the native animals in there natural habitat, I think it is only crocodiles that we have left to see! We then did short walk to the Pioneer Valley lookout point, where we took in the amazing view. From Broken River we headed to Finch Hatton, also part of the National Park, where we walked through the forest
to a beautiful waterfall.
It was then time to head to Airlie Beach. We arrived mid-afternoon so had a wander around (Airlie beach basically consists of one street of touristy shops/eateries and a man-made lagoon but it is a nice little town), found a campsite and had a pretty uneventful night as we were still recovering from our long drive.
Day 91 - Airlie Beach - Whitsunday Islands (Great Barrier Reef)
We though that today was going to be a really chilled out day but it ended up being a very eventful day! We decided to walk into town from our campsite as we had to check-in to our boat trip at 11.30am due to sail the following day. It was here that the fun began as we found out that our boat had been cancelled! The really moody guy at the travel agency did not help at all and sent us to the owner of the boat. We trekked it to the marina and found the owner who basically did not give us much choice other than to have all our money back or to go on a boat that was leaving in an hour. He was
obviously minted as he owned about 6 boats and 5 cars and he said that he would refund us the whole cost if we did not like the new boat and he said we could have a free dive so we went with our instinct and decided to go for it. We quickly got some sickness tablets and chucked some stuff in a bag and parked up in his private parking space and joined everyone else on the boat.
The boat was only 3 weeks old (even had plasma tv screens in the toilet!) and it was also a dive boat. It was made affordable as there were 30 people crammed into 4 cabins but we had a really good group and really nice crew so this did not matter at all. She was called “Wings III” and she was a beautiful catamaran. It started raining pretty much as soon as we got on but luckily everyone could fit in the lounge area. They took us straight out to the first dive site. Rob and I could not believe how few people wanted to dive (less than half of the passengers) but this worked in our favour! So from thinking
we would be doing nothing today we were suddenly on a boat getting ready to dive. Our group of 4 was called Team Stingray and the 2 other girls in our group (Rachel and Hannah) were really nice which made the diving even more fun. Our dive instructors were really good and were really chilled out for an introduction dive group - they bashed through our 3 skills that we had to learn and we went straight into our dive. Having a good group meant that the instructor was willing to take us deeper so we had a really good dive seeing a stingray (we named ourselves before the dive!), loads of colourful fish and coral etc. I was already hooked after Thailand but Rob was now well and truly hooked too!
Once all the diving and snorkeling had finished we had a really windy, rough ride for about 2 hours to the place where we were stopping for the night. It was horrible and I think Rob was the only one who did not have their face in their hands sitting at the back of the boat! There was puking up all over the place. Finally we reached our
Whitsunday Islands
The group at the lookout. night spot and had our BBQ dinner (the food was really good, with lots of yummy snacks throughout the day too). There was very little drinking going on that evening after the rough trip before dinner. After dinner we all watched a slide show of the photos from the day before chilling out in the hot-tub, on the front of the catamaran. The change of boat was turning out to be a blessing in disguise!
Day 92 - Whitsunday Islands (Great Barrier Reef)
We awoke to the sounds of the anchor being pulled up at about 5 am and the engines followed at 5.30. Sarah couldn’t sleep through the noise but I slept until 8.00 when we arrived in a bay full of Turtles. We had some breakfast out on deck whilst Turtle spotting and we saw quite a few but my camera is too rubbish to take good photos of them! We then got a small speedboat to the beach and walked through the bush to arrive on Whitehaven beach (the third best beach in the world apparently and the filming location for "Castaway"). We took some funny photos of the group and chilled out for
Whitsunday Islands
Messing about on Whitehaven Beach. a couple of hours. On the way back to the boat we went up a lookout and were presented with a very nice view.
On returning to the Catamaran we had some chocolate-rice crispy cakes and headed up north to some more dive sites. We had about a 2 hour cruise so we had a sunbathe out on deck and I had a little go in the wheel house and chatted to our rather eccentric skipper; Harry the Mouri. Once we got to the site we had a tasty lunch. However, guess who managed to knock over a massive glass bottle of sweet chilli sauce; sending glass and sticky sauce everywhere throughout the spotless saloon area?! After lunch we got back in the water as Team Stingray once again. This time we had a nice swim with “George” a very friendly and inquisitive Napoleon fish.
We sailed round to another site and I went in for my second of the day but Sarah didn’t fancy it. Once I got back we watched the sunset and cracked open some beers and goon (crap Aussie wine in a box). We had steaks for dinner and spent a bit more time in the
Whitsunday Islands
Sarah with a cool Starfish (and a "There's Something About Mary" hair-do)! hot-tub before a slideshow of the days pictures. We spent the remainder of the evening having a sing along with the skipper and his acoustic guitar!
Day 93 - Whitsunday Islands - Bowen
Another early wake-up with the anchor being taken up at about 6.00am. The crew woke us all up and we were diving by 7.00am! It was such a nice way to start the day and before doing it I would have thought it would be horrible but it was so surreal and it was an amazing experience. Unfortunately the visibility was not as good as during the previous dives but it was a bit different as there was quite a strong current - I had no idea where we were going to pop up at the end of the dive! We still saw some cool stuff like a sea cucumber and pretty fish but the coral colours were not as stunning.
After all the diving and snorkeling had finished we set off back to Airlie Beach. Again it started to rain and it was a pretty rough ride back but it did not ruin the trip as the rain stayed away for the middle
Whitsunday Islands
George the Napoleon Fish. day and the diving is unaffected by the rain. I can safely say that it was the best thing I have ever done (and it could have been even better if it had been sunny!). I loved every second of it and I wish we had time to get our diving certificate and to go out on another trip on the same boat. Getting our PADI (diving certificate) is a huge priority now.
We reached Airlie Beach around midday and after sorting out our messy van we set off on our way to Bowen to meet Katie for the evening. Katie did not finish work until late afternoon so when we arrived we found a campsite and took a drive to a pretty little beach up the coast. The rain stopped us from getting out of the car but we had a sit in a nice little spot. Once we knew Katie was back we headed to her hostel and had pizza and sat talking for the rest of the evening. It was really good to catch up. Bowen is a weird hill-billy town with very little to see and do so I do not know who Katie was not
Whitsunday Islands
Messing about on Whitehaven Beach. gone insane spending a month there!
Day 93 - Bowen - Townsville
We were in no rush to get to Townsville but we still woke up early so set off pretty early. As soon as we started driving into the city I had a bad feeling in my stomach and my instincts were spot on - it is a very scary town and I felt on edge for the whole time that we were wandering around. I got the impression that it was very poor town and there is a huge population of Aboriginal People who seem to stare you down as you walk past them. As we were walking around we got heckled by them - it was horrible! I wanted to get out of the town there and then but we want to go to Magnetic Island tomorrow we we have decided to stick it out.
After wandering around we climbed Castle Hill, a hill that overlooks the city. It was here that we had our first sighting of a snake! I did not see it but Rob saw it as it slithered in front of our feet. So not only is this city horrible
Townsville
Castle Hill. but it also has loads of snakes! After our trip up the hill we found a site for the night before heading back into town to find some internet. We have just bumped into one of our friends from Chesham who has just moved here to work for a few weeks so I think we will spend some time with him tonight and we will head to Magnetic Island for the day tomorrow.
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Lorna
non-member comment
nice photos
i totally love the photo of you on rob's back on the beach!!! looks like your having a ball!! also thanks for the text sarah, nice to know your thinking of us brits suck back in Bath :-D xxxx