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Published: February 20th 2007
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After a rather traumatic overnight bus journey up to Airlie Beach - 11 hours, in seats that reclined about 3 inches, woken up every 2 hours - we were greeted by frequent down pours and intense humidity! We spent 2 days in and about Airlie Beach - mostly sheltering from the rain and doing blogs - before being told at 9.30am that our trip, due to leave at 1.30pm, had been cancelled!!!! We were, therefore, hostel, bed and plan-less! And to top it all off the weather continued to worsen - gettin wetter and windier! Although in all honesty I was quite relieved not to be going out - wave heights were being measured at between 3 and 4 metres and winds were gusting upto 30knots an hour! I couldn't imagine for one moment that the trip would have been a great deal of fun!!!!
With this in mind, there were serious doubts about continuing further North - into even stormier territories?! 3 days of being confined to hostel rooms and 2 books later - the weather was finally clearing!!! The Lagoon beckoned! As a result of particularly large crocodiles, lethal mini jellyfish and very strong undertows it was advised
Tranquil Waters!
A slight change from the Cyclonic Winds!! that you did not go swimming at the beaches! Advised? ADVISED? I ask you - one mention of ONE of those horrors and there was no chance of my big toe getting wet!!! Anyway! As a result Airlie Beach Council (bless their cotton socks) have built a rather gorgeous lagoon - which was free! (As well as having grass rather than sand!!!! Heaven!!! No grit!!!) So, at the first hint of sunshine (after moving hostels yet again - from Magnum's to Beaches for the backpackers out there - Magnums was not nice - Beaches WAS!!!) we headed out to the sun kissed shores of the lagoon! Where we whiled away the day, basking in the sun and reading yet more books - puncuated by periods of brief respite when we went for a dunk - man was it hot and humid! (Brits hey? Never happy! First the rain, then the sun - when are we satisfied!!!) After a few hours there it was back to the hostel to chill in the Air Conditioned bliss of our room! I know, not very environmentally friendly!!!! There we contemplated the future - well the next 2 weeks anyway! Deciding to forego the Whitsunday's
sail, see if we could get a day trip and then brave the North!
Although this was after much deliberation and random ideas for swapping, cancelling or exchanging!!! Eventually it was decided that any one of these options would lose us far too much of our pennies! And in true skin flint stylee this wasn't on!!! Thus after a day trip we were to head North!
The day trip was to be a rapid affair Ocean Rafting - was not quite the dreamy sail that I had had in mind! Involving a rather large Rib with 2 particularly large engines! We speed boated our way out toward the rather heavenly looking whitsunday islands - with the skipper (is he still a skipper on a motorboat?!) demonstrating his great big........engine with twists and turns and lots of engine revving! Quite exilerating though and the result being arrival on the islands reefs that much faster! Our first stop was an hour of snorkelling - on some pretty amazing coral with some very pretty little fish, from there it was on to Whitesand Bay - a stretch of the purest, whitest sand with the most turquoise water I had ever seen
before - truly stunning!! This was to be our stop for lunch - with Jen and I yomping off into the distance with our hastily prepared sandwiches (I had 5 minutes to make them while the trip was being booked before we were picked up!!! and it has to be said - they weren't bad!!!!) Although they weren't quite the gourmet buffet that everyone else was eating! Oh if we weren't so stingy!!!! After lunch it was a quick trip round the corner for a yomp up a hill to a look out that would give us unrivalled views of the Whitsundays! This was true! It really was quite something! Check out the piccies! And that unfortunately was the end of our 'Whitsundays' - not really what I had had in mind and not really what I wanted to do - but atleast this way we got to see a little bit of them! (And this means yet another excuse to come back in the future - currently trying to suss out a way I can convince Dad we need to charter a boat sunsail stylee - Simon?!!!)
The next day saw a hideously early start to catch the bus, this time to Townsville. This was where we were to catch the ferry out to Magnetic Island for a 2 night stopover!
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