Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands

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We were really looking forward to the Whitsunday Islands as everyone I had spoken to said they were absolutely beautiful, so we had booked ourselves onto a 2 day 2 night sailing trip (this is the most popular way to 'do' the Whitsundays as a traveller), although we were both a little worried about being seasick as we both had been ill on our dive trips! However, we departed Airlie Beach at around 4 in the afternoon and it was fairly peaceful, so it didn't look like we had too much to worry about! Plus our boat was supposedly a party boat, so the only sickness would probably be from alcohol...

Well, our first night we had icebreakers and drinking games with the 20 or so other travellers and 4 crew after cruising out to Hook Passage and mooring up there for the night, but since we only had about 12 beers between us for the whole trip, we didn't go too crazy! We were woken extremely early the next morning to have breakfast, and we sailed around to Tongue Bay so that we could visit Whitehaven Beach, but it was definitely worth it, as we firstly wandered up to the lookout point over the beach and gazed out across the gorgeous white sands and azure sea with wonder. We then headed down to chill on the beach for about an hour, and I thought the beaches in Thailand were beautiful, but this was something else! The great expanse of sand stretched on for miles, and the water was very shallow for a fair few metres into the sea, so we spent ages paddling (trying not to step on any stingers as we had not brought those sexy stinger suits with us!) Honestly just visiting Whitehaven Beach made that whole sailing trip worthwhile!

That afternoon, we moored up near Langford Spit for a scuba dive, but the water was rather murky and visibility was very low - about 3 metres - so it was a little disappointing. That night we participated in some more drinking games but headed to bed early as we were exhausted. As we cruised back in the morning, we stopped at Caves Cove for a snorkel which we missed as we were so knackered - some Swedish people on our boat had been jumping up and down most of the night near our cabin so we hadn't got much sleep and weren't in the best of moods to go jumping into freezing cold water that early in the morning! Never mind...

On our return, we headed out that night with some of the people who we met on the boat to celebrate making it back to dry land safely, and after a few drinks went to one of the bars where there was a wet t-shirt contest going on (sorry guys, I didn't get any photos) - but I tell you - that was rather an eye-opener! Spent another couple of days lazing around at Airlie Beach as we quite liked it there and then headed on to Rockhampton for some country fun!

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Photos

Yes, I made it!
(to the most gorgeous beach we have been to - Whitehaven...)