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Published: January 16th 2009
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Following christmas we took to the roads for some serious driving!! Our first stop was a night in Mackay, a nice town further up the coast. The campsite was nice and shady and a lovely sea breeze which helped us get to sleep that night!! There was a beach just next to the campground so we had some nice walks along, amazed at the huge amount of tiny little crabs all along the beach!!
Only a brief stop up in Mackay though, and then on further all the way up to Airlie beach where we intended to spend a longer stretch of time. We spent our first night in a campsite right on the edge of the national park, rainforest. Lots of birds wandering around and intense noises from dusk onwards was kind of cool!! lots of mozzies again though so had to protect myself from their nibbles!! A spectacular storm arrived that evening..we were astonished to notice how many stupid people decided a dip in the pool would be a great idea..lightening storm and an expanse of water..go figure!!
The following day we explored the little town and Matt finally caved in and bought himself a true Aussie-style barracuda
hat!! He loves it and it is pretty cool!! We spent the day sorting ourselves out at the new campsite and regularly dipping in the pool to cope with the humidity!!
Finally our day trip to the Whitsunday islands.. Not an unbearably early start either!! Our crazy captain Rob picked us up and drove us to the harbour where we waited for our group to assemble and then boarded our bright yellow speedboat 'FURY' and sped off to a number of stunning locations around the Whitsundays. Great boat for me, it is a fast boat rather than a sailing boat (which of course look much more glam but bob around a hell of a lot more and it takes much longer to get to places...) which means no sea sickness!!! Being a fast boat meant we got to spend longer at each of our stops and enjoy the views and activities for longer!
First up, a stop at the hill inlet, a brief walk to the viewpoint and then literally breathtaking views all around. Typically holiday brochure style snapshots committed to memory.. the only words most people said was WOW and that no where NEAR does it justice!!
Amazingly we could also see stingrays from way up on the view platform because the water was soo clear. It is totally breathtaking to see, and we only saw a tiny portion of the Whitsundays too!!
We then headed to the famous Whitehaven beach for a buffet lunch and a relaxing swim in our verrrry attractive stinger suits..not as attractive as some of the other tour groups..they looked like the people from the 'smartie-party' advert!! verrry amusing!!! (we are such children!)
Following the hour or so spent relaxing and bobbing around in the sea with some suprisingly large fish swimming around us, we hopped back on the boat and headed to one of the best snorkelling spots for spotting turtles! With underwater camera in hand we waddled to the side and jumped on in!! Unfortunately no turtles spotted by either of us but huge varieties of fish big and small, amusingly the fish swim right up close to you which is fantastic to see!! the coral is amazing , and unbelievably there are lots of other places that are EVEN better to see the reef so we are holding out to go again and hopefully see some bigger
and better creatures-hopefully not big enough to eat me!! (you may laugh but there have been several shark attacks in the last week! GULP!) The weather took a little turn for thr worst and the sun wasn't out for our snorkel so the visibility wasn't as fantastic as it could have been..
A relaxing if not a little damp and windy trip back, considerably quieter crowd on board after a tiring day..watching the islands go by in a slightly dull light wasn't quite so spectacular but still lots to see in between some yummy muffins for that much needed energy boost!!
New years was a pretty tame affair, we decided to skip out on paying and fighting the crowds in the little town and headed for a little beach by the campsite by ourselves, armed with wine and beer and some tuneage on the ipod. We ended up down there alongside a huge group of youths and several couples and families so it was quite a nice atmosphere, fun but not too crazy PLUS we got to see all the fireworks perfectly sitting on the beach anyway!!
The following day we began the exceptionally loooooong drive back
towards Brisbane to return the van.
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