East Coast Road Trip- Day 16 to 18 - Whitsunday Islands

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Day 16

Get up early doors to catch our boat, The Avatar for our 3 day 2 night Whitsunday Island Tour. The Whitsundays are a group of 74 Islands located on the Great Barrier Reef, off the east coast of Northern Queensland. We manage to get a reasonable sleep even although there was some idiot playing his guitar until 2am. We arrive at the marina on a beautiful winters day, with the mercury reaching approximately 26 degrees, and are ready for our adventure. After a spot of lunch, we head to our first snorkeling spot. We are told this is merely an introductory snorkel to get us ready for the real thing tomorrow. We see plenty of coral and fish, and are promised tomorrows spot will be even better. I am a bit scared of going straight into the deep water (even though it is only maximum 10 -15 metres deep), so the skipper takes me and a few others and drops us off on the small sandy beach at the edge of the bay. He also gives us a noodle (floating device) each which makes us look a bit silly, but I am quite content as it means I don’t need to put much effort into swimming. We set sail to our evening destination where we will be moored for the evening. We have the chance to head onshore to look at a variety of Aboriginal rock paintings that were produced over 8000 years ago. We are asked to respect the area by not speaking which creates a surreal atmosphere. After dinner, the drinking games begin, but as we are 28, watch from the sidelines, opting to witness the moon rising over the mountain like a sun rise, which was one of the most awe inspiring things we have witnessed. The night sky is crystal clear, and the stars are sensational. I have never seen so many stars in my life. 11pm arrives and after our usual game of Uno, it is off to bed, in our ‘hole’.

Day 17

Day 2 on the big brother boat…Okay, so when they told us we were getting a private double room, we kind of expected a nice, cosy room that was a bit bigger than just a four foot bed with a plastic mattress and nothing else, except some pipes and a fire extinguisher. We don’t even have a door, just a hole in the roof to get in and out of. That should be fun at 4am when I need to go to the toilet. We had quite a hellish nights sleep due to the noise of the waves slapping constantly against the side of the boat. And they say water is meant to be relaxing. We wake up at 3am, 6am, 7am…… The next thing we know, the skipper has opened the hatch and is telling us to get up.

First stop is Whitehaven Beach which consist of 98% silicone sand, and apparently if lightning was to strike the sand, it would turn into glass. It is particularly white and feels like icing sugar. It is gorgeous, and you can even see rays swimming in the shallow water. Back on the boat we are interrupted by a couple of Australian Air Force fighter jets taking part in a training exercise over the islands. As we watch two pilots chasing each other in the distance, we are notified by the deck hand that he has previously witnessed planes flying directly over the plane, roughly 100 ft above. As we ponder this, the same two jets appear from over the mountain in front of the boat, and head directly towards us. As we all stand in awe, the 2 planes chase each other 100ft in the air directly above the boat, on their sides. The noise is UNBELIEVABLE, and is the loudest thing we have ever witnessed. Truly amazing. Once the adrenalin has worn off, we return to our sunbathing for a few hours before it is time for our next snorkel. This time the reef is much bigger and more varied. In order to attract the fish, the captain, Trent, throws bread into the water. All of a sudden, a mass of brightly coloured fish appear from nowhere. The highlight being a huge tropical fish called Gary that is roughly 3 foot long. We swim from the boat to the coral and there are bright neon fish of all different colours and sizes. We snap away on our underwater camera, and to our delight we have captured some great photos. I’m really proud of myself as I didn’t think I would snorkel in water any deeper than half a meter. I even managed to swim back to the boat, which is about 15 meters deep, a mega achievement for me. We moor up at a spot that allows us to watch the perfect sunset. It’s a great end to a great day. The thought of drinking more goon doesn’t sound appealing, so we just have a few posh chardonnay’s then it is off to bed.

Day 18

Day 3 on the big brother boat…….

Managed to grab a much better sleep last night thankfully. We are given the opportunity to snorkel again this morning, but it is quite windy and cool, so we decide to give it a miss. A few of the others go in, but say it isn’t as good as yesterday, so we are glad we don’t go in. An hour later we sail over to a whispy beach in the middle of the ocean which is extremely secluded and peaceful. After exploring the island, we head back to the boat to set sail for Airlie Beach, which takes us another 3 hours. 3 full days is probably slightly too long, and two days would have been enough to cover everything, but we got it for free so can’t complain. The standard of the tour was excellent including the staff and the food and all in all we had a tremendous trip. Back on dry land we check into our room at Magnum’s again, and cherish spending 20 minutes under a hot shower (something we have not been able to do for 3 days). The crew tell us they have reserved a table for us at Beaches Hostel, where we can all meet up again for some free booze and banter with our other sailing guests. So we head over and it is much more relaxed and easy to talk to everyone. We swap Facebook details and email addresses and will perhaps meet up with some of them again in the future. At half ten, we are knackered, plus we have a long drive tomorrow, so we head for our room.

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Photos

Whitsundays
Our 'room'

Whitehaven Beach
The whitest sand in the world

Whitsundays
Our sailing crew

Whitsundays
Look at the colour of that water