Blogs from Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

We arrived in Airlie Beach after a night bus which neither of us had very much sleep on so we were very tired :-( and then we had to wait around for four hours for our Whitsunday trip to start. There were only 17 people in our Whitsunday group 4of them were actually on our fraser island trip too and we shared a room with all of them. We had a big catermaran called 'Pride of Airlie' which was really cool. Instead of staying on the boat we were staying on an island resort which was crazy because it was literally just the 17 of us and a few staff. It was originally a large family resort and then was converted into a backpacker place mostly because it is quite run down. It was really fun ... read more

After we left Rainbow Beach a few of us headed up the coast to Airlie Beach. Airlie Beach is lovely. It's one road full of everything you could possibly want from a little town, it has a huge harbour, beach and a gorgeous lagoon that everyone swims in and sunbathes round in the day. It also has a fun nightlife. We headed down to Phoenix Bar in the evening, most of the boats do their after party there. You get half a dominoes pizza for free once you've spent $5 at the bar which we thought was a great deal! The following day we sailed off on our boat 'The Clipper' which is the renowned party boat! And it certainly lived up to it's reputation, we had such a blast on that boat, aided more by ... read more

Hey everyone :) Have just been to the Whitsundays this week and it was unquestionable stunning walking out onto Whitehaven beach was the most incredible view ive ever seen! so we did a party boat tour around the whitsundays called 'the clipper' was fun and met some really nice people from all over the world lots of canadians, sweeds, dutch and northeners! but all makes an interesting few conversations! met a german last night and had an indepth discussion about Hitler and the nazis! ha we did some brillaint snorkling (chloe had never been so we held hands throughout screaming when we saw a jelly fish and breathed a sign of relif when we passed through a barrier just like on finding nemo off the shore line... scarey stuff!) seing as the tiny ones (irukanju)are the ... read more

20.2.2012 Not sure what happened as we seemed too have missed this day out! M x 21.2.2012 Whitsunday’s Off to sail the Whiitsunday Islands for 2 nights. Key ingredients for a successful trip. Wind – for the sails, Good people on the boat, and nice weather. As we got to the meeting point to board the boat we both noticed that there were an awful lot of girls around. As it worked out there was 23 girls and 2 boys one of them being me. Lucky me ;). Once on the boat we had the usual health and safety. Basically the boat was a triamaran with 2 huge nets on either side were you could sunbathe. There were hardly any rails to stop you falling overboard so you had to be careful when walking around. We ... read more

The next morning, we drove out to check out the water fall, think it was called Cedar creek waterfall, it was 20km from Airlie beach in the direction of Proserpine... again it was raining and the road leading to the water was under water, which was inpassible with out little car, but we were wet anyway, so we got out of the car, walked across the flooded section, got absolutely soaked in the rain, but this made jumping into the pool where the waterfall was really easily, because we were soaked from head to toe... The waterfall was really nice and the rainfall made it even better, water in that pool was really warm, definitely worth a swim... For the Whitsundays cruise we chose Tongara, a boat that carries 25 with a crew of 2... I ... read more

Today we were starting out sailing trip. We could only take 1 rucksack each on to the boat so we left our suitcase at the hostel as we checked out and walked down the high street to pick up some boat essentials – sun hats and sun block, before getting some brunch at a café on the high street. At around mid-day we started making away over to the Schute Harbour where we were boarding our catamaran. It was a very hot day, so we took a slow walk as we made our way on the 20min walk along the coast line to Schute Harbour. We found some shade to sit and wait for our boat and watched as the crew cleaned and re-stocked her after her last voyage. Will and Jo (Will’s sister) went off ... read more

True to form, I'm in reception at 7am, wondering if there's been a cancellation. There hasn't. I've now got it in my head that I need to do something - whether it be scenic flight, helicopter trip or full on sailing tour, despite the fact that there's not enough time and really I should just get on the road. The weather however is due to be gorgeous for the next few days so I'm more than tempted to sail off into the sunset. The tour booker must have sensed this too as she suggested a two day, overnight trip, leaving at 8.30am, for the heavily discounted price of AUD300, some AUD 200 more than I wanted to spend. However, after 10 minutes' contemplation, I'm sold, and I sprint off to a) strip my bed, b) pack ... read more