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Published: September 23rd 2010
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Hello again,
The road trip continues...
Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsundays and time for Clio and I to try out our sea legs! We’ve booked ourselves onto a 10 person Catamaran, called ‘On Ice’ for a 3 day trip. The travel agent tried to get us to book onto a 30 person ‘party boat’, which we politely refuse and pay a bit extra for a smaller vessel and a bit of luxury (plus no students or wet T-shirt comps).
So at 4pm we’re sat at the harbor with a box of beers to meet our crew and fellow guests. We’re confronted by a little guy who introduces himself as Tristan. He owns the boat and does all the sailing, whilst his right hand man Gary, does everything else on board the boat (cooking, cleaning, entertainment etc.). We’re joined onboard by 3 more couples, who are English, German and Austrian.
The boat is fantastic, with a living area at the back, our own private en-suite room and loads of places to sit and check out the view. Myself and the other blokes help Gary hoist the sail at the front of the boat and we
set off towards the Whitsundays. We drop anchor a few hours later in a bay (with about 30 other boats) and we enjoy some good food and get to know the guests. Inevitably we split into English and non-English groups and we chat with the English couple, Jess and Alister (what are the chances of meeting another Alistair - who spells his name so differently!).
The next day we visit the Whitsundays ‘Lookout’ (‘the only touristy thing we do on this trip’ says Gary), before spending most of the day on Whitehaven Beach (consistently voted the best beach in the world). The weather is playing up a bit, but when the sun is out the sea is crystal clear, the sand is pure white and we seem to be the only people on this stretch of beach. We also get to have a go at board rafting, Wind Surfing and snorkeling (in sexy stinger suits).
The sun set over the Hayman islands that evening is stunning and makes up for the patchy weather durng the day. When we drop anchor for the night, we have some food and get stuck into the red wine. We laugh about the
differences between German and English sayings. Tom, the German is fascinated by this and also confesses his love for Wallace and Gromit. It’s pretty amusing to hear a German drunkenly exclaim ‘more cheese Gromit!!’.
On our final day onboard we go for a snorkel and see some amazing fish. I’m also lucky enough to see a turtle and swim along with it for a while - very cool. We’re back at Airlie Beach in time for tea and say goodbye to our new friends. Alister and Jess live in Sydney so we’ll hopefully meet up with them when we finally get there.
The end of our Whitsunday trip also spells the end of the sunshine for a while and suddenly Australia does it’s best impersonation of Manchester!! We wake up the next morning to drips of water coming through the awning and hitting us on the head! Apparently it’s completely unheard of for it to rain at this time of the year, so we consider ourselves lucky!
The heavy rain makes the next few days pretty miserable! We can’t sit outside. So we make good use of the DVD player, investing in a box set of the
brand new TV show ‘Prison Break’ (I know, it’s about 10 years old , but we’ve never seen it and it was the cheapest one!). We also invest in a lot of baked goods (muffins and cookies mainly) to entertain us and I think we might put on about 10 stone by the time the rain clears up.
It’s frustrating because you want to get out and do stuff during the day and not miss out on the sights. As I write this it’s still pelting it down outside and it only due to clear up by the weekend (so 2 days time).
Another activity we booked, took place in the town of 1770 and is called Scooteroo. 1770 is a lovely little seaside town and some bright spark thought it would be a great idea to take backpackers around the town on chopper motorbikes. As a nice little touch they also provide you with the biker leathers as well and you can really indulge any ‘Easy Rider’ fantasies you’ve been hiding!
With the torrential rain, we were a bit worried that it would be cancelled, but we got a bit of good luck and the ride
went ahead. The only downside is there is a back log of people taking part , which means Clio and I are joined by about 50 other bikers (or backpackers). Most of them were in massive gangs from the hostels, so we had to wait for 20 minutes as they all take pics of each other in a variety of poses, before we can finally roll out.
Clio and I chose our bike carefully and after a quick training session we set off going faster than I thought we would. It’s great fun, and once we get the hang of it we’re going up to 50 or 60 mph (feels a lot faster when you’re so close to the ground). I could keep riding all afternoon, but the rain rears it’s ugly head so we have to finish a little bit early.
So now I’m writing this from a motel in Bundaberg, we’ve decided to treat ourselves to a little bit of luxury (ie. being able to charge up our phones and sleep in a proper bed)
We’ve still got Frasier Island and 2 weeks of fun before we have to find jobs!
Hope you’re all
ok and we're alway excited to hear what’s been going on over in UK
(a very rained on) Ali and Clio xx
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sheena
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Once again- fantastic stories and fantastic pics.Its great to see what you've been up to.xx