Up up and Away!

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Ok I have so much to update!!! Yikes, when you don’t keep right on top of this blog, you end up having pages to write. I think I’ll break it up a bit, so my locations may be a bit off from where I really am (Brisbane), as I want my journey going with a bit of a flow so you can all see where I have been.

Ok first all the flight over the reef was so cool! (Thank you Mom and Ken!!!) I actually almost missed the flight due to the tour booking company giving me wrong information, but no bother. The plane I traveled in was a sea plane and was built in Canada. The pilot seemed to be very proud of that fact. Hmmmm……maybe he was hitting on me???? He put me in the front seat and told me I was his co-pilot….sweet! He wasn’t so willing to hand over the controls though.

We flew over some of the Whitsunday Islands. Hamilton Island has its own little community, including sky scrapers and a domestic airport. We then continued on to fly over Whitehaven Beach. It is postcard perfect from the sky!

Next was out to the Great Barrier Reef, where we flew over Heart Reef. It’s hard to believe that it is natural. It is almost perfectly shaped. In total the GBR consists of 2,900 individual reefs. You never realize the magnitude of it until you fly over. I got to see the southern edge of it and it is a perfect curve, so weird! Just rounds nicely off. I don’t know what I was expecting, some sort of jagged bits and pieces here and there. Continuing on, we did a small water touch down and then took off again, flying over more of the reef and back over the Islands. We flew over Hayman Island which is a private resort. So private only a handful of boats are allowed in the waters near it and no planes are allowed to fly in their air space. It has 7 different restaurants on it and a swimming pool on it that is 7 times bigger then an Olympic Swimming pool! Rates range from $600 a night up to $4,500. A perfect place to take your sweetheart.

The ocean is so beautiful. I can't believe the different colours that are in the ocean. It's really cool to see the different contrasts of colour from the air.

That night I caught the bus to Hervey Bay. What a freakin long way that was, I think it was 13 hours in total. I had two seats all to myself which was nice and slept pretty much the whole way. I must say Greyhound here is not that bad (minus the potential loss of luggage on the Townsville trip!), way better then what I remember the Greyhound being back home.

You know I haven't really been on land that much in the past few weeks. Lots of swimming, diving, snorkeling, sailing and now flying. It's time to mix it up, next adventure - 4X4ing on an Island completely made of sand, Fraser Island!

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Photos

Great Barrier Reef
You can see the curve of the edge of the reef.

Hayman Island
Can you spot the swimming pool?