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Published: April 27th 2008
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We arrived at Airlie Beach after a 5 hour greyhound journey and found our hostel - Beaches. In the deal that we booked in Cairns our free accommodation should have been at Magnums but we'd heard bad things about it and so Travelbugs agreed to upgrade us to Beaches for free as we'd spent so much booking all our trips through them. We saw a few people on the bus that we'd seen in Cairns and Magnetic Island - one of them was a young Canadian boy called Garrett who is 19. When we got to the hostel they informed us that the dorms were all full so we got a free upgrade into a private room - excellent! They didn't have any room for Garrett who hadn't previously booked so he went back outside and waited for us and then we kidnapped him and sneaked him in and said he could sleep on our floor as we felt sorry for him as he's got about $100 dollars to last him until the end of his trip - 2 weeks!!! The room was like paradise, it was massive, had an en-suite bathroom and a walk in wardrobe. The 3 of us
got so excited about the luxury Garrett must have wondered what he'd let himself in for spending the night with 3 mad girls!!
Went shopping that night for alcohol supplies for our Whitsundays trip. We each bought a 4 litre box of goon - only $15 each - bargain!! Stopped to have a drink in Magnums on the way back as there looked like there was a good atmosphere in there. It was karaoke night and the girls were egging me on to sing and win us a free bar tab but I couldn't do it sober in front of that many people!!
We got picked up for our sailing trip at 1.30pm the next day and headed down to the marina to meet our crew. The boat we went on was called British Defender. It slept 28 people plus 4 crew. The boat looked tiny and we couldn't imagine how we were all going to sleep in there but it is very deceptive once you get downstairs. The 3 of us were originally booked in a double and a single bunk but thankfully we found a couple who had been booked on single bunks so we swapped
with them and managed to avoid couple hell at the back of the boat!!
We headed off that afternoon and had a go at sailing. 6 people (including Suz and Garrett) helped raise the sails. Unfortunately there was barely any wind so it wasn't very successful and we had to abandon that and get the engine going in order to actually get anywhere. It was a nice afternoon, we all sat around on the deck and chatted to people. The weather was lovely and it was so relaxing. We stopped at Tongue Bay where we were staying for the night. Everyone started on the goon at about 5pm - all the foil bags were labelled with our names and put in a cool box. I had a "moment" while I was watching the sunset. It was so beautiful and I got quite emotional. I was completely in awe of my surroundings and the sights I was seeing and couldn't quite believe I was there. Very weird. I'm such a girl! Suz had the same thing but Deaks thought we were weirdos. It was strange being on the boat once it got dark - there was only a few lights
underneath the sails so you literally can't see anything. It was a really nice feeling and quite relaxing listening to the sound of the water all around you. The drinking games started later that evening which were really good fun. Most people on our boat were between 19 and 22 but they seemed older. Everyone keeps asking us if we're on our gap year!! Apparently we don't look our ages which is nice to know!! We all layed about and gazed up at the stars and then people gradually sloped off to bed.
We were woken by the crew at 6.40am the next day - ggrrr! We had breakfast and then got the speedboat over to Whitehaven Beach where we went on a little bush walk up to the viewing point which was amazing and like nothing I've ever seen before. We then lazed on the beach for a couple of hours. The sand was like talcum powder and squeaked when you walked on it. I've never seen a beach like it, it was quite breathtaking. I didn't go in the water - it is still jellyfish season and I didn't get a stinger suit before we left so
I didn't want to risk meeting one of them in the water with only a bikini on! We got back on the boat at 11am and headed to Luncheon Bay where a couple of people did scuba diving and most of the others went snorkelling. The skipper (Chey) said I could go in without a stinger suit as stinger season is nearly over but I was feeling lazy and enjoying the sunbathing so I decided against it. One of the other crew - Greg - took me and Deaks out on the speedboat. The water was so clear we could see everything from that anyway and were leaning over the boat, bums in the air, with a view finder thing that he had staring into the water. It can't have been a pleasant sight for him and he said he thought about pushing us in but thought better of it after finding out about Deaks's fish phobia! He didn't want a hysterical girl on his hands!
We headed to Blue Pearl Bay after that where we watched another amazing sunset (yes - I had another moment!) and then it was goon o'clock again. We were very distraught to find
that someone had drunk an entire bag of our goon the night before after we'd gone to bed so we hid our last bag and started drinking from everyone elses after it got dark to make up for it! We all layed about chatting again and star gazing and then the tiredness kicked in and I passed out by 11pm - it's tiring doing nothing all day!!
The next morning I'd arranged to get up at 6am with some of the other girls on the boat to watch the sunrise as the crew had said it was amazing the morning before. We excitedly got up and went upstairs and realised within a couple of minutes that the sunrise was actually behind one of the islands so we couldn't even see it - doh!!!! After breakfast there was more snorkelling and then we started our journey back to the marina. We got back at 11am and had a group picture taken on the boat. I was quite sad to leave - could have stayed on there for a couple more days - the only downside being the fact that you were only allowed to wash with a showerhead that was
attached to the sink for 30 seconds each evening to save water on the boat so I was looking forward to a nice shower!
We got back to our hostel and headed straight to our dorm (no upgrade this time!) where we crashed out. By the time we woke up we had a full dorm and chatted for a bit - we had some nice people sharing with us. We then got ready for our last night in Airlie Beach. We'd planned to meet up with all the people from the trip in the bar downstairs so we did that but there wasn't much atmosphere going on and hardly any of them seemed up for a night out so we abandoned that and headed next door to Magnums where some of the people from our dorm room were and had a good time in there.
Deaks and I are leaving on the greyhound this evening. Suzanne's mum sent her replacement cards to the post office here but they haven't turned up yet and the post office has been closed for 3 days and she's got to wait until tomorrow to see if they arrive then which is a
pain. Our accommodation has already been booked and paid for at the next stop so we didn't want to have to waste money paying to stay here another night. She'll manage to get to Hervey Bay to meet us just in time for Fraser Island so all should be ok!
Bye for now!
xx
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Nicola Harvey
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Wow
That photo of Whitehaven Beach is amazing. What a view!!