Living in the lap of luxury at Airlie Beach

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With the arrival of Team Bloom, things seriously looked up in the way of our accommodation. Catching a flight from Melbourne via Proserpine, we arrived in Airlie Beach with decidedly dubious weather. However, what we lacked in sunshine was more than made up for by the fabulous 5 star penthouse suite that greeted us at the Coral Sea Resort, with hammock on balcony, sea view and olympic sized swimming pool. YHA digs this was not. Our hearts leapt higher when Geen and I saw that we had been allocated the largest room with queen size bed and an ensuite bathroom with a jacuzzi bath. It almost felt like we were on holiday instead of travelling. In addition to our luxurious surroundings, we also had the homecooking of Ma Bloom to enjoy. Pure heaven.
Airlie Beach is a quaint little place, with a man-made lagoon that attracts the bronzed n beautiful and pale n interesting alike. Lots of lovely little surfy type shops, cafes and (worse luck!) ice creameries to sustain the hoards of backpackers that appear to congregate there. There are also a couple of decent bars, the best ones being the Phoenix and Magnums, and a nightclub called . . .'the nightclub'.
One of the main attractions of going to Airlie Beach is that it is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. So, we booked a trip on the Whitehaven Express for 140 dollars per person to take us out to these beautiful islands. The first stop was the hill inlet and lookout point over Whitehaven Bay. Absolutely breathtaking to view the gorgeous clear blue water and powdery white sand. We spent a couple of hours on Whitehaven beach, not before donning the attractive all in one bodysuits that we had to wear to avoid being stung to death by the jellyfish. This fetching attire induced many hilarious photo opportunities, with us vain lot striking a pose every time a camera made an appearance. See below for evidence.
We had a great barbecue on the beach and then, at the advice of our trusty crew, Cam and Shannon, proceeded to scrub all our silver and gold jewellery in the silica sand and lo and behold, it came up brand new!
Last stop was Mantaray Island for a bit of snorkelling. Amazing sealife, including one big blue wrasse which swam unperturbed around all us snorkellers! All in all, it was a fantastic trip, well worth the money.
In her continued pursuit of being at one with nature, the very next day, Geen hand fed some parrots that had taken to sitting on our balcony early every morning. They, apparently, appreciating the view from the penthouse as much as us!
Geen and Paul hired a couple of jetskis for a bit and loved it and enthused by their activity (and ashamed by my lack of it) I agreed to join them in parasailing over Airlie Beach. All I can is that though it was a great experience my stomach and legs felt like I'd just endured a marathon, my muscles were that tense throughout.
Lucky then that we had a lovely hot tub with which to soothe our aching limbs on our balcony in our next penthouse at Portside apartments. And inspired by our ventures, Ma and Pa Bloom did the parasailing too!
And so, as we arrived in the pouring rain, we left in it too. Fingers crossed the sun would show its face down in our next stop, Hervey Bay.

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