Airlie Beach and The Whitsundays

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After leaving the luxury of Bill and Margrets we boarded our next train and headed to Airlie beach. Much like Cairns Airlie beach is tourist ville and another lauching pad but this time for the Whitsunday island. Famous for their silica sand beaches and fantastic sailing the islands were definately on our agenda. We arrived into Airlie late in the evening so decided to leave any exploring till the next day.

Again like Cairns, Airlie has a pool where people congrigate on the sea front. The water was fresh but did not contain chlorine so swimming was great, and the weather had finally improved enough for me to take a dip on our second day. We decided we were going to do an over night sailing trip out to the Whitsundays, our Vessel was called 'Waltzing Matilda'. We left early on our third day and boarded the Yacht with 6 others and three crew. We were lucky as usually the boat held 16 passengers but the poor weather for the last few days had prevented people booking in so more room for us. The trip took us out and around Hook Island for some snorkeling and beachcombing. The water was much colder than in Cairns meaning I was greeted back to the boat by a shivey, blue Laura. We did however get to swim with a number of turtles in only a few metres of water. After an eventful day the sun fell and we moored close to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island. The stars out on the ocean were incredible and after a few beers we slept well in our tiny bunk. We were woken up early the following day to beat the crowds that apparently arrive in their hundreds to Whitehaven, voted one of the worlds most beautiful beaches. Famous for its turquoise and crystal clear waters and 98% Silica sand that sparkles pure white and is so fine it can clean metal jewellery when gently rubbed over it. The beach had started to fill up by the time we arrived but we still managed to put our mark on the sand by being the first to cross a section at the far end. My initial thoughts were how good it would be for a game of beach cricket, laura wasnt so keen....

The rest of the day was spent sailing back to habour, sadly light winds for both our days meant we did very little actual sailing and the sails were hoisted more for our asethetic benefit than speed. But the trip was none the less still great fun and the beaches some of the best we had ever seen.

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