Blogs from Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 13

John is still working in Airlie Beach and we are coping with the humid weather as it is not too bad yet, everyone says it gets worse after Xmas so am not sure how long we will stay but life is good at the moment. Sunday 30th October Went for a cruise to the Whitsunday Islands on the one of the world's fastest Catamarans - the mauve "Camira". After being picked up from the caravan park, we sailed out of Abel Point Marina and out through the Mole Islands, then called into Daydream Island to pick up more passengers before heading to Hook Island for some snorkelling - the water was a bit cloudy because the change of tides so it was a little dissapointing but the water was warm and there were plenty of tropical ... read more

Emily's Birthday Bash It all started after an 8 1/2 hr drive south of Cairns to the lovely Airlie beach and Whitsundays Islands. Airlie Beach provides the ideal base for Whitsundays holiday fun and adventure, where accommodation styles are as varied as the accents that can heard in the Main Street. It’s a social and lively place with restaurants, clubs and bars to party well into the night, and a beautiful swimming lagoon set in parkland overlooking the islands. We parked up at the beaches backpackers and checked in, then straight upstairs to the room to polish off a birthday bottle of bubbles then down to Magnums bar (located next door to the backpackers) for a couple of happy hour JUGS of beer and live music for the night. Chris Nadine and I drove down together. ... read more

To the children at Christ Church School, How are you all? I hope you all had a lovely time in the summer holidays and have settled well into your new classes. I am having a lovely time travelling around the world. I have seen lots of interesting things and have been on many exciting adventures. So far, I have visited these countries: China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore and finally, Australia. See if you can find them on a map of the world. My favourite place to see, was the Great Wall of China. It was built over 2000 years ago and is the longest man-made structure ever built. It was a really hot day when I went to visit it, and it was really hard work climbing it. Some of the steps are so steep that ... read more

We made our way from Townsville down to Airlie Beach. The landscape changed quite quickly with the appearance of large sugar cane fields. Gav was in his element, explaining to the kids about the cane cutters, how the sugar cane becomes sugar and showing them the sugar cane trains. He had completed some work on this area when investigating impacts on the Great Barrier Reef so was interested to see it all again. It was good for them to see the beginning of the sugar process. Many sugar can farms look like they have just been left-a sign of the hard times for many working on the land. We can't get over the number of road works that we have seen since hitting QLD (even through the outback). We think that much of this is probably ... read more

What an amazing week of encounters with wild life we have had, and all because of Quinton. When Quinton was discharged on Wednesday we were told not only that he had to be kept off his feet, but that his feet also had to stay dry and clean for at least a week. Not great news when our plans had included camping at Fraser Island, and basically beach camping all along the coast of Queensland - something we had all been looking forward to. Quick change in plans had us driving straight through to Bundaberg, to catch up with friends of Paul’s (yes, he knows people everywhere!). We did however overnight in a small fishing town called Tin Can Bay, as we had been told that wild dolphins came in to feed every morning. The following ... read more