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Published: February 2nd 2007
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Well my overnight bus was a journey from hell - we left at 12.25am and the driver insisted that we all get off the bus about 3am for our "personal safety" whilst he filled up with petrol. However he then proceeded to wander around the forecourt whilst smoking a cigarette! He was a complete idiot ( thats the polite word for it) He also made us get off at 5.30am at a bus Terminal in Townsville when he said they needed to change drivers, but then he drove off and it was an hour before the bus came back with a different driver on it. But this driver wanted a break at 9.00am and again he insisted on us all getting off the bus again, this time for 45 minutes. By the time we arrived at Airlie beach i was exhausted! After checking into the tour shop and being given bizarre green bags to transfer essential baggage to ( they wouldn't accept that 32 kilos is essential!) I headed to the Marina but on the way i stopped off at the bottle shop to get some alcohol for the 2 nights I would be at sea on a sailing trip around
the Whitsunday Islands. There are 74 islands, and only 4 or 5 of them are inhabited, and they all form a national park. The sailing boat was simply beautiful, a 65 foot wooden sailing boat called Dreamcatcher, and the inside was constructed with such craftmanship from Jarrah wood - all of it in perfect condition as it is a rare and now-expensive Australian wood that naturally is impregnated with something which stops termites and other things from destroying it. I think Wayne and Alistair would love it! It sleeps a maximum of 14, has 2 showers and toilets, plenty of room up top for sunbathing, a big fridge, and an 800 litre water tank. We were lucky that 4 people didn't turn up and so it meant more space for the 10 of us - 6 English, 2 Portugese (Pedro and David who featured in a love triangle with one of the girls - see the pictures for the reasons why!!!), 1 Swiss and 1 German, plus our Captain Dieter who was Austrian, and Craig the crew hand from Canberra.
We spent the first day heading around the Whitsundays and topping up our tans, and the second day they
dropped us off by dingy for 3 hours on Whitehaven beach. This beach alone was worth coming to Australia for - it has the purest sand in the world (silica sand) and it is like no other sand i have seen - so white and as you walk across the wet sand, you create very deep footprints - 4 inches or deeper! And if you walk across sand that has even a small amount of the sea above it, with each step there is a cascade of bubbles that rise to the surface. During those three hours, despite us being highly responsible adults ( eg Sally qualifies as a doctor in June, Rachel is a bio-technology scientist, Pedro is a very brainy IT man, Nicky and Sam are accountants, Alex works for the Government in London and I'm me!) we reverted to our childhoods, seeing who could create the deepest footprint, who could do the longest long jump (not me!) building sandcastles and finally floating in the shallows and lying on our stomachs with our boobs (the girls only!) sinking into the sand. This was the most comfortable position i have ever been in, as it meant our spines were
completely in the right position - were it not for the water we would have rested our heads and gone to sleep, floating in the crystal clear water in the sunshine, i think the pictures speak for themselves as to just how stunning Whitehaven beach is, and how few people were there. It really was heaven!
On the second day we did more sunbathing and snorkelling - but i gave this a miss as my ankle was still raw from the diving and wearing fins would only have aggravated it even more! The third day was overcast as we headed back to Airlie beach we all swopped details and as me and Pedro walked back to the shop to get our bags, the heavens opened (although we are getting very high temperatures it is the wet season in Queensland at this time of year so i've been lucky so far!) Happy but wet, we got our bags, and i headed to catch a bus to take me to Prosperine airport to catch a Virgin Blue flight to Brisbane. I didn't know until i got here that Virgin had a second airline - so whilst onboard i decided to buy
Richard Bransons book "losing my virginity" as it sounded like he had done a lot more with his life than i realised! More on the book at a later date!
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