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Published: August 16th 2007
Long Island
somewhere down there is a turtleToday we set out to explore a few of the Whitsundays. Now,there are 74 Islands in total, so we weren't ambitious enough to think we would make all of them, but we thought 2 would be a good start.
The first stop by our tour boat was Long Island. We started off with a nature walk through the bush. We were disappointed that the only wildlife we saw was a bush turkey, and the 2 slowest walking humans on the face of the earth (who, unfortunately, were on the walk with us). We stopped at a lookout where if you looked really carefully, you could see a rock moving, which our guide claimed was a turtle, but we were pretty far away.
After that, we hired some snorkle gear and went for a practice snorkle. The reef was pretty far away from shore, and it wasn't the active of a reef. We have had much better snorkling since then, though!
We finished our visit to Long Island with some cocktails by the pool, and then headed to Daydream Island.
Daydream Island was amazing (as it's name indicates). It has man-made reef lagoons, full of brightly colored coral
and fishes. Amanda is amazing, she knows practically every fish and coral species. Either that, or she makes up names that are believable enough that Vlad and I are suckered. Vlad was able to feed and pet a ray, although he did take his hand away before the ray's mouth was even close to the food.
I should probably mention that Amanda and Derek have managed to absolutely terrify Vlad about the dangers of the sea. Jellyfish are a huge problem in Queensland (but not during this time of year), but you do need to be concerned about stonefish, that sit on the ocean floor, looking like innocent stones, until you step on them and are in excrutiating pain. And, there are also cone shells, that if you pick them out, they will shoot out barbs. Oh, and the scariest of all: seasnakes (nevermind the fact that they rarely attack). So, we set out snorkling with the warning not to touch anything or step on anything.
Now, back to Daydream Island, which is a beautiful Island with a huge resort on it, and numerous pools. We did a nature walk from one end of the island to the
other, a total of about 1 Km. We saw a wallaby in the trees, enjoying a little snack. We were having such a good time that we missed our boat on purpose so that we could stay.
Next, we snorkled, at Sunlover's Cove, which was by far better than Long Island. As soon as you put your head in the water, you could see fish. I swam through a whole school of parrotfish (and thanks to Amanda, I could identify them as such). There was also another group of wallabies hanging out on the beach, and one of the females even had a joey in her pouch. Unfortunately, we had to leave because the last ferry of the day came.
When we got back to Airlie Beach, we had a nice fresh, seafood dinner. Unfortunately, we didn't pick the restaurant that was serving smoked croc, so we had to settle for regular fish and prawns.
Oz Oddities:
- On Long Island, the waitress must have forgot to put the alcohol in my Pina Colada, and I can tell you with absolutely certainty that cocktails do not taste as good without it. They taste like something is
missing.
- At dinner, my bucket of prawns was served with the prawns looking at me! I have never had to de-head, de-tail, de-vein, de-leg and peel my own shrimp at a dinner table before, but we have since learned that that is the norm in this country.
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