Whitsundays Adventure

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yowza!

Greetings all. I have just returned from a splendid adventure. I will describe as skillfully as i can: Lara finished exams with apparent success...and moments latar....blammo!...we disappeared on to our trip. We took a bus to Townsville...and picked up her friend Ashley. This bus went on to a place called Airlie Beach. This is your standard tropical paradise town...lots of nice little shops...perfect weather....beautiful boats,water, harbour etc. What makes this town special is that it has 75 beautiful islands connected to it. They are called the WhitSunday islands. We did a little research and found out that some of them are national parks and you can actually rent one for yourself. So we did the appropriate bookings...and the next morning a boat took the 3 of us to our very own island with a tent, some kayaks food etc. Our particular island is called Denman. The float out there was absolutely beautiful. Hard to imagine a more tropical paradise look. Perfect blue cloudless sky, deep blue water...and lush green islands with lots of dramatic crags and mountains shooting about. We arrived at ours, set up camp and thus began our adventure.

We took a quick peek around our own, but soon decided to be adventurous and paddle on over to the much bigger island with a huge mountain on it. We wanted to walk along the ridge. Me and LAra hope into the 2person kayak and Ashley has the single. It takes us a good effort and some current battling, but we finally arrive. Most everything around is mostly undisturbed. No signs or paths or anything. The lack of a path is a bit disconcerting, but being young and dumb, we venture into the bush. This is no orginary grassy thickness. It is is wall-like thickness with grass, twiggie type things trees etc up to our heads. It took extreme effort to go short distances and it was very tiring. Lara mentioned the fact that this is a perfect place for snakes to hideout and eat our feet. Luckily we are lucky. We keep trudging through this massive brush and are starting to get quite discouraged. We are full of yucky brush and little cuts here and there are very sweaty and tired...not to mention we are wearing nearly nothing because we were intending to snorkel....which means bikini and sandals. ick. but my ignorant macho denial of failure payed off...as eventually we came to the trail. This was a beautiful thing to see...and we cheered accordingly. We trekked up the final bits to the the tip top and revelled in our glorious achievement. We dont need no stinking trail!

We followed the trial to the bottom this time. It just so happened this island was also the location for a large beach resort. So we thought we might take a peek at that before we left. On the way to that, we are merrily strolling along until i hear a very large sound to my left, which quickly surrounds in stereo. It was a Beehive. EEEK! Ashley and Lara start running in the opposite direction and tell me to do the same. Turns out Ashley is allergic. So we run away and give up on our resort destination. At this point we just want to get back to our kayaks...which are stored at some random coatal area which likely has no easy access(and we werent about to retrace our horrible steps through the bush). So we estimate, and take a path to a place called oyster bay. This was a lovely wooded shady path....and much to our delight, we stumbled upon a wonderful butterfly-land. This was amazing. There were hundreds of beautiful butterflies in every directions...all different colors. When we stopped moving...they would land on leaves and if you werent looking it would seem they all left.....but opon closer inspection they were merely just sort of flapping in the wind like leaves. We started walking, and they would flutter all the way down and around our journey. It is a wonderful feeling to be surrounded and followed by butterflies. It seems like we are more important somehow. So eventually this treat comes to an end. All the while our ears are being treated to the maniacal call of the Cookabura. This sounds like a blend of a baby crying, insane laughter and and some other unidentifiable secret ingrediant.

We come out of the path onto a strange little mud flat. It is lined with the odd mangroove tree's...whose roots grow up from the ground. Walking around we begin to notice all the new wildlife of this region. Quite large crabs are doing their sideways saunter to escape our path. Other much smaller crabs are being swept away in the mini streams in between rocks. Other creatures are hiding away in holes that we never get to see. We pass this area and have to traverse some larger rocks to get towards our kayaks. As we move along...these rocks gradually start to become covered in snail like shells. They eventually become so dense it is very difficult to avoid stepping on them. At this point a strange little marble sound tinkles all around us. Its the snails choosing to descend below the rocks rather than be stepped on. Every now and then we stop at a little mini water habitat to see what life resides inside. At first it would seem like nothing was happening.....but a litte patience would reveal a slowly awakening pool of fancy creatures. Some of the snails and crabs had wonderfully colored shells and strange little tentacles. The christmas tree coral is a colorful christmas tree looking thing about the size of a thumb...that when you put you hand near it....it would dart back inside the rock....and then slowly come back out It reminded me of something from dr. suess. Other strange wormie centipede looking things would just stick fast to the rock and not move. If this sounds a bit over-descriptive and excessive....its because i was really over-whelmed by the amount of beauty and life that could surround us in such a short distance. Each little section has its own totally unique way of surviving to that particular habitat. Truely extroidanary and indescibably beautiful.

Finally we arrive at our kayaks....and they are very very far from the shore...as the shore had gone down. These kayaks are very heavy and this was an unwelcome site. But we bucked up and heaved them on our heads, walked the wobely walk to the water and paddled back home. We cooked up a few yummy meals and then night was upon us. We had a few scary sounds of maybe possums as we cooked. Always giving us a bit of a fright. But the real scare came later. We were laying on our backs star-gazing( i have never seen so many stars....and there are different constellations here....southern cross instead of the north star big dipper) when a very bright...search type light flashed on us. It was quite far away and was moving. It was scanning the area, but would frequently stop on us...but then move on. Lara wanted to go hide...but we decided we had been spotted so just stay put. Eventually this creepy boat light disappeared....but not before we could conjur a dozen or so possible ideas of what and why they were they. A bit of uncomforable sleeping and some guitar lessons in the morning concluded the adventure. All in all...it seemed like a week or so...but it was only 1 day! crazy. but totally amazing. Next we are off on a 3 day 4WD adventure on the worlds biggest sand island. YEEHAW!

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