Blogs from Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 43

When it was cold and wet and we were working in in New Zealand (but having a fantastic time of course) we couldn’t help daydreaming about the Whitsundays. Unfortunatly this is a group of islands off the coast of Queensland which couldn’t possibly look as good in real life as in the guide books, what a shame we thought... Flying up to Airlie Beach on the Whitsunday Coast on a cold Tuesday morning we were almost proven right but actually as soon as you see the coastline in this part of the world and the sun comes out then it is impossible not to fall in love with it. The only real way to see the islands is by boat so most of the people who visit Airlie Beach are there waiting for some sort of ... read more

Got back from our trip round the Whitsundays a couple of days ago. If you ever have the chance to visit, especially from a yacht, do it. They are simply beautiful - as you will see from the photos. We spent three days and nights on board the Solway Lass, a 127-ft ketch, built in 1902. which carries 11 sails, 7 crew and 26 passengers. The weather was glorious- clear blue skies, sunshine, light winds (too light, alas, to use the sails). The stars were fabulous at night. Spent the first day snorkelling and then swimming off Whitehaven Beach (6 km of pristine crystalline sands and the bluest water) and the following day snorkelling/diving or chasing the whales who appeared in the distance. Finished by chilling out on a deserted beach, drinking champagne and watching the ... read more

wow...well had manbk 9 hr bus journey from 1770 to airlie beach but finally got off coach ...very stiff and was hit with heat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 yeeeaaaaaaa!!! more sun!!!!!!! got straight 2 koalas n saw em n the guys from hervy bay so went to get smoothy n chill, on the beach...i then found heaven....a make your own jewelerry store..n all the wooden jewerrlly omg....i was so hapopy i was in there 4 poss n hour...i met loades of people who i met at either byron n harvy..so was great...had 2 hold back..could have spent way 2 much money in there!! anyways then went to the lagoon..oz have quite a few of these manmade lagoons...and jsut chilled in the sun all day long...was awsome 2 just chilll!! anyways seeing as me n kate had been chilling quite a ... read more

Sailing the Whitsundays is on every backpackers itinery. The Whitsunday Islands are a group of about 90 islands lieing off the coast. The blue green waterways surrounding these islands are marine park and fall within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The boats leave from Airlie Beach which is kind of like Magaluf of Australia. Wet T-shirt competitions, naked jello wrestling and enough puking on the street to make us feel like old age fogies. We were not disappointed in the grottiness of our hostel either. After arriving from the greyhound at 3am we rocked up to rest our wiery limbs in our prepaid dorm beds to find them already full with other people. Not impressed. Even more unimpressive was the sleep/drunk walking guy with his dick out his boxers pissing everywhere and on himself ... read more

As our boat ‘set sail’ at 2pm we had the whole morning to watch the weather and pray for it to improve. After a quick lunch at Airlie Beach we walked along the coastal path to the marina, where all the many Whitsunday sailing trips depart, to join our chosen boat, Dreamcatcher. Whilst we were waiting we saw lots of other people - presumably all waiting for their boats, and you can’t help wondering who will be your shipmates for the next two days. One thing everyone was doing was buying alcohol as they don’t sell it on board - it is all BYO. The catch is that you can’t bring any glass on board due to safety issues. With this in mind Lins and I went to the bottle shop and bought a six pack ... read more