The Whitsundays

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Once again, everything seems a very long time ago now but I shall attempt to recap.

We went went straight through Bundaberg town centre, past the rum distilery and onto Bargara beach.  The place wasn't that great and made slightly worse by the fact that some backpacker was murdered there a few years ago. 

We attempted to rent either bikes or surfboards but no one wanted to help us so we settled for a walk where we saw some squashed cane toads, some spiders so big that I wanted to cry and a turtle exhibit with no turtles. The following day we made the drive to Rockhampton.

After a long drive and a few swear words at the ridiculous number of intersections in Rockhampton centre we arrived at the Dreamtime Aboriginal cultural centre just in time for the last tour of the day. The tour itself was really interesting and a chat afterwards with our new friend Wayne helped to answer the numerous questions I had about how the indigenous people felt about these white folk taking over. After that we went to the slightly shabby zoo and botanical gardens where I lost my boomerang and would rather not talk about it.

A 6.30 start the following morning took us to Airlie Beach where we had some of the best luck in a little while. We (me in particular) were concerned that we may have left it too late to book a cruise of the Whitsundays. On arriving at our camp site, we had our pick of the boats all at discount prices, free camper storage and a free night in the park on our return. After some short deliberation we were all set to board the Solway Lass.

Unfortunately we still had a day and a half to wait but Airlie Beach is not a bad place to do some waiting. The time was most pleasantly filled with some shopping, some eating and some lazing by the lagoon.

Accurately describing just how much I enjoyed this boat trip doesn't really seem possible so I will attempt to summarise. 

The crew were amazing! They were hard working, friendly and very good at what they do. The food was particularly amazing, the last thing in the world I expected was a full roast dinner whilst floating off the Whitsundays. The people (who were initially a concern) where on the whole amazing. We have managed to find another pair of new best friends by the names of Ella and Dave. 

There was a rope swing, we swam with a turtle, I saw some of the best coral I have seen in my life, I have seen the finest sand on the face of the planet, I've raised sails on a boat that has participated in two world wars, I played drunken Jenga, I learned the ways of the mafia, i found pirate treasure on the ocean floor and I've seem Rachel completely embarass herself by confusing Gautamala with Gauantanamo Bay.

I quite literally could not have asked for more out of three days on a boat.

On our return the depression set in fairly hard. There was a night in the pub with our new friends but quite honestly my champagne hangover from the night before wasaking it difficult to remember my own birthday let alone engage in polite conversation.

Today we made our biggest drive yet. About 8 hours with a short stop in mission beach landed us in Cairns, our final Australian destination.

I'm genuinely sad that the Australian leg of our adventure will be coming to an end in just 3 days time but as always there's plenty to look forward to. A day at Mossman Gorge, another day out on the reef for snorkelling and diving, a drink with our new best friends and best of all a replacement boomerang!

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