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Published: July 12th 2006
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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 as he walked around the hostel. Nice! After staying up all night again we checked into an equally skanky dorm at 7am. So that would be 3 hours before checkout. Great! Plus we had gotten bed bugs in the worlds worst YHA in Rockhampton (do NOT stay there) so we had to wash everything before we could leave. All in all it was not a
cabin fever
Way better than most of the dorms we have stayed in! good start. Luckily the Solway Lass more than made up for it and we spent 3 nights and 3 days sailing the Whitsundays in style! The one piece of advice we had from everybody was to spend a decent amount of cash on your boat to avoid a booze cruise on an overcrowded poor quality boat. She definitely fullfilled her promise.
The Solway Lass is a 127 foot tall ship with an amazing history. Built in Holland in 1902 of German Steel with Timber decking as a sail powered cargo vessel in 1915 Solway Lass was seized as a prize of war by the British and used as a Q-Ship during WWI. At the end of WWI, "Solway Lass" (SL) worked as a coal, produce and stone carrying vessel between Liverpool and Scottish Ports. In 1924 sold to a Scottish firm in the Solway Firth where she was renamed SL. When WWII broke out the Germans seized SL as a prize of war where she was used to supply their armed forces. During the war SL hit a mine and was badly damaged, however the Germans refloated and repaired her because SL was useful as a sail-powered icebreaker. After
WWII Solway Lass served in the South Pacific as a Cargo Vessel. In 1983 a Sydney Businessman purchased SL in Fjii. Between 1983 and 1985 SL was totally rebuilt and in 1988 took pride of place in the 1st Fleet re-enactment of the Tall Ships into Sydney Harbour. Phew...anyway, after sailing around as a wedding ship she now ranks as the oldest sailing boat on the Whitsundays and is the second most luxurious.
True to form the weather was grim and when it came to seeing one of the world's top 10 beaches at Whitehaven it was prety much a tropical washout as the heavens opened soaking us all. Having headed the warning to pack light we had opted for boardies and bikini's only and that cold South Easterly wind was NOT good. Anyway, this is one of the reasons people say pay a decent amount of dough for your boat because the cabins were nice and clean and gave us somewhere to sit in the rain. You had to feel sorry for those idiots who had splashed out $150 dollars on a racing yaught. They were soaked and looked miserable as you are on deck ALL the time.
Money definitely bought us happiness and we were thankful for the advice that you pay for what you get. We may have spent twice as much but we had running hot water showers, proper toilets and gorgeous meals. We had one suny afternoon which was great because the point of the Whitsundays is the colours. Pristine 99.8% silica sand beaches meet coral seas. The snorkelling was amazing. The coral formations were just stunning and although the fish were not as plentiful as the Maldives it was defiitely the best coral we have seen since then. That said we bumped into Elvis, a famously massive (over 1.5m) Lumpheaded Wrasse which was a little bit scary. He was almost as big as our dingy. Plus whilst watching sunset one evening we had our first glance at a possom. Pretty good timing really because we have now seen all the aussie animals we want to. We also took the opportunity to swing on the rope swing and lie in the boom net. We got at least some of the sails up on our last leg back to Airlie and felt like true pirates by the end of our trip. Unfortunately the weather was
pants but we had a really great bunch of people and had a great laugh. Southern Cross are the company to go for on this one!
Well, it is all change for us now aswell. A couple of recent emails last week made me realise that I am not ready to take Lara home yet and have booked to take us to Bali for her Birthday so it will be a few more weeks yet before we are home. With nothing to come back for until I start work I am the best husband ever. Thanks Mum and Dad for lending me the cash. With a bit of luck we may get some sun there! As I write this we are on the paradise island of Magnetic Island in the middle of a tropical rain storm which is to last 4 days. Great!
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Chris Greenley
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Help!
Hi, Hope you don't mind me contacting you. Saw your blog and thought you had an amazing time in the Whitsundays. I am out in Oz for a month in December and after seeing this want to book for the Christmas period. Just one question: Does the price you pay include all meals etc and can you take a backpack onboard? My email address is cgreenley@hotmail.co.uk I would appreciate it if you could let me know, but if not, no worries, I appreciate what it is like when you are travelling. Cheers, Chris