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Published: August 21st 2006
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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 cruise. Having booked ours before we arrived in Oz we were able to avoid the constant badgering from the tour guides, hostel owners and everyone else trying to lure you onto their particular trip. Our yacht Madison was chosen on the basis that although it was not the biggest yacht in the area it only took 12 people at a time whilst some of
Sunset over Australia
Well a small island off the coast of Australia, but its the ozzy flag, get it? the racing yachts take about 30 people in a similar length of boat so you don’t get any real space to yourself.
We met the Madison people down at Abel Point Marina outside Airlie Beach (on the way we saw a smooth green snake with a yellow belly which we later looked up and it was poisonous, ten points). Almost immediately we decided that we liked everyone else on the trip, but that the skipper (Roger) was clearly a bit mental. After lecturing us for about 30 minutes on different ways to die whilst sailing and how best to avoid this, he then procceded to tell us that “the only rules are that there are no rules” which turned out to mean “except whenever I feel like making up a new rule and yelling it at you at the top of my voice”, but more of that later.
We spent the first evening on the yacht motoring up to our anchorage for the night and getting to know our fellow passengers - mainly british backpackers, one Kiwi and a Dutch dude who were all really nice and we had lots of laughs. Tom and I were given a
cabin at back of the yacht with a couple of bunks in which was really cozy and the next morning we woke up at about 7am for breakfast and our sail out to the Barrier Reef. The main difference between the motoring last night and that mornings sailing was that the yacht was listing over to one side which meant everyone had to hang on and it was really difficult to move aroudn the vessel. Anticipating this tom and I moved to the front of the yacht and looked out for whales (it was whale season aparently) and avoided all forms of motion sickness that struck the people sitting in the back. Refreshed after a little snooze we arrived at the reef and moored up next to some other yachts and had some lunch before going snorkelling on the reef. Aparently you only get reef sharks on the reef which are harmless, the coral is amazing and we had seen a couple of turtles from the boat so we were really keen to get in the water. Roger took us across on the dingy and we jumped in. Snorkelling about the reef was amazing, lots of colourful coral both hard
(that looks like rock) and soft (which looks like crazy colourful plants) and fishes - no photos I’m afraid, Liz managed to loose the camera on the reef after we had taken a few shots, it sleeps with the fishes now. We did in fact see a shark (a little one) which made our hearts beat a little faster but we knew it was harmless so watched it swim off, no turtles unfortunatly but saw the first of some MASSIVE fish that we saw throughout the Whitsundays as well as loads of cool colourful tropical fishes.
After another sail back to the islands we moored up for the night and enjoyed a few glasses of wine and went to bed - but found out in the morning that one of the passengers had gone overboard (we weren’t moving though) in the night and had to be rescued by Roger the grumpy skipper, tee hee. The second morning we went to the famous Whitehaven Beach which is an absolute stunner. The sand is as soft/fine as talcum powder and the sea one hundred shades of blue and green. We walked across to the beach from a neighbouring bay heeding Roger’s
advice that the world’s 5 most deadly snakes can be found on this island, thanks skipper. We of course were armed with ‘stinger suites’ as Roger assured us that although it was out of jelly season we were more than likely to be stung and have to be airlifted to hospital. The 12 of us looked a tad silly as no one else in the whole of the whitsundays was using them - although out at the outer reef they were good as coral can give you a bit of a sting aparently, that’s the kind of dangerous place Australia is when even the rocks are out to get you. We spend the morning lounging and tried to avoid the sand destroying our cameras/the boat/our sanity as Roger had prophesised in his ususal doom and gloom way. The afternoon was another snorkeling trip at one of the smaller islands, again loads of coral and more fish this time. At one stage liz started to panic as she had come over from a different dingy to tom and could not see him ANYWHERE, ahhhh (yes Roger had enlightened us about the story of the couple left out on the reef and
forgotten about a few years ago but in this case we were only about 20 m from land). Luckily she found him miles away from everyone else going “look look you can hear all the fishes eating the coral” and its true they were making a really racket and their table manners left a little to be disired. Chomping away on the coral it sounded a bit like hundred of people taking photographs on old noisy cameras but it was fish, eating rocks, go figure. After getting over the shock that tom had not been eaten by sharks we snorkelled back over to Madison where Nelly - our lovely Dutch deck hand - was feeding bread to the fish. At this point Tom decided to get up close and personal with a fish when nelly threw a bit of bread down next to him. Don’t know if you can tell from the photos, but this fish was about the size of a 6 year old child, and it tried to snog tom with its enormous fishy lips. Tom gave it a pat, ‘feels a bit slimey’ was the verdict.
Day three we did some more beachs and some more
snorkelling, hard life. Checked out some more coral - snorkelling out from the beach this time. Most impressed with the clams which we found hidden in the coral, not very well camoflaged the coral could be yellow and the clams mouth bright purple, amazing to see them open and close. Roger ferried us back and forward from Madison to the beach and managed to only say (excuse the language) ‘bloody hell’ about seven times which was a bit of a record where he was concerned. We are sure that he is a fantastic skipper but clearly not what is known as a ‘people person’ with all the yelling that he did - and not really even about sailing things which we could of understood as sailing always seems to involve a degree of shouting, more just general grumpiness. Actually became quite amusing though, and could do nothing to ruin what was a fantastic couple of days. Back on Airlie beach we spent some time at the man-made lagoon - you can’t swim in the sea at Airlie Beach because of the crocs - and hanging out with our new boaty friends before our overnight coach (a 12 hour spectalcular) to
Cairns. But we couldn’t leave before spotting a huge lizard waddle past through the hostel site, check out the pics he was a beast!
Bye bye Whisundays :o(
HELLO tropical northern queensland :o)
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gomez
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you lucky b@#$ards
I am so jealous right now.Those fish look delicious