Not the Whitsunday Islands

After what seemed like a lifetime of travelling, but was actually only 24 hours, we arrived in Airlie beach. This is a fairly small party town mostly occupied by backpackers waiting to go on a Whitsundays trip. It's much busier than the towns we were used to on the west coast. There is also a nice swimming pool/lagoon that is free for the public. 

We boarded the catamaran on Thursday lunchtime and head out to the islands. Its about 3 hours to our first night stop in Hook Passage. Once we had dropped anchor we had some time to get to know the rest of the passengers over a few beers. It was a good mix of nationalities, only 3 Brits, and everyone was really friendly and was excited about the rest of the trip. The boat was extremely comfortable and spacious. The skipper then gave a little talk about the history of the place and how the name is wrong, the islands are actually the Cumberland Islands but the passage between them and the main land is Whitsunday Passage. We had a private cabin with a hatch that looked up to the stars. The boat even had a hot tub that Lloyd enjoyed but he did admit it was a little too hot to be relaxing.

The next morning we headed for the famous Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island. Both of us were still recovering from the travels of the previous few days so tried to sleep in a little. This turns out to be a bad idea as the water was a bit choppy and we didn't get on with sleeping while on the move. Once we got off the boat we both felt fine again, but we vouched that the next day we would be up before the boat started moving. Whitehaven beach is the purest silica beach in the world the sand is 98% silica. If lightening struck the beach the sand would instantly fuse together in one ball of glass.  NASA took 5 tons of the sand to use in the lens for the Hubble telescope (Lloyds favourite fact about the beach). Its an amazing beach, the water is so clear you can see baby sting rays swimming and the sand is so soft to walk on its hard to describe.

Once a couple of hours of messing around on the beach had passed we headed for some snorkelling in bays around some of the other islands. In Mackerel and Mantaray Bay we saw huge sections of the Great Barrier Reef populated with so many different fish. Its really was amazing, everywhere you looked a different species of fish would swim past. We eventually had to get back on board the boat and sailed off to Langford Spit where we would spend the night. The evening flew by with a few drinks and the entertainment of some large fish swimming around the lights underneath the boat. We also spend a lot of time star gazing with the help of an ipad app, something that is made a lot easier with the almost zero light pollution. 

The next morning everyone was up by 7 for an early breakfast and snorkel. This time the star of the show was a giant green turtle about 3 foot in diameter. Even in the spot that is renowned for turtles we were lucky to see one that big. The skipper told us that at that size they will be about 150 years old. I saw a giant Sting Ray but sadly Lloyd was to far away too see it. Last time I was there Colin cut his foot on some coral, this time Lloyd went one better and hit his head on it while filming underwater. No serious damage was done though and hopefully the video is good.

We chilled out while the boat sailed back to Airlie beach. Just in time to let us get some lunch before checking back into the hostel. In the afternoon we met up with some of the other people from the boat before heading to one of the backpacker bars for a cheap meal and some free drinks to celebrate the end of an awesome trip.

Just chillin'

Crazy hair

In case of emergency

Lookout nr Whitehaven Beach

Sunset on the first night

Adventurer gang

Taking the plunge

Rocking a t-shirt tan

The route we took