Whitsunday Islands

After our trip to Fraser Island, we had one and a half days to get up to Airlie Beach for our Whitsunday Sailing trip... about an 8 hour drive. We stopped at Noosa for the day since everyone had been talking about it and we didn't want to miss it. Sounds like it used to be a quaint surfy hippie town like Byron, but now it looks pretty expensive and a vacationing/retirement spot for the wealthy. Lots of nice bars, restaurants and designer shops. The beach looked really nice too. From here, we drove to Rockhampton to take a break from driving and try out some of Australia's best beef. It's a cool little town that is kind of like the Alberta of Australia... they have rodeos and cowboy bars and lots of cows. One place in town, The Great Western, has rodeo practice on Wednesdays and Fridays and a cheap food menu so that's a big tourist stop in town. Sadly, we were there on a Monday. If you have to use the computer while in Rockhampton, go to the library... one of the nicest I've ever seen! And the internet is fast hehe... We finally got our beef after waiting a while for the dinner menu to come up, and it was alright, I don't think we went to the right place though, we ended up at an Irish bar. Oh well.

We drove for a bit longer into the night until we almost ran out of gas and decided to sleep overnight at a gas station that was closed to wait til it opened in the morning so that we could actually make it to Airlie Beach. The next morning, we got a phone call from the sailing company saying that our boat had broken down and that we would be taking another boat... that left in 45 minutes. So, we had to race down to the dock and get everything packed while we were still driving, but we ended up making it there on time thankfully! Recognized some people from our Fraser Trip, there was about 23 people in total with 3 workers, and we set out on the Avatar... a catamaran instead of a sailboat.

The weather wasn't looking too good when we set sail, and indeed it started to downpour. It only lasted a little while (thankfully!) and we were able to make it to our first snorkelling spot without rain. Saw lots of different colored corals, lots of different fish and Glen spotted a turtle sitting down between the coral. On this trip, the food was made for us which was really nice... sailed for a bit longer then set anchor and drank more goon.

The next day we set sail for Whitehaven Beach, which was named "The World's Best Beach" and "Top Eco Friendly Beach". Our deck hand drove us in on a little tinny to a trailhead that you could walk up to a viewpoint or down to the beach. The viewpoint was amazing! The sand is so white and created these cool patterns against the bright blue water... really cool. When we got down to the beach, the water was so clear that you could see little sharks and the sand was so fine... unlike any sand I've ever seen/felt before. We spent a couple of hours here then set out for another snorkel... didn't see much this time. There was one more snorkel I didn't end up doing (but Glen did) and he said it was a bit better... but he didn't find any Nemos. Ended up putting down the anchor at the snorkel spot and had a relaxing evening playing cards with peeps and dying of fullness after eating a huge dinner.

The final morning, we set sail early in order to get back to the marina by 9:30am. Got onto the mainland and headed to the Lagoon... a public pool area where you can swim without stinger suits woohoo! Had a quick dip before getting on the road again to drive up to our final destination on our trip: Cairns.

** For our sailing trip, we went with the company Oz Sail. It was $290 + $60 fees for two nights and 2 days. If you go on a Whitsunday sailing trip, I suggest you bring:

• sea sickness pills hahaha... I didn't actually get sick but I felt like I was going to... it was really rocky in the beginning.
• your own snorkel/mask/flippers since the ones on board were pretty ghetto.