The Whitsundays
Trip Start
Nov 31, 2007
1
26
34
Trip End
Sep 29, 2008
Airlie Beach, Australia
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Well, we got back from our Whitsundays trip yesterday and it was pretty awesome. We were on the 'Pride of Airlie' Blue boat, which luckily for us only had about 30 people on it, whilst the white boat easily had double, if not more! Looking back, i wish we'd paid more and not been talked into the koala trip by our travel agent, it would have been nice to go out on a smaller boat with a small group of boat as i found it all too intimidating being with a huge group of 18-20 yr olds who just wanted to party 24/7. I guess, as Stacey said, we didn't go on the trip to get drunk or make friends, we went on it to see The Whitsundays and we did just that (although i did get a little drunk aswell... ooops)
The first day of our trip can't really be counted as a day as the fun didn't really start til we boarded out boat at about 3pm! By the time we set sail we sailed straight into our resort at South Molle Island - where everyone proceeded to get extremely drunk! Most of the people from the boats were stupid, young and obviously out for one thing and one thing only..... So me and Stace made the sensible (and only) decision to stay at our table for most of the night (bearing in mind it was a picnic table in the middle of a wooden shack) and we kindly declined the invitation to join in with the drinking games! Instead we got supplied with copious amounts of free alcohol by the bar staff as a reward for being the only people sitting out of the games! Hell Yeah!
The next day we left our resort at 7.15am and sailed for about 3 hours before we reached our first stop which was Whitehaven Beach, one of the worlds most beautiful beaches and recognised as a National Park. Our instructions before running onto the beach were "Takes nothing but photos and leave nothing but footprints" what a shame that the girl sunbathing behind us on the beach filled a sandwich bag with sand! We were some of the first people on to the beach and it was absolute spotless, there was no rubbish, no sign that anyone else had ever set foot on the sand and reminded me alot of the lakes at Fraser Island, but obviously with a better view across about 4 other Islands!
Me and Stace donned our Stinger suits - which i took to calling my 'Sexy Suit' as it was black lycra from neck to ankle and i have never felt so sexy... oh not to mention there was a little hole in the bum so if any jelly fish wanted to sting me thats where they had to aim! We snorkelled around the rocks to the side of the beach as the deckie from our boat told us it would be quite good there, but alas, we saw nothing, not even one fish (i was secretly happy about this, it meant i could adjust slowly again!!!) Trust sods law though, as soon as we got on the boat i spotted a turtle not far from where we had been snorkelling, damn thing must have known we were waiting to see it and hung about til we were safely back on the boat!
After our stop at Whitehaven we sailed on to a spot where most people snorkelled but i chose not to, i opted instead for a little snooze inside the boat until the others came back on board - glad to hear it was nothing spectacular! We then made our way back to South Molle Island and returned early enough to go for a swim!! I treated myself to Malibu and Lemonade, but to my disgust i had litereally just put it down on the table, walked over to the pool and heard a smash - the Lorrikeets had knocked it off the table and were drinking the contents of my glass! Alcoholic birds, who would've thought!? It got worse though... As i tried to save the glass from smashing to the floor and take it back to the bar one of the birds started following me - picture this, me, in bikini, running alongside a pool with a glass being pursued by small, bright green bird! yes, funny for onlookers, not for me!!!
Yet again that night everyone decided to get drunk at our little wooden bar so Stace and I decided to opt out of that 'fun' and go to the main resorts bar for a quiet drink which turned out quite nice in comparison to the rowdy drunk teenagers down the other end!
The final day we set sail a bit later so it was nice to have a lie in til 6.30! The sea was quite rough towards the end of the day though and it was all i could do to stop myself from being sick overboard, it was so bad i had to resort to sitting at the front of the boat, looking at the horizon line and getting absolutely soaked by the sea spray, it was so rough the only time i tried to get back into the boat i nearly fell overboard!!! We only made one stop on our final day but that was the best one. I grabbed my newly waterproofed camera (best investment ever, a digipac!) and we had an hour to snorkle around a Bay which was absolutely full of beautiful fish and what once was beautiful coral too. The beach here was made of broken coral so we had to take our flip flops to the beach with us. It was really sad to be snorkelling over such bland looking coral though, i had always expected most parts of the Great Barrier Reef to be full of colour and be extremely pretty like you see in all the photos, but it was nothing like that, it was all the same grey colour, not dissimilar from the coral we snorkelled around in Thailand! We also had the treat of seeing 'Priscilla' while we were at the bay, a giant hump headed sea wrasse! a little bit scary and absolutely huge for a fish! Apparently she turns into a male (!?!?!?!) and begins to grow before looking for a mate who will grow to the same size as her! It wasn't long before the hour was up, and me and stacey were obviously part of the last 6 to be taken back to our boat, so that was it, sea sickness again for a couple of hours and we were back at Airlie Beach well and truely ready for a good nights sleep.
