Airlie Beach & Whitsundays 20/1/12-26/1/12

The next destination for us was Airlie Beach - home of the famous Whitsundays. We were dreading the 16

hour overnight coach which would take us up the coast, but thankfully Amanda and Laurence the 'honeymoon' couple from our Fraser Island tour offered us a couple of seats in their car. This reduced the journey by 6 hours and gave us the chance to stop off when we wanted etc so we were grateful for the offer.

We arrived into Airlie Beach late in the evening and managed to get ourselves checked into a Nomads hostel. We were a bit dubious about this as we'd stayed in a couple of rubbish Nomads previously, but this hostel was great. Loads of large bungalow type buildings spread out around a pool. We started off in New Zealand staying in private rooms and have gradually worked our way to staying in larger dorms - I think the largest we stayed in was a 10 bed dorm, which to be honest hasn't produced any horror stories as we probably feared!

The following day we enjoyed the weather by the pool and spent the evening with a small group from Fraser Island cooking a BBQ at one of the various free outdoor BBQ's by the sea front. We went for a couple of drinks at Magnums, the largest club there. Two of the girls we were with got involved with the jelly wrestling while being egged on by quite a big crowd. One of the girls lost in the final which would have won her a couple hundred pounds.

The second day the same group of us drove out to a waterfall that had been recommended. It was an amazing site and something we wouldn't have been able to see if we hadn't been with people who had a car. Airlie Beach was actually a really good place, the only downside was that you were not allowed in the sea due to jellyfish. It was back down to Magnums that night, this time for the slightly more adventurous wet t-shirt competition. Jenna once again chose to sit this one out!

All of the boat trips to the Whitsundays start off from Airlie Beach. The Whitsundays are a number of 'continental islands' just off the East coast of Australia - they really are special. Think white sand and turquoise water.We booked ourselves on a 3day/2 night trip as part of our Fraser Island package. The trip isn't cheap though and probably the most expensive thing we'd be doing on our travels. The night before the trip we changed hostels as we had already pre booked and got roped into doing the hostel quiz. The quiz involved only 3 teams and a total of 7 people - hardly anything to get excited about. Particularly as we came last.

We boarded our boat at 2pm on the 1st day of our trip. The boat was called New Horizon and was about 30 foot long with 30 people on board. The boat was easily big enough for all of us, with a large outdoor deck that everyone just sat out on and beds below deck. The 3 crew on board were really good and we were fortunate that the 30 others were a good laugh.

 By the time we'd sailed out of the harbour and away from land towards the islands it was late afternoon, so we anchored up for the night by Hook Island. They set up the 'plank' and we took it in turns jumping off into the sea. We had to wear stinger suits whenever we entered the water due to it being jellyfish season and as you can imagine Jenna was delighted by this! To be fair I don't really think any one can pull off an all in one tight Lycra looking suit so she was just being paranoid! The current took you several meters in seconds, so it was a case of jump in and then climb straight back out. We had a really good dinner and then just spent the evening sitting under the stars chatting to the other 30 on board. Everyone took their own drinks on board so that was easy and cheap enough.

The next morning we were up and about by 6.30am and we sailed to the famous Whitehaven beach. We were fortunate with the weather as we arrived in glorious sunshine and this does make the beach and water look that little bit more amazing. We were taken to shore by a small speedboat and had a couple of hours to ourselves on the beach. We swam in the water, once again in our stinger suits, and saw a couple of decent sized stingray and several lemon sharks which were about 2 foot long. We'd been told beforehand that these sharks were harmless, otherwise I would have been straight out of the water! Once I knew they were harmless I wanted to get up close to them but they would swim off if you got too close.

We then sailed on to Maureen Cove to have out first go at snorkelling. I was a bit apprehensive as the previous night someone thought they had seen a shark by the side of the boat, but we just had to get on with it! The snorkelling was incredible. The coral we swam over was so spectacular and the tropical fish we saw were like nothing we had ever seen before. Every colour, pattern and shape you could ever imagine - the only thing missing was a David Attenborough commentary! We were in the water over two hours but both of us could have stayed there for longer. Somebody said they saw a turtle, which Jenna was extremely jealous of. From this point onwards all she wanted was to see a turtle and she pretty much had the whole boat on look out, including the skipper who would shout 'Turtle, Turtle' over the side of the boat!

We had a good evening with the rest of the group and then we were up bright and early again for our final snorkel. This time however it was tipping it down! The snorkeling was still good although I think the visibility wasn't as great due to the rain. We saw some amazing fish again, including a huge flat fish with massive rubber looking lips called Elvis who apparently is there everyday. He was a really tame fish and even let Jenna touch him. He was huge, probably about 4 foot long and 2 foot in height. Type into Google, 'Elvis Whitsundays' and you'll see loads of photos of him! Unfortunately Jenna didn't see a turtle though.

We headed back to Airlie beach for lunchtime. It was an amazing trip and I definitely preferred it to Fraser Island, I think this probably had something to do with the weather though. We met up with a few of the group in the evening as they were doing a cheap pizza deal in one of the bars for us. A good few days!