Along with Fraser Island and Byron Bay, a sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands is one of the ‘must-do’ activities on the east coast of Australia.
Foley, Steve and I took the night bus from Agnes Water to Airlie Beach on Thursday - about 10 hours worth of travel. After that utterly boring and bum-numbing experience we checked into our hostel and got some sleep - something being crammed together on a bumpy bus ride permits little of. We were due to set sail on Saturday afternoon and by Friday the weather had taken a turn and things were starting to look a bit gloomy. Saturday morning was overcast and it remained that way for the rest of the day, although our only purpose on the boat that day was to get to our resort on South Molle Island. Unlike most other boat tours where you have to sleep on the boat, we were cruising on a swanky catermaran in the daytime and spending the two nights on land. The resort is described in my Rough Guide to Australia as ’slightly shabby’ but after all we’ve been and seen over the last few months this place seemed like luxury. There was a large swimming pool, bar, arcade, hot-tub (though more of a tepid-tub) and a nine hole golf course at our disposal. The beach - alongside which large white parrots could be seen in the palms - wasn’t that great but ofcourse we were on the boat whenever the sun was out anyway.
Our first night on South Molle Island got together all 60 or 70 people doing the trip - on the two different boats that sailed out - in the bar area for drinking games of an ominous nature. Couldn’t afford to get wrecked with a 6am start to look forward to though. Sunday began with bacon and eggs down at the bar, a fine way to start off any day in my book, and we were on the boat, ‘Pride of Airlie’, by 7am.
The skipper warned us the journey would perhaps be a tad choppy which turned out to be a contender for understatement of the year so far. As we got out towards the eastern side of the islands the boat was going up and down like a rollercoaster. A handful of people made a beeline for the back of the boat to empty their stomachs but most of us were loving it. Just as it began to get choppy I started filming on my digi camera and happened to catch the moment the first big wave came up the front and drenched a group of girls sat down enjoying the sunshine. You can watch that here.
Our destination for the day was Whitehaven Beach, easily the prettiest and well-known location in the Whitsundays. It’s also in the top 10 beaches in the world apparently. You can see why from the boat as you approach. From a distance you get the turqoise Coral Sea water below a long stretch of bright white sand topped with a layer of tropical green forest. It’s a kind of beautiful nature sandwich. The beach is indeed all it’s cracked up to be and unfortunately we only had an hour there. We then did some snorkelling. I saw a turtle and swam alongside it, taking a could of pics with my underwater camera, until I ran out of breath and had to come up. After this we got back on the boat which took us back to the island for the night.
After a fairly overcast Sunday the weather on Monday was much more the ticket. We left South Molle at a slightly later 8am bound for Black Rock Island for a snorkelling session. The reef was a lot nicer and more colourful here than at Whitehaven and we saw tons of marine life. Me and Foley spent most of the time trying to take pictures of eachother diving down to the seabed, pointing to large bewildered looking fish with one hand and a thumbs-up on the other. It was was good fun and after lunch (cold meat buffet) the sails went up to take us to Airlie Beach; a smooth ride back in the sunshine to conclude an enjoyable couple of days.
Note: This computer won’t let me upload photos/videos so check back in a couple of days for those. Update: Done!
Will do!