Time to visit the Great Barrier Reef - Airlie Beach, Australia
Airlie Beach, Australia
Where I stayed
Swamp Bay
What I did
Whitsunday Islands Queensland
Great barrier reef
Hey, how ya going?
Our next stint would have us in the same location for five nights allowing us to let our hair down and enjoy the Whitsunday Islands and the famous Great Barrier Reef.
WARNING: this is a very long blog! Pop the kettle on and make yourself comfortable with a cuppa!
Sat 19th Oct - We left alligator creek campsite both knowing we wanted to stay longer but time was pressing and we couldn't sit around for another day. One day off and we really do start to feel lazy! To wake us up and motivate ourselves we stopped back at the service station up the road for a nice warm shower.
We had read that there were many points from which to explore the Whitsunday's (which are a bunch of 75 islands that used to be mountains on mainland Australia but were lost at sea after the last ice age) with the the most northerly being the town of Bowen which also had claims to reefs close enough to mainland shore that you could snorkel to it and this sounded perfect to us.
We checked our wikicamp app and the closest free camp was 40km north of Bowen and we checked it out on the way. It was at the end of a 6.5km unsealed road through farmer's land which brought us out to a very weird hillbilly village of tin shack homes which looked no better than a garden shed with owners faces staring at us with a 'y'all ain't from round these parts' expression. We didn't like the feel of the place one bit and felt more out of place than Victoria Beckam at fat camp. We turned around and headed back to the main road checking in our mirrors that no one followed. Anyone seen the film wolf creek?
We continued south towards Bowen and as we usually do driving into a new town we followed the tourist information signs. It was all closed up though and the only information we derived was that the Nicole Kidman film Australia was filmed in the town. It was nice where we had parked up with parkland with BBQs and picnic tables over looking the calm beaches. We had left over rice for dinner and hoped that it had fermented nicely over night. Garry decided to use one of the free BBQs to re-fry his rice but I decided I would eat mine cold and be done with it. He made an utter mess and even passing tourists were stopping to film him! Who in Australia BBQs day old fried rice?? He admitted defeat and ate it and spent three times as long trying to clean the BBQ up.
From here we drove around the coastland checking out the many beaches. We started off with horseshoe beach which was supposed to be the best for snorkelling. The sea around this side was really really choppy dragging up mud making the sea a turquoise brown colour and so we decided against snorkelling and drove on to Rose bay which was a really nice beach with climbable rocks on the right and a grassy area behind the beach. We spent a bit of time here climbing the rocks and chilling out reading our kindles.
We needed to do a shop so we headed to the Woolworths and bought some sausages for dinner - I thought Garry should have the chance to cook something proper on the barbie. We chose to go back to where we had lunch and the wind was now hitting this stretch of beach too but we managed to make our dinner of sausage mash and beans and the BBQ'd sausages were goooood. So far throughout Australia there have been picnic spots all over the place and they always have sheltered picnic tables and a BBQ. Aussies had told us about the free BBQs but we had presumed they would be the coal ones where you had to have coal and firelights but they aren't they are a metal hot plate with a small hole in the middle which heats up after pressing a button - a free kitchen!
Now we were fed it was time to find a bed and we had read on an online forum that there was a rest area south of Bowen where it was ok to camp. We got there and there were no camping signs so we carried on the road southwards keeping our eyes peeled for somewhere to stay but we ended up at our next destination - Airlie beach. We had four nights booked here starting tomorrow at a national park campsite in Swamp bay so we drove there to stay the night. We got to the car park and by now it was dark. Before Garry booked the sight he hadn't really read the small print saying the camping area was a 2.1km walk from the car park and from the car park we could see it would be a forest walk which we didn't fancy at 7pm so we decided to stay a night in the car.
Sun 20th Oct - I slept OK in the car but got too hot so unwound the back window slightly during the night. This was the worst unconscious decision I think I've ever made as in the morning I was covered in small red blotches which I knew from Cambodia to be sandfly bites! They were OK for now but I knew I reacted to them and in a few hours they would have raised into red itchy spots that burnt like fire and I had 150 of them all over my body - no exaggeration, we counted until we got bored.
We were up early and had our breakfast before the 2.1km walk through the national park to the campsite by the sea at swamp bay. Garry carried the tent and our bag of sleeping bags etc and I waltzed through the woodland track with a half blown up queen sized air bed! I felt ridiculous but knew I would be glad of it. The campsite consisted of four pitches gathered around a small area in wooded land right off of a coral beach. We didn't like any of the pitch locations so followed somebody else's track through the woods a bit more to a clearing where someone else had previously cleared the stones and had a fire and we chose this spot. We set up camp and left to walk back to the car.
We had heard from many Australians and other travellers that we had to do a Whitsunday's tour so not wanting to miss out our first plan of the day was to book on to a tour. We were only down the road from Shute harbour so we thought we would see if there were any travel agents there in the hope it would be cheaper since it was the port! We had already discussed what we wanted which was a day trip to sail through the islands visiting Whitehaven beach and having a snorkel. There were so many options out there from 3 day cruises on a pirate ship to a trip on the worlds fastest boat. We thought if we knew what we wanted with a budget in mind it would be easy to book onto something.
We pulled up beside a small tourist kiosk by the harbour and took a look at all the brochures whilst waiting for the owner to show up. We had a read through and narrowed it down to two. Jack the sales man helped us out with our questions and left us to it whilst we made a descion. In this time though I had found another tour brochure which included free drinks - not just soft drinks... ALL drinks. Garry had a look too and in the same brochure was a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. From what we had seen in Cairns we weren't too fussed over the wonder of the world as thousands a day are shipped out to it ruining the coral and it all appeared bleached lacking the wonderful colours I had always imagined. We also thought that the Whitsunday's were part of the Great Barrier Reef so expected to kill two birds with one stone. Garry asked Jack and he said that the GBR was 2 hours north of the Whitsunday's and whilst we were here it simply was a must and said it was better than Cairns as only hundreds visit a day not thousands. They jush happened I have a deal on for the two trips and a student discount on top so we booked it.
We left the harbour feeling very happy with our decision and now it was booked I actually really wanted to go to the Great Barrier Reef. It wasn't even 10am but it was a scorcher and with no other plans for the day we hit the small town of Airlie beach to chill out by the lagoon. Lagoons seem to be very popular here since the sea isn't really safe to swim in for most of the year due to the deadly box jelly fish so there are often really nicely done outdoor swimming pools free for all to use. The Airlie beach one was done really nicely and was huge with fringing beaches and palm trees in a grassed area overlooking natures big lagoon - the ocean. We picked our spot on the beached area and lay down reading our kindles for a couple of hours.
We spent the afternoon walking around the cute tourist town of Airlie and bought ourselves an underwater case for the camera to take snaps of all the tropical fish and coral we would witness over the next few days. We tried it out in the lagoon before heading back to camp to cook some dinner before dark to allow time for another 2km hike to our tent.
Mon 21st Oct - The alarm was sounding at 05:15 and it was time to get up so we were ready to be picked up at 07:05 at a bus stop closer to town. We must have been excited since we made the walk in a record 25 minutes. We were at the bus stop before 7am and watched the ominous black cloud that was hovering our way and broke out above us, it was just a quick shower though which left a beautiful full rainbow in its path.
We waited and waited and then waited some more. It was soon 07:30 am and we still hadn't been picked up. Garry ran back to the car to get his phone but after the call connected his battery died. We knew the boat was due to sail at 8am and couldn't believe they would be this late picking up customers, we must have been forgotten! Garry borrowed a ladies phone to call Jack from the sales office and five minutes later he was pulling in to the bus stop and raced us to the harbour whilst on the phone to the company. The Great Barrier Reef boat had left as had the Camira, the boat we were due to get on Wednesday to see the whitsundays. Jack was not happy and walked us in to the 'Cruise Whitsunday' reception and left us with a lady called Lisa who he'd been on the phone with. Basically someone from Cruise Whitsunday's had messed up telling us to wait at that bus stop as the actual pick up location was the reception area of the caravan park behind the bus stop. Lisa didn't apologise and immediately informed us that they never pick up from the bus stop and made us feel like we had done something wrong. In hindsight I do wish we had called early enough to have been able to catch the boat but after several trips in Asia and South America we were used to not being picked up at the stated time.
Lisa changed our days around so that we would do the Whitsundays tour today and the Great Barrier Reef tour on Wednesday. The Camira had a pick up at Daydream island half an hour away where it was currently waiting and Cruise Whitsunday's had an island transfer boat leaving at 0830 which could drop us at daydream in order to get the Camira. Garry and I were very annoyed as we had been left to feel like it was our fault and that we were somehow indebted to Lisa! It left us annoyed and fed up, how would we enjoy the day now? Oh yeah the Camira had free drinks!!!
We got on a little dingy at daydream island to take us to the large purple catamaran waiting out at sea. We had a briefing by one of the deck hands called Woz. At first I thought it was a young lad but when Woz spoke I thought they were a girl. We never got to find out what gender Woz was but an English family discussed it and thought it was in the name 'woz a boy/girl'. Woz was funny though and I liked 'him'. After the briefing we went to sit at the front of the boat and enjoyed the sailing with our morning tea and cakes.
It was soon time to snorkel and we all got kitted up with a full body stinger suit (to protect us from those nasty jelly fish), fins and a mask with snorkel. Garry and I were one of the ones in the first dingy load out to the coral as we had ourselves down as experienced snorkellers/swimmers. We had to exit the boat by falling backwards and although I have done this before it still managed to freak me out. I couldn't catch my breath upon entering the water and I had a bit of a panic. I thought as soon as I put my face in the water I would be distracted by the beauty of the coral and fishes but I couldn't see anything. It took me ages to get my breathing back to normal and we had a snorkel between the boundaries and it was rubbish the coral was about 3m away and we couldn't see anything and I could probably count the amount of fish I saw on one hand. We were the first boat load in and the first boat load back as we weren't impressed. The deckhands on the dingy informed us it it was because of the full moon and that the tide rises around this time from 2m to 4m so of course visibility would be worse - nice of them to inform us prior to booking, or is that common knowledge?
We got back to the boat and it was now windy and we were cold, you can only imagine our moods now! One thing for it- free alcohol. I went on a hunt but I couldn't find any only the soft drink box so we huffed over a diet coke. After the last load of snorkellers were bought back to the boat the alcohol licence started and Garry went to get us a well needed drink. He came back with a can of lager for him and one of those little bottles of white wine, Jacobs creek no less, for me. The boat suddenly got very choppy and I decided the best way for me to drink the wine would be straight from the bottle, and it was all downhill from here.
It's funny how alcohol makes people more social. There had been no interactions between anybody prior to this but now everybody was talking to the people around them. We got chatting to a couple who were on their honeymoon from Spain and the groom was from Peru. We had a couple of drinks before we were stopping at Whitehaven beach which is supposed to be one of the top ten beaches in the world. Lopes Mendes from Brazil was still top of our list so we would be the judges! We got the dingy over and the sand was really fine and squeaked like snow. It was nice, but not number 1. We had a sit down and admired the view as we were surrounded by white beach either side of us stretching for ages, crystal clear lush coloured blue seas in front of us and some of the 75 Whitsunday islands all around. We enjoyed another can of diet coke (unfortunately alcohol was not allowed to be taken off the boat) before taking some pictures. We walked down to the shore and got chatting to another couple who were on their honeymoon and were from England. We must have chatted for ages as before we knew it the dingy was back ferrying people back on to the catamaran. We quickly took some snaps and headed back.
Back on the catamaran lunch was being served. It was buffet style with salads, breads etc inside and Woz was outside cooking up a barbie where I had steak, a sausage, chicken and fish, my plate was piled high and of course accompanied with free vino! Lunch was amazing and the Aussies really do know how to BBQ!
From here the day is a bit of a blur for me as I took the open bar thing a little too literally and must have drank my tickets price worth of wine. The boat continued to sail through the islands but the conditions weren't great with the sea being choppy and the wind fierce although this aided us when the catamaran turned the engines off and sailed to its maximum speed of 60 knots.
The next thing I remember was waking up passed out on the back seat of our car in the campsite's car park, how did that happen? Garry informs me that I didn't embarrass myself too much and I jumped into the back seat when the bus dropped us off and passed out. Thankfully he didn't drink the beers dry and was fine to drive us back. It was gone midnight and Garry was still awake sat on the drivers seat blogging. Bless him he had placed the sleeping bag liner over me and doused me in insect repellent so those sand flies would leave me be!
I convinced Garry I was now sober and that I wanted to walk to the tent to sleep as I couldn't get comfy again in the car and so we stupidly entered the dark unforgiving forest towards our bed. It took us a lot longer than 25 minutes this time since I was not sober at all and was staggering all over the place, falling flat on my face at one point. We were soon on our comfy blow up mattress though and I was pleased with my decision.
Tues 22nd Oct - Eurgh! To say I was feeling rough was an understatement, and what was first to greet me? ... A bloody long walk, just what every good hangover craves! I think this walk was longer than last nights, if that was possible, but we made it back and had some brekkie!
We took a drive to Conway beach which was on the other side of the peninsula which apparently had a rest area with charging points and the plan for today had been admin! The drive was pretty through sugar cane plantation and banana tree fields. We got to the rest area and Garry set himself up with the stove to make his coffee whilst the laptop was charging and the internet set up. I stayed in the car feeling sorry for myself.
It was like all my prayers had been answered when Garry came to get me from the car telling me an angelic couple had offered us some bacon and eggs they had cooked up on the free barbie in front of Garry's set up! Wow had they sensed my hangover through the sealed car? They were a really nice couple who we spoke to for over an hour and had a play with their humongous staffie!
Hangover cure number two called for a can of Pepsi and strawberry lances but it still hadn't taken off the edge so I went for a lay down on the back seat again whilst Garry finished his Asia blogs, thankfully all mine were mostly done. We called it a day here when I decided I was in need of hangover cure number three - a Big Mac meal, and we drove back to Airlie for an early Macca's dinner.
We walked back to the tent in the light tonight and Garry collected firewood as he wanted to try and make his first ever wild fire. He had been setting up the fire pit since we had set up camp and I left him to it for yet another lie down. I saw a brief glow through the tent and went to check out his efforts to find out the fire was merely the dried grass quickly burning off not lighting the actual wood so retreated again but was called out a few minutes later to a roaring blaze and Garry appeared very pleased with himself. What is it with men and fire? We marvelled at the flames for a few minutes and were disturbed by the rustles of the forest all around us. We then caught sight of something hopping infront of the fire and then they were all around - frogs. They must have been attracted out of their homes by the warmth of the fire. It was enough to freak us out and we put out the fire to retreat to the tent to watch the final episodes of 'breaking bad'.
Weds 23rd Oct - The alarm went off again at 05:15 and today would be attempt number two on trying to visit the Great Barrier Reef. We got ourselves ready and started the morning by watching the sunrise over our private beach - swamp bay. I looked down though at my leg to find ten sand flies helping themselves to breakfast which quickly freaked me out and got me walking quickly towards the car park. Not wanting breakfast in the car park where other sand flies hang out we drove straight to the Jubilee tavern car park where we would leave the car for the day. We had our breakfast here and got a bag packed before crossing the road and not waiting at the bus stop this time but at the entrance for 'Island gateway' caravan park where other people also started to gather.
Not long after 07:05 the bus picked us up and we were on our way back to the harbour and nothing could get in the way now for us to see the Great Barrier Reef. We got our tickets and queued up to board the big three tired boat which would take us across the pacific to the natural wonder. First we had a sail through the Whitsunday islands and stopped at Hamilton island which was a 6 star resort. Apparently to be a 6 star resort you need a PGA certified golf course and because there was no room on Hamilton the owners bought the small island opposite which is now an 18 holed golf course, could it get any more lynx?
About 200 people boarded here and then we were on our way. It was about a two hour journey to hardy reef where Cruise Whitsunday's have set up a pontoon with a sun deck to top up the tan, a changing room to change in to snorkel attire and an underwater observatory for a real life aquarium. On the boat over to the pontoon Garry had booked on to do an introductory scuba dive. He has never dived before and I have done two intro dives and always found myself disappointed as I always see more snorkelling so I was not doing a third. The salesman tried his hardest to convince me to do one though and when I told him I didn't like it he said it was because I'm a controlling person, ha!!
Garry was off having his dive briefing when we sailed through the reefs. The Great Barrier Reef isn't actually one whole reef but over 2,900 different reefs making up the barrier. It was so beautiful and after sailing for hours and being in the middle of the ocean seeing the paler beautiful coloured sea over the reef was unreal. We pulled up and the boat got connected to the pontoon. We got off and headed for the semi submersible glass bottomed boat which took you over the reef to get up close, but not too personal, with the coral and the fishes with an on board commentary from a marine biologist. It was a cool ride of about 20 minutes and you could feel the boat sinking to get as close as possible to the reef. Pretty fish swam past and there was now really no need to get wet and go diving/snorkelling!
Garry's dive was at 12:30pm and lunch was being sever from 12-2pm so we got in some lunch before his dive. It was a buffet style lunch with meats, cheeses and salads but it was nothing compared to the BBQ served for us on the Camira. Garry went to go and get ready whilst I finished off my lunch in time to get down and take a picture before he got on his way. I decided to get ready myself and go out snorkelling over the reef. I was a lot calmer today as the reef was so amazing with so many fish to ogle at. I snorkelled up to the other pontoon where there was nobody around as everybody else all concentrated themselves around the main pontoon. Here I saw what looked like a turtle about 2 meters down so I went over to it and it was! It was amazing swimming above the turtle and I just lay on the ocean watching it aimlessly swim around. He must have been an old one and been through the wars since his shell looked fuzzy and he only had half of a front fin. I'm not sure how long I was mesmerised by the turtle but I thought it was probably time I went back to meet Garry so I swam to the resting area and took one last look at the turtle to remember where he was so I could come back and show Garry. The turtle then came up for air no further than a meter away from me - how fricking awesome! On the way back to the pontoon I saw a massive fish who was really colourful and friendly and then a light pink little fish who was very inquisitive. He would be about a meter directly below my face swimming along with me and then he would turn 90 degrees to face me and swim as fast as he could toward my face before darting off in another direction centimeters before my goggles. It freaked me out first time but he did it a lot after this and I became fond of the little daredevil.
I got back and couldn't wait to tell Garry what I had seen but also to hear how his first dive went. He didn't overly enjoy it as his ears couldn't equalise and so really really hurt him and his instructor didn't seem to care. My theory was confirmed when he admitted he hadn't seen much and only I had swam with a turtle. Garry went to go get the camera and waterproof bag and we would put it to the real test today in the open ocean. I so wish I had had the nerve to take it with me the first time. We got back into the snorkel area and the current now was quite strong and we had to swim against it to get back to the other pontoon and the turtle hangout. I had never understood it before when they called snorkelling a strenuous activity but after that onslaught with the current I was knackered. We got to the other pontoon but the turtle was gone. We allowed the strong current to do all the work on the way back as we lay there looking down on the coral. It had disappointed me in the fact it really wasn't very colourful but it was still great.
We left the pontoon at 3pm to make our way back to the mainland. The weather and sea conditions had been perfect today so maybe the whole mix up at the beginning of the week was just meant to be as today had been perfect. The sun slowly set behind the islands and then the mainland and we pulled into the harbour just after 6pm. We got the bus back to the car park and drove back into town to get some dinner. It would already be dark by the time we had to do the walk to the tent so we thought what was an extra hour so we went in to town to get a dominos pizza for dinner and we ate it on the beautiful beach by moonlight. We then took a stroll through Airlie before heading back to camp.
Maybe that extra hour did make all the difference as the walk back to the tent tonight was a frog assault course (in both senses of the word). We figured the path must be the hottest real estate after dark as there were frogs basking out in it the entire way. This wouldn't have really bothered me but the fact our torches are only 3cm long and don't emit a lot of light, which meant we couldn't see the buggers most of the time until we kicked them or they jumped on our legs in a bid to get out of the way. Garry had managed to illuminate one before it was too late and we tried to convince it to move but it wouldn't budge so Garry threw a stone in its direction with the intention to scare it but instead it smacked him straight in the face where it still didn't budge because it was now probably concussed! We made it back alive though and that was the last 2.1k walk I would do for my bed!!
Thurs 24th Oct - We woke up early this morning, not because we had any other exciting activities planned but because the sun was already blazing hot at 06:30am and it was heating up our tent. We dismantled camp and walked back to the car with all our belongings but this time decided to entirely deflate the air bed so it would be easier. We had our breakfasts before bidding a farewell to Swamp bay.
They were our adventures from Airlie beach and the beautiful nautical surroundings. I'm so sorry if reading that took up most of your day but it was a fun filled few days. I promise the next blogs are a lot shorter. Next we aimlessly head south with the mission of fixing our broken car.
K x x x