6. The Whitsundays

9 & 10 July 2023

The Whitsunday Islands are a famous island group in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef. This morning we are in the harbour of Airlie Beach squeezing ourselves in a wet suit and very excited to join Ocean Rafting for a day trip to the reef.

If you don`t want to spend a fortune to sleep on one of famous islands, best way is to go for a daytrip with a raft boat which takes you out on the reef in about 1.5 hours.

Soon we hop over the waves, all surprised by the chilly wind and the splashes of water hitting us in the face. We are offered rain coats to keep us dry and warm which we thankfully accept. The Japanes couple next to us seems a bit out of place in their fancy work like coths, and soon they also get sea sick!who caught our attention from the start, as they were all dressed up like going to work. Fortunately we are well prepared and all took a tablet agains travel sicknesss so nobody gets sick, only wet ;-)

The first snorkling stop is at Hook island, it is bit searching to get all gear on (goggles, snorkle, fins) and walk toward the boarder and then ...jump! I am around 20 meters away from a rocky shore and the waves are really intense and exhausting. Floating on my belly i look down and see .....

the most spectacular corals in all different shapes and colors chaning from brown to pink and purple, it is really impressive and so close to me that i am really afraid of touching it. The strong waves make me go up and down so close to the reef it is not easy to keep a safe distance.

We go back on board and head to another spot, this time a bay with almost no waves. Looking under water a completely different experience, almost no reef, few colors. This place was hit by storm a couple of years ago which destroyed all the corals.... Now this is one of the few place where it is allowed to feed the fish, encouraging their growth and reproduction, which helps to restore the full environment and regrowth of the corals. While our captain throws the food overboard hundreds of fish appear and it is impossible to avoid them as they are everywhere. So cool!

Our next stop is Whitehaven Beach, the whitest beach in the world, so they say.....

Here we go on land for a walk through the bush and to the look outs of Hill Inlet, the view is spectacular.

Back on the beach the stingrays float under the water surface.

From here it is 1.5 hour back to the harbour of Airlie Beach, again crashing hard on the waves but we are tired of our amazing day, and almost get in trance.

As we have no vehicule yet, we will stay 2 nights at the Eco camping, where we found a 2 person bungalow for Stephanie, Bert, Ina and Emiel.

Spending a full day here `doing nothing` is actually a treat to the kids. They just enjoy playing in the pool, and don`t need anything more.

Next to the camping is Airlie Beaches local airport: many tourists choose to see the reef from the sky. Here you can board a helicopter or do a parachute jump. We take 2 days in a row our braekfast in the Hangar, a coffee bar with a view on the departing plane.

After a day of rest, Tuesday morning 11am our friends can pick up Trekky, the spaceship which will be their home for the next 10 days. What a good feeling being all ready and set again for the road !

As we have some kilometers to catch up, we will spend the rest of the day driving up north to Townsville where we will catch the evening ferry to Magnetic Island.