Day 12- the 16th
We set sail early Friday morning on our boat, Kiana. Right away we met our crew and the owners of the boat. Because of the price this was definitely not a young persons type of thing and we noticed that right away. There were two couples, another group of 2 girls and a Brazilian mother with two daughters that were about our age. As we head out of the marina we were hoping for good weather and excited for what was ahead. Weather permitting we were going to go to the outer reef to snorkel and dive and we were all looking forward to that. After a few hours of sailing we arrived at Whitsunday Island which boasts Whitehaven Beach, one of the top 10 prettiest beaches ever (real stat, I didn’t make that up). As soon as we touched down on the island the dramas started happening. One of the young English girls stepped on a piece of coral and had to have her foot bandaged (she was fine). And then the Brazilian woman (since she was completely rude and talking in Portuguese to her daughters the entire time the crew was talking) didn’t want to go on the ‘hike’ she just took off by herself without letting anyone know and started snorkeling around in the area that we landed at, which was NOT Whitehaven. So it took us about 30 minutes to get her back onto the shore and everything taken care of. Ugh. Awesome. We hiked up the hill to a lookout point called Hill Inlet. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I saw Whitehaven. I knew about the white sand and the pretty blue water, but I wasn’t expecting the beach area to be so big!! It was huge!! The sand itself actually goes for miles into the island!! It was actually incredible as well because the ONLY few hours of sunlight that we got on the entire trip was right when we were at the beach. It was unreal that it was so sunny and hot and the rest of the trip nothing but rain. We got really lucky. So we did our photo thing at Hill Inlet and then started the decent down onto the beach. Because of the jellyfish that are in the area we have to wear stingsuits whenever we go into the water. Sexy. Kiley and I decided to do the whole photo op thing BEFORE putting our extremely attractive suits on so we headed down where there were less people to do the whole typical laying in the sand pictures. We found a good spot and Kiley started shooting. I put my camera on top of a bottle that was washed up onto the sand so that it wouldn’t get wet and sand wouldn’t get in it. The sand at Whitehaven is sooo fine. It actually is almost like a powder. After some sexy photos I went to grab my camera only to realize somewhere in the middle of the photo shoot a high tide wave had come in and knocked my camera off the bottle and it was just laying in the sand/water. Sad day. The camera is totally fried obviously since the sand is so fine, but at least my memory card is still good so I didn’t lose any of my pictures!! Moving on, we decided to go in the water and swam for a bit enjoying the amazing place. It is actually impossible for me to sit here and come up with words to describe how amazing Whitehaven beach really is. There is no place like it in the world. Our time at the beach was cut short from the little dramas at the beginning of the day so we headed back to the boat where the girls in the kitchen had an amazing feast waiting for us. Yum. Then we went back out sailing up to Hook Island which is just slightly north of Whitsunday island to find a calm little cove to anchor for the night. We had another amazing feast of lamb and veggies and just relaxed and got to know each other a little bit better. The Brazilian girls decided they didn’t want to be social so they kept to themselves mostly and the poor English girls were getting sicker and sicker (sea sick) by the moment. Even when the boat was anchored. As we were eating we noticed tons of really cool fish swimming around the boat. They are bat fish (google it) and there were tons of them!! There was also another shark like (not a shark) looking fish, but I can’t remember the name right now. They were really fast and because it was dark and we wanted to see them closer we decided to see if they liked lamb. Turns out the big fish aren’t fooled. However, the bat fish do love lamb. Haha we had a good time watching the fish swarm for the food. Although apparently it’s a 10,000 dollar fine to feed the fish without a permit. Oops
Here are the only photos I have of Whitehaven
Day 13-March 17th
Going to be pretty early we were woken up by the sound of the boat around 530 or 6, ugh. Apparently it had been a rough night and some easterly winds had made the boat rock a lot because everyone was talking about how they couldn’t sleep. I didn’t realize. Hahaha. Before breakfast the skipper, Stu, moved the boat to another location so that I was calmer and the intro divers could have their first dive. The dive instructor, Ryan, could only take 4 people out at a time so I was on standby in case someone didn’t want to do it anymore. So Kiley and I put on our stingsuits and decided to go snorkeling. As soon as we jump in we run into a MASSIVE blue fish. It was some sort of wrasse. I have all the names written down somewhere. I’ll get it sometime for you. Anyways he was at least half the size of me, maybe more. He had a huge lump on the top of his head and big lips!! So funny. There was so many cool fish! I was only in the water for about 5 minutes before I got summoned that I was up for scuba diving! Stu came and got me and I told him about the huge fish, he said his name was Fat Albert. Apparently he is the super alpha male of all the other fish of his species in that area. When he dies or is fished or moves on to another location, the biggest female will change color, change sex and get bigger to become the new alpha male. SO CRAZY! I went back to the boat and Ryan helped me put on my gear and we headed out!! After another recap of all the safety stuff we went underwater and started to head down to the bottom. It is really weird to be able to breathe underwater. I’m not sure it was something I enjoyed. Anyways as we were down there Ryan was swimming next to me and he started point to my left. As I turned Fat Albert was centimeters from my face!!! I jumped back so far! He was trying to give me a kiss with those big lips!! Hahaha. I had fish going crazy and swarming me and stuff. It was really really cool to be in the middle of that. After our dive everyone came back onto the boat and that’s when more dramas started happening. The Brazilian ladies weren’t getting quite the luxury they thought they were, or weren’t happy with the crew or something. They had been on the phone with head office all morning complaining that it wasn’t safe and blah blah blah blah blah. Plus the English girls had been throwing up all night and all morning. So after about an hour we finally figured out for them to go back into Airlie with another boat that was leaving that day. Good riddance. Everyone, including the crew were really happy they were gone. So that left 6 of us. We basically had the boat to ourselves!! It was a good group and everyone was really nice. It was a couple from Switzerland and a couple from Canada. After we got rid of the lame people we headed out to the outer reef. We were warned it would be a bumpy right since the winds were high, but Kiley and I had experienced this before with Lady Musgrave so we took the opportunity to go sit on the front of the boat!! We were sitting on the floor and the boat was going up and down and it was so much fun!! It was like a giant roller coaster and every once in a while the boat tip would go under water and we would get drowned with water. So great. A big wave of water sent us flying towards the back of the boat and then we sat on the benches provided, but it was still amazing. I saw flying fish which I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen before. The weather wasn’t that great, slightly cold and overcast with a little bit of rain. When we got out to the reef however, it was perfect. Still overcast, but not raining and there was no wind at all. Stu and Ryan said that it was the best visibility they had in weeks! Score! We were at Bait Reef which has a little section called the stepping stones on the side of it. It actually looks like stepping stones of reef and the current runs right over it so you don’t even have to swim, you literally just float from reef to reef. Unreal. I hopped in the water right away and Stu told us, the inside and you will see lots of fish, and the outside less fish, but you might get lucky and see a shark. So obviously I went to the deep end in search of a shark, because that is a great idea right? I was only in the water for about 5 minutes when guess what? HUGE SHARK!! And by huge I mean like 6 feet…which isn’t THAT big as far as sharks go. I got so excited I called for everyone else to come over, but then it was gone. My first reaction was, ‘Oh cool a shark!!!!’ and then it turned into ‘uh oh…that’s a shark’. I snorkeled a bit more and then everyone came in for lunch. After lunch we went right back out and this time onto the main part of the reef. We saw a huge school of those massive blue fish again and as we were snorkeling along, Sue noticed two more sharks!! Not as big, maybe about 3 or 4 feet, but still awesome!! I got called the Shark Whisperer the rest of the trip. Bait reef is so pretty, and we got really lucky with visibility and also with the low tide so we could be really close to the reef and fish. There were so many crazy colors of coral and fish!! I spend a good hour snorkeling and I only saw a small section just of the stepping stones…It would take my entire life just to explore that one small reef!! Insane!! We stayed the night out on Bait Reef since the wind was low and it would be pretty calm. We were all exhausted from swimming all day so we went to bed pretty early
Day 14-March 18th
Again we woke up early and started to head back to the mainland. On the way, weather permitting, we were going to stop at one more place to snorkel/dive called Manta ray drop off. Somehow between my bad hearing and the sound of the boat or something I totally missed everyone asking me if I wanted to go out and I didn’t feel the boat stop at the dropoff and I totally missed my opportunity to snorkel at the last spot!! I’m so gutted about it. Apparently there were more sharks and turtles too!! Uugghh. Oh well. After that it was just a long 6 hour sail back to shore. We got back, thanked our crew and met up with Jess at the caravan park. Later that night we headed out to the bar for a drink and met some really nice people from Germany. Pretty simple day! The experience on the Whitsunday islands though was UNREAL. I’m really glad that I went out and did it. That is something I’ll probably never get to do again and I still got to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef which was so cool!!
Day 15-March 19th
We had a late morning and stayed in the caravan park about 2 hours after we checked out to continue to use the internet. Haha. The only thing we had planned for the day was to drive up to Townsville and so we weren’t really in a big hurry to do anything. The drive up to Townsville was miserable though. I have never seen rain like this in my life. I was actually quite scared driving in the kind of rain that was coming down. After making the drive into Townsville we wished that we would have left earlier. It’s a fairly large city, but EVERYTHING closes at 5. It is the strangest thing ever. So we didn’t really have anything to do. We ended up just doing some grocery shopping before trying to find a place to park for the night. I have a friend Susan from UO that is studying abroad in Townsville. She invited us to stay at her place, but it was dark and still pouring so we just found a slightly abandoned parking lot and stayed there for the night. We were woken up about 4 in the morning by the van shaking like bad and the rain hitting the roof. I thought I had seen the hardest rain ever when I was driving this morning and even that was nothing compared to what was coming down. It was scary. We were also scared that the parking lot we were in was either going to flood, or have a landslide since behind us was just sheer rock and dirt. It ended up getting a little bit better and we went back to sleep.
Day 16-March 20th
In the morning, Susan sent us a text asking if we were ok because apparently a tornado had hit the city overnight. Uhhhh….whhattt?? It was a little bit scary to think that we had just been through a tornado. I mean it hit a few kilometers away, but still. The parking lot had escaped flooding so we got ready and headed into town to hit up the info center. Our plan for the day was to go to Magnetic island which is supposed to be amazing!!! However, the weather was just too unstable and normally you would rent little cars to get around, but they weren’t doing that because of the rain so we would have had to bring our van on the ferry which was way too spendy. Instead we went out to meet up with Susan. 50 million turn arounds and about 45 minutes later we finally found where she lived. She is just studying abroad there and is living in a house with other students. We ended up just hanging out there all day. It was just nice to be able to hang out in a house and have a place to sit. There was tv and internet and it was amazing. Haha Susan was really nice to let us hang out there. We ended up staying there for the night as well which was a huge treat for us.
Day 17-March 21st
We woke up in the morning and threw some laundry in and finished charging up everything we needed to while we waited for Susan to come back from uni. Around 1 we headed off to Cairns. Along the way we wanted to stop at this waterfall which is the tallest freefalling waterfall in Australia, but because of the storm the roads were completely flooded and blocked off. Story of our lives. So we continued up and driving along the highway we saw a brown sign for Murry Falls. Brown signs always indicate something touristy. We figured we could see at least one waterfall today so we decided to try it! We drove about 20 kms to get to the waterfall which was really really cool!! It was massive and you were able to get really close to it. Especially when you hope the fence and climb the rocks down to the water. Tehe. On the way to the falls though there was a part with some water that was over the road from a flooded river. Being the protective careful person I am (ha) I did not want to drive through the water at all. We walked into the water to see how deep and strong it was, and it only came up to the bottom of my calf, but you always see those horror stories about people that get stuck and I didn’t want to risk it! I was convinced by Kiley and Jess to try it and of course we made it through no problem at all. I got made fun of quite a bit after that. We drove a few more hours and arrived in Cairns. It is so hot and humid there it is actually disgusting. We walked around the esplanade for a while and decided to do a rainforest tour the next day so we booked that. That night we decided to just sleep on the esplanade and woke up about an hour sleep just completely drenched in sweat. It was so gross, no one could sleep. We opened the door to the van to try to get some breeze and some really drunk crazy German guys came over and started talking to us. Haha they were totally harmless, just really annoying since we were so tired. Finally around 4 we decided we weren’t going to be able to sleep so we drove out to the train station we were supposed to be at in the morning and just put the aircon on full blast the whole way hoping it would cool the car down. It helped quite a bit and we were able to get a few hours of sleep in.
Day 18-March22nd
We got up early to get ready for our rainforest tour. It’s really cool because you get to ride a gondola up the rainforest to a town called Kuranda and then on the way down you ride a train. We rode up and could see so far. The ocean was on one side and then the rainforest just went for days on the other side. There were a few stops along the way where you could walk through the rainforest and stuff. One of them was another massive waterfall. Way bigger than Murry Falls the day before. The water was really brown and gross from all the flooding, but the water was flowing so hard. It was really powerful. When we got to Kuranda we went to the butterfly sanctuary and saw all the different types of butterflies in the area. Then we went on a rainforest tour in a army duck which is just one of those car/boat things. We learned about tree kangaroos. Did you know there was such a thing?? I sure didn’t. They sound really crazy and cool!! They have tails twice as long as their bodies, but they don’t use it like monkeys do when they wrap their tail around trees and branches. They use it completely for balance. So cool. We didn’t see any though. I want to look it up when I get internet. Then we went to check out the birds of the nation. So many colors birds. No idea what any of them are called though. Lots of reds and blues and Kiley and Jess were feeding them and a huge parrot (at least it looked like a parrot) just walked onto their arms and ate out of their hand!! By that time we were worried that we would miss our train ride down so we didn’t get to do everything Kuranda had to offer. There were still some animals to see plus tons of shops to go through. I could have defiantly spent another day or two up there. We took the train down which would have been a lot more fun if it had been less humid, but you get another view of the big waterfall we saw from the gondola and also the tracks go right next another gorgeous waterfall so that was fun to see. We drove back into Cairns and I just started getting ready to pack up for my trip to New Zealand. We also decided with the humidity that we were not going to try to sleep on the esplanade again. We drove back out to the train station and just decided to leave our car running all night so that we could have the aircon running. It was the best night sleep all of us got in a while.
Day 19-March 23rd
Another early start for us as the girls had to drop me off at the airport by 8. I had a flight to which arrived in Sydney around 1. I met up with my friend Jamie who was just in town on holiday visiting our friends James and Andy. We grabbed some food and headed to the harbor where I got to see the opera house and the bridge. It was really cool to actually see such widely known landmarks in person. I think also I’ll be able to get discounted tickets for a performance at the opera house when I come back in May. I think that would be really cool to do that. We walked around the harbor for a bit and then went into the rocks to Jamies favorite German place. Everyone working there was German and was all dressed up and stuff. It was really fun. We grabbed a drink and sat down next to two German men who had obviously been sitting at this place for a while. We started talking and they were on their 5th liter when we sat down, and then had two more while we were talking to them!! Haha they were hilarious though. Really fun people to talk to. After we finished there I just caught the next train back to the airport. I got to the airport around 7 or 730 and stayed, all night. My flight to Auckland wasn’t until 7 am the next day. It was a terrible rough night. I think I slept about an hour and that was it. I was grumpy and tired and just hoping that this trip is going to be amazing. We will find out.
Oh p.s. I don’t have pictures for like half of the stuff I’ve talked about because I don’t have a camera. When I get photos from Kiley I will upload them…although it will probably be after I get home at that point.
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