‘Sail & explore the Whitsunday Islands aboard one of the fully crewed live-aboard sailing holidays. The Whitsundays is a sailing mecca with 74 islands located right in the middle of the World Heritage Listed Marine Park. Tours include services of captain and crew, scrumptious meals, local transfers to the marina and snorkling instruction and gear. Plus we will take you to the most amazing coral reefs and white sandy beaches. Crew guide guests on bush walks to amazing island lookouts…We anchor each night in smooth water bays that offer spectacular scenery. Guests can choose from smaller yachts, maxi yachts, tall ships or deluxe cruises’.
The first day of our week was spent getting prepared for the next few days that we had booked for our Whitsundays cruise. We had booked onto a 2 night, 3 day cruise on a boat called The Matador! Cool name hey! Lol! The plan was that we were to head off in search of the many Whitsunday islands and explore around them, do some snorkelling, go on the famous Whitehaven Beach, and basically have an awesome few days. We knew that we were not going to be able to a: get much sleep, b: be able to shower properly, or c: be sober for much of it either! They weather forecast was perfect, nice and hot with apparently a soft sea breeze. So all we had to hope for was it to be full of talent on there!!
We met with our boat crew and yachtsman (wink wink!) at Gloria’s café at the harbour and was provided with our wet suit and snorkel set which we had to look after with our life or we were in mass trouble!! Then we jumped aboard our Matador to go sailing!! Once sorted out where we were sleeping and the safety bit and bobs, that was it the engine was on and the sailing began!
Once we got going the skipper took us through the steps of how to sail the boat properly, and even got some of the guys pulling the ropes and making the boat go up on its side to gain more speed with the wind – it was cool! We all sat on the deck chatting and finding out about each other and we made a little group of me n Lisa, Claire and Clare, Zara and Colin, and then there was Tom (oi, oi!) and Kelly who were the scuba man and chef! Awesome, this turned out to be our drinking group for the next 2 nights!
Before we knew it we had reached our spot for the night where we were to be anchored. This was called Tongue Bay, and here we had a swim and a dive off our spring board, then it was dinner and drinks time! Unfortunately our boat had many old people on so a lot of them were in bed come 9pm so we stayed up with some drinks, and not forgetting the drinking games! The sky and stars were amazing – so clear and all you could see for miles were star! Gorgeous!
As our bed was turned into the dinner table at meal times, we were the first up and ready back up on deck to see us take off again for Whitehaven beach. Now Whitehaven beach is everything you can imagine with the words devine! Pure sand that should feel like flour, sea clear and views out of this world! Well, we will see what happens.
When we got close to the drop off point we had to grab our wetsuits and snorkelling gear and get ready to board our taxi boat (speed boat) to the shore. Once we got there, we walked up through the rainforest to a lookout point……WOW! The views bit was absolutely spot on! The sky was clear and the views, well all I can say is look at the pictures! It was lush! Once all the pictures had been taken, and the posing was done, we headed back down a path and given 2 hours to spend on Whitehaven beach. As we walked onto the sand it just crumbled between our toes – just like flour! It was so soft! We found a spot for our towels then came across Katie and Charmaine from Maggy island!! Lol a bit random yeah but perfect photo opportunity again! So we combined a group of us and made a human pyramid!! Me being at the bottom with some stood on my back! Lol! Just what I wanted! Lol.
So once we had a natter with them we ventured into the water, it again was lush! Clear, very warm and full of playful stingrays!! Yes! Stingrays I say! They were everywhere, with people swimming around trying to follow them! Crazy! They came right up close to you too, just to scare you I think, they were messing with us! This of course made it a bit difficult to relax and have a snorkel so we just went in to cool done and watched them play!
After our time on this amazing piece of the world we got back onto Matador and headed off to a snorkelling spot to see some proper fish! And this we did, we saw parrot fish, nemos, loads of randomly coloured fish with names that I don’t know, then we followed around a little leopard shark! So cool, so much to see and we were given loads of time – very good!
We spent our last night anchored at Cove Bay, for more of drinking games, and lots of giggles with Zara, Colin, and the 2 Claires, plus the Tom (oi oi) and Kelly once they finished working!
We were up early again – feeling bit tired now, but the spring board soon conquered that problem! Backflips, forward flips I seemed to have woken up with no fear – must have been that shark!! Lol! Our last leg back towards the harbour was wicked, we were in a race with one of the other sailing boats – only turned out to be Katie and Charmaines boat! Funny stuff so again the boys were pulling the ropes and making us fly through the water, and kick the other boats butt!! It was close though I must say!
Made it back feeling a bit minging from no shower, and tired from the early mornings and late nights but overall well chuffed with our Whitsunday experience.
That night saw us all off the boat meet at our hostel for a post-boat party where we basically got some free food and drink and threw a few shapes on the dance floor and sing a few jugs of snakebite!! Awesome! We made some more wicked friends on that and got a wicked tan at the same time! Result!
Cant believe we do this to ourselves but our next Oz Bus is again when we are hung over from the heavy night before!! Hmm…not sure who’s fault it was!! But hey, we were on a coach with lots of us actually and heading for our compulsory stop at Krombit cattle station. This we all were looking forward to because on our way here we got to stop at Sarina Bowls Club and take off our footware and have a quick game of bowls!! Haha funny as, me and Lisa, Sinead and Amy were in a row and were in hysterics until they mentioned it was for money – then it became very serious!!
Haha – so back on the bus and we got to our cattle station. Here we were going to meet a real cowboy and learn how to crack a whip, clay pigeon shooting, goat hurding and have a party afterwards! Not bad, considering we got a free roast dinner too with homemade soup to start with oooh lush!!
The whipping was a right giggle – we were all actually real good at it!! The funny thing was we all had to stand up on milk crates cause the whips were real long ahahaha! Plus the fact that this was done at night once the inside out party had begun! We had to wear our underwear on the outside of our clothes and inside out to! Lol oh well it was funny! Then there was another surprise for us, they had a bucking bull there for us to have a competition on against an Oz bus that was heading north! We got our butts kicked! We were rubbish! Haha! Oh wow, it was a laugh!
We got woken up by some mad cowboy shooting a riffle outside the dorms – this was our alarm clock! They people who had paid for the goat hurding on horseback went off while the rest of us played some basketball with a young boy who lived on the farm. When they came back we went over to do the clay pigeon shooting, we got given 5 rounds and you had to see how well you could do basically. I got 4/5 so was well chuffed!! Lol!
Back on the bus and made our way to Hervey Bay where we were starting our Fraser Island 4x4 trip from! Here we stayed at Palace Hostel, this was the company that we booked the driving with, so stayed and was up early ready for our prep talk, safety talk and then that was it, we were off to start our Fraser island! (see next blog for Fraser trip!)