Continuing south we enjoy 4 nights in the Whitsundays area. We base ourselves at Glen Erin Farm Stay, its 10 mins south of Bowen and 45 mins from Airlie Beach. We really enjoy the relaxed, peaceful and friendly atmosphere of these farm stays. Farm Stays and National Parks are our favourite destinations. (As I write this we are in a caravan park in Mackay, it's a very nice park, but suburbia is too close for our liking. We are trying to block out the noise of traffic, planes, trains and sporting grounds, buts there's luscious palms around, the temps warm and the pool keeps the kids quiet, so it's not too bad).

Monday 19 Aug, its Cameron's 12th Birthday, there's little wind and the sun is shining, we head off to explore Airlie Beach and soak up all the luxurious yachts that are moored here. There's definitely some money up here! Yet real estate prices are still cheaper than home!

Cam gets to choose today's activities, we spend some time at the adventure playground and the enormous pool lagoon just in from the beach front. He wants a birthday cake from the Cheesecake shop, there's none around, the best we can do is woollies. Chocolate cakes and giant sparklers is what he orders.

We investigate a trip to Whitehaven Beach; it's a shame we weren't here a day earlier to organise to do this on Cam's Birthday as it's also the best weather conditions for the week. Tomorrow its 48 knot winds forecast! easing off as the week continues.

We decide to take a trip to Whitehaven Beach on the 20th. The wind conditions have somewhat eased, but the boat ride out is still pretty choppy with 3 plus meter waves, but the wind is coming from the south, meaning that on Whitehaven Beach it should be protected.

The ride to Daydream Island is not too rough, but the strip between there and Hamilton Island is rougher, as some of the other passengers start to suffer from seasickness, we are glad we took our Kwells.

Its race week at Hamilton Island, there are many racing yachts moored. We learn it's a lay day today and latter find that many more are moored around at Whitehaven Beach.

We swap boats at Hamilton Island, boarding a larger boat that offers us a Champers and an open bar of beer, wine and soft drink bar while the seas are calm. This boat does handle the waves better.

As we pull into Whitehaven Beach were amazed by the beautiful colours of the water and sand, together with the volume of yachts and people in the area. Our boat drops us off for a few hours on the beach. Brad and the boys want to snorkel, so we head towards the southern end. We enjoy our swim and snorkel, seeing quite a few fish. Even though there are so many people and boats, there's still plenty of room to find some space, our sail has us there later in the afternoon than most people, so we soon find ourselves with plenty of white sand around us. On our journey back we overtake many yachts sailing back to Hamilton Island.

We arrive back to Airlie Beach just after dark and enjoy a dinner on the esplanade with the fairy lights and the hustle and bustle of nightlife, something we rarely get to experience as we are normally eating tea back at our camp site.

22 August we continue south to Mackay, we've got the car booked in for a service. Exploring around Mackay we don't recognise a thing. The town appears to be reasonably new, built with good highways connecting both sides of the river, and mangroves surrounding these highways. As we always are, we are drawn to explore the water front. We find a massive new marina and protective rock walls that were recently rebuilt as a cyclone a couple of years back lifted the old rocks onto the beach. On the horizon we see heaps of container ships. We find out that there's likely to be approx. 80 out there, all awaiting to be loaded with Coal before setting sail again. We are told there can be as many as 120 waiting at any time, and many are frequently waiting weeks before they can get into the docs to load. It reminds me of years ago, visiting The Suez Canal on the Red Sea off Egypt, the only difference was those vessels came in closer to the land.

Up the road from our camp is one of those inflatable water parks, but as it is winter here, its closed L There's also the blue lagoon in town, but that's also shut for winter. Mackay appears to be less of a tourist town.