5th March - 12th March Airlie Beach to Mission Beach

Days spent:
Airlie Beach: 4
Townsville/Magnetic Island: 2
Mission Beach: 2

After a long journey, of over 600km, we came to the tourist town of Airlie Beach, the best place to go if you want to see The Whitsunday Islands. The weather was pretty bad and initially we had planned only 3 days here, but this was to be extended.

We spent some time looking at brochures of excursions to the Whitsundays, there are many. You can stay on a yacht for 3 days or a speed boat for just a day. We'd heard on the news recently that the weather had been so bad, a yacht full of backpackers had been swept into rocks and everyone had to be airlifted to safety. We thought this would make for a great excursion, but the yacht was still stuck on the rocks and therefore was unable to do anymore tours.

Our initial booking didn't go ahead due to wind, but we didn't find this out until 7 in the morning even though it was a lovely sunny day.

The next day, we got up early again to go, and this time the excursion went ahead even though the wind had picked up. It meant a bumpy ride out, which was really fun.

Part of the trip was to do some snorkelling, but the tide was up and the windy conditions made it really murky, which we weren't really happy with as we couldn't see anything at all.
We then went to Whitsunday Island to do a walk up to a lookout over the estuary to see Whitehaven Beach which is the 4th most photographed place in Oz, and reputedly the most beautiful beach in the world due to it's silica white sand (which makes it squeaky).

We had superb lunch before going to Whitehaven beach for the afternoon. We spent some time swimming, but had to wear wetsuits because of the time of year. Between December to May, Australia's Queensland coast gets invaded by jellyfish, one of those being the "box jellyfish" which is considered the most deadly creature on the planet. But just wearing Lycra or some protection can save you from death - hence the ridiculous outfits in such hot conditions.

We also spent some time walking up and down the beach and finding time to take cheesy pictures of ourselves with a helicopter, and watching "the rich" arrive by sea plane!

Our next journey takes us to Townsville, another 500km north. We went through sugarcane and peanut plantations. We found a campsite straight away by the beach and that overlooked Magnetic Island in the distance - our main reason for visiting Townsville.

We spent the evening walking along the esplanade that took us to the sea lagoon - a big lido to protect the swimmers from stingers. The facilities were amazing, free bbqs around the pool and showers. It's a favourite pastime for Aussies to bring food down to the pool and spend the day as a family swimming and then cooking on the Barbie. It's no wonder that Aussies are such great swimmers when every town big or small have Olympic size swimming pools, and most are free! Further on, we found many kids playgrounds and water parks (all for free!). A child would never be bored in Oz.

We reached the marina after about an hour where we would get the ferry the next morning to the Island. As we're very tight with our money, we thought that we could avoid the carpark cost of $5 and walk the next morning.

After an hour's walk early the next morning, we caught the 9:30 ferry to Magnetic Island. As we left, we could see hundreds of jellyfish caught up in the sheltered harbour - scary!
We got a unlimited bus ticket where we could hop on and hop off where we liked on the island ($11 ea). We were going to do some snorkelling , but it didn't seem worth it as the sea conditions hadn't improved yet, so we went straight to Horseshoe Bay - the main area on the island. Instead of snorkelling we went to Koala Village (within the YHA) and had a tour guide to explain the habitat and behaviour of certain Australian animals. His talk about crocodiles was very interesting in that only around 4 tourists had be eaten by crocs, and that was because they were drunk at the time. So, it's a lesson learned, crocs and drink don't go, think of that next time you go to the pub.

What was good was that we could get up close and hold the animals that were in the sanctuary, those being; little salty croc, Blue Tongued Skink, Black Cockatoo, Carpet Python, Koala. Vik also got to stroke a White Cockatoo, but unfortunately Carl, being a man, wasn't able to. Apparently "Captain" didn't like men for some reason, and the guide had tried many tricks in the past, to deceive him, some by dressing men up and putting perfume on and other deceptions to the senses, but the Cockatoo was far too clever and would always know.

Our final talk was about "Barney" the Koala and we were able to hold him for a photo. Fortunately the extra money to hold the Koala went to the Koalas, that is towards the upkeep of the sanctuary rather than "Barney's" furry pouch.

In the afternoon, after our delightful squashed an soggy homemade sandwiches, we walked across part of the island towards Balding Bay. On the way, Vik went to the ladies toilets and saw a Carpet Python asleep on the wall (see pic).

Balding Bay was deserted and beautiful with an inviting creek by the beach. Vik was a little paranoid of crocs in the creek (as this is one of her phobias), so we neither went in the sea or in the creek for a swim even though it was extremely hot.

When we returned to Horseshoe Bay, we had time to kill before the bus to the ferry came, so we went for a swim in the netted enclosure though we got stung a bit too much from microscopic stingy things and got out within 10mins.

By the time we got the bus, the ferry, and walked back to the campsite, it was gone 7:30pm and were extremely knackered, but we still had to make our dinner, chilli con carne.
Our last stop before Cairns, was to Mission Beach. This spot is a pocket of rainforest by the beach which is pretty well known for Cassowaries - big, dangerous, endangered, flightless birds (look a bit prehistoric).

We arrived to a very small place, but it had a couple of campsites, one right by the beach. We took a site on this one, and it was our cheapest campsite so far, $15.50 per night. Bargain!

We went for a long walk along the beach to South Mission beach. We found a deep creek and threw sticks in to see if there were any crocs, but if there were, they weren't stupid enough to make themselves seen. Then it became a game of how-far-can-you-through-the-stick.
There were hundreds of palms and coconut strewn across the beach. We found a freshly fallen one which we took back to drink its milk.

As it was rainforest, and the weather being rainy, it meant the humidity was extreme, maybe around 90%. It was so hot we had to buy a fan for night time in the van - Too many mozzies to have all the windows open.

We made friends with a young grey cat who became very familiar with the inside of our van and kept us company most nights.

The last evening, we treated ourselves to Spanish Mackerel and chips, as it was raining heavily and we couldn't really cook. That evening it rained so hard that it kept us awake for hours with the noise on the roof.

We did wonder whether the roads would be okay up to Cairns.