The Whitsunday Islands are one of Australia's most popular destinations and it's easy to see why. Azza and I spent 3 days in Airlie Beach, taking a cruise to explore some of the islands. Airlie Beach itself is a tiny strip of hostels, bars and restaurants used purely as a jumping off point for the islands. It was a bit too much of a backpacker circus for me but we still managed to have a lot of fun.

The highlight, of course, was the cruise around the islands. We visited three different islands as well as sailing past many others, including the famous Hamilton Island. Our first stop was Hook Island where we got to go on a glass bottom boat and see the coral of the Great Barrier Reef. We then went snorkelling which was good fun. It wasn't as colourful as I was expecting but it was still very beautiful. We had a delicious lunch on the boat while we sailed on to Whitehaven beach. It is an amazingly beautiful beach. It is 7 km long and very wide. With two catamarans on the beach it still felt virtually empty. The sand is almost 100% silica which means it is super fine and cool. It also hurts a bit when the wind picks it up and blows it up and down the beach! Azza and I had great fun taking silly photos of each other jumping and running around. Our last stop on the cruise was Daydream Island, a resort you can stay on too. It has a brilliant shallow lagoon full of sharks and sting rays.

We were very lucky with the weather while we were there. It was rainy season and could have been very wet but thankfully we didn't have any while we were on the cruise. Towards the end of the day, the boat crew were getting reports of a cyclone that was on its way. We were due to fly out the following afternoon so we were a bit worried our flight would be cancelled. I was particularly worried because I had to make a connecting flight down to Melbourne so I could start work on a harvest. It rained the whole day but thankfully we made it out on the last flight for 3 days. The cyclone hit the following morning - a lucky escape!