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Hi All.
So we arrived in Airlie Beach nice and early, so we sat out on the esplanade with breakfast and drinks until our room was ready, It was the only lovely day in Airlie we had!! Sort of wasted, just sat with all our bags waiting to check in... But we saw heaps of people falling out of the sky, and landing on the stretch of beach infront of us..... They had just jumped out of a plane, doing a skydive... I have been having second thoughts about my skydive, after getting vertigo from our balcony on the 27th floor in Surfers Paradise... But every single person who landed were smiling, so it cant be that bad, can it?
We checked into our room eventually, and both showered and rested, then went to explore little old Airlie Beach!! Because of all the nasties in the sea up in Queensland, your not recommended to bathe at the beach, so they have a lagoon for us brits to lay out by, it has a make shift beach which goes into their swimming pool. Its really very lovely actually, and its right on the sea front overlooking the Whitsundays.
Due to our exhaustion we had an early night, then were up at 6am the following morning for our day trip. We were picked up by a German bloke who took us out to Abel Point Marina, we boarded our boat, and had a briefing, then sailed out to the Whitsundays, it was lovely, the colour of the water was a turquoise / green, and all the islands were really lush green. After an hour or so on the boat, we sailed passed Hook Island, and through Border island passage, then anchored up by Border Island, we donned our wet suits, flippers, mask and snorkel and jumped out into the water!! As soon as I jumped, I started worrying about Sharks, Drowning.... everything!!! We swam a little closer to the island and bobbed our heads under the water, OH MY GOD! It was an amazing sight!! The coral was waving at us, the fish were swimming around us and it was all so calm and amazing. The pictures you see of the great barrier reef - It is exactly like that!! For the first 10 minutes or so, it was difficult. You totally breathe through your mouth - your nose isn't used at all, and the feeling of claustrophobia when your head is underwater is totally overwhelming, so I panicked, I couldn't breathe or talk.. Then eventually the great barrier reef was too amazing and I had been underwater for about 10 minutes solid without feeling scared or claustrophobic... Mission accomplished!! So for the next hour or so, Luke and I floated around, saw some amazing fish, some fish as big as 2 foot and the coral all different fluorescent colours. Just astonishing!! Swimming with flippers is a lazy persons dream (mine!) Its totally effortless, a slight flinsh with your feet and you've moved miles!!
It was only snorkelling, but it was amazing, it is definatley one of the most amazing experiences we both have ever done, and we feel so privilidged to have been able to do it in the Great Barrier Reef!!
Anyway,it was time to board the boat again, our fingers and toes were totally shrivelled up like prunes, we dried off and had a lovely buffet lunch whilst the boat took us to Whitehaven beach.
We had two options, jump out of the boat and swim "5 metres" or wait and get the little motor boat to dry land, we decided to jump. Without thinking I was the first off the boat, with sunglasses in tow! Luckily this time I didn't lose these, but I haven't been so lucky everywhere else! Lost a pair in the waves at Byron, Left some behind at Fraser Island, and was so close to losing a third pair in the Whitsundays!
Anyway, the "5 metre swim" was actually 100 metre swim, and im not the best swimmer so it took forever.. I was knackered! Luckily the water was boiling, it was probably warmer than the air temperature, so it was comforting.
When Luke and I made it to Whitehaven beach, we took a stroll to one side of the beach, its a really long stretch of beach and we had our own piece of the beach to ourselves, so we hung up our wetsuits on a bush and went paddling in the sea, there were heaps of little fish swimming around, and one of them bit me! Horrid! So i got out and left Luke with his fate of being attacked by a fish and I sunbathed on the beach.
Back on the boat, we sailed around a corner of the island, jumped off the boat and went for a Bushwalk. The guide she picked an ant out of the tree and told us to lick its bum...... No joke..... And its rear end tasted like lemon!!! Apparently the Aboriginals of the island used to mush up the ants and make lemonade out of it..... Along with homemade muffins, they used their own spit, the yeast in their spit helps the muffins rise! Euwww.... Give me any bush tucker trial anyday over eating Abo spit!!
Anyway on the bushwalk, it started to rain, it poured down and within a second we were all totally drenched! We should have kept our wetsuits on!! Anyway, we arrived at Hill Inlet, which gives you amazing views over Whitehaven beach, where you can see the marble looking sea sand, its really beautiful - even if it was raining!!! We moved on, to get back in the bush to get out of the rain, and as soon as we were in the dense forest I saw a HUGE Spiders web, and in the middle was the largest spider I had ever seen, I cried out a little, then tried to ignore it, and help Luke avoid from seeing it - But the guide had already found it, and told us, it was a Golden Orb spider, it wasn't full size, apparently it grows to 14cm!! Euww, this was huge though!! And next to the web was the male spider, it was bright red, and tiny, it was like the size of a grain of rice, so difficult to notice. All the way along the bush walk from here we saw millions of these Golden Orb spiders..... We were glad to be leaving the island!!
Back on the boat, we retired to the lounge, and relaxed!! The journey took an hour or so to get home, and a huge storm was brewing, It had been brewing all day actually, we were just lucky to have sun during the snorkelling and the beach time!! The journey was quite strange really not being able to see the sea or a horizon or anything other than mist, it poured down with rain for the rest of the day, so when we were on 'dry land' we were just as wet as we had been whilst in the sea!! We got home and got try, had dinner, then had a final stroll around Airlie Beach.
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