The Campervan Adventures

Chapter 8...'The Whitsundays.. WOWZA!'

Not even being woken up before sunrise each morning, arriving home with a rash or having to wear the most unattractive all-in-one blue suit every time we went in the sea could take away from the beauty of the Whitsunday Islands.

Honestly, it was utter paradise with beaches like nothing we'd ever seen before and having the chance to see, with our own eyes, the Great Barrier Reef was incredible.

We arrived in Airlie Beach, where our trip would set sail from, on Sunday. We found a lovely campsite with a huge pool and spent a few days chilling by the pool or at the lagoon and sampling the nightlife of Airlie Beach before we set off for our sailing trip on Tuesday morning. The Lonely Plane describes Airlie Beach as "tacky and tremendous" and the guy in the travel agents where we booked our trip told us it was Australia's STI capital (he obviously didn't have very high opinions of us!) so I didn't really expect much of the place. In truth though it was a really cute little town. The views across the Marina as you drove in where stunning and the Esplanade was lined with palm trees, had a beautiful lagoon and amazing views across the ocean. The main street is very geared towards backpackers, full of bars, clubs, internet cafes and travel agents, but it wasn't overly tacky I didn't think.. I'd probably go as far as saying it was one of my favourite places we've been.

As well as having everything we wanted for peaceful days and social nights, there too was a delightful RAC man working in the area. Not a service we'd planned to use, but when poor Dolly had heart failure (flat battery) said RAC man brought her back to life for us! Poor girl has really been in the wars lately what with her stolen eyebrow and now this !! (For the record, yes it was our fault she died- we left the lights on- but, obviously we pleaded ignorance and didn't admit this to Mr RAC !)

On Tuesday morning we set sail on our Whitsundays cruise. Our boat for the trip, 'Avatar', was where we were to be spending the next two days and nights living at sea with 25 other people.

The Whitsundays are a group of more than 90 islands which fall within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. According to Captain Kev, our big, fat and ridiculously hairy Aussie captain, the islands are tops of mountains which used to be attached to the mainland but, when the ice age melted and water levels rose, they became separate islands.

The first day of the cruise, we sailed to Hook Island, took in a spot of snorkelling and then chilled out on deck soaking up some of the blistering sunshine as we made our way towards Whitsunday Island near which we moored up for the night, arriving just in time to watch the sun set over the ocean.

Evenings on the boat were spent sitting on deck, having a few drinks with our group and starring at the beautiful star-filled sky. It wasn't quite as lively or Goon filled as Fraser- all the fresh sea air doesn't half take its toll- or maybe that is just Lodge and I showing our age as we were the oldest on board! Everyone was nice though- bar four very immature 18-year-old boys who I wouldn't have felt guilty about turning a blind eye to should they have fallen overboard.

The food on board was amazing. Considering 26 people had to be fed using just one small oven and very little space, V- our cook- did an amazing job. We even had roast beef one night! Lodge and I were especially pleased that not only did we get breakfast, lunch and dinner but we also got morning and afternoon snacks and the rules at meal times were ladies first so all the greedy boys couldn't eat all the food before we got some!

On our second day- Wednesday- we were up in time to see the sunrise at 6am and on the beach by 7.30am. And this was not just any beach, this was Australia's finest beach and the 'second most beautiful beach in the world' (soon to be the first when the one in the Maldives washes away). We were taken from the boat over to Whitsunday Island by speed boat. Whitsunday Island is home to Whitehaven beach which is like nothing we'd ever seen before. It's hard to describe how amazingly beautiful and unspoilt the beach is and how soft the sand is. The sand is in fact so pure- it's 98 percent cilica- that you can use to polish your jewellery, exfoliate your skin and even polish your teeth. Lodge had a go scrubbing away some of her impurities while I spent my time on 'almost the most beautiful beach in the world' asleep ! Getting up at 6am really doesn't agree with me. After Lodge had stopped rubbing herself and I'd woken up we took a stroll up to the view point, which shows off Whitehaven in all its glory.

Following our morning in paradise we got back on the boat and headed over to Tongue Bay for a spot of snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef. Some losers went scuba diving but we politely declined the offer to have another go not wanting to look stupid (again!).

Actually talking of looking stupid, every time we went in the water we had to put on a full length blue suit complete with hood and mittens to protect us from being stung by box jellyfish...although none of the Aussie crew wore them, perhaps it was just a game of 'let's make the tourists look stupid'! Stupid or not we can now say we have seen first hand the underwater wonders of the Great Barrier Reef- one of the seven wonders of the natural world. It was pretty incredible to say the least and I don't even really like fish that much!

Another 6am departure and we were back to the mainland by 9.30am on Thursday, even more in need of a shower than we were upon our return from Fraser. While the boat did have a shower on-board it was in truth more like a tap you could move than an actual shower and we were limited to one minute of water per day plus shampoo was banned. How the hell you are meant to achieve any sort of clean in one minute without any soap is beyond me so we, like everyone else, just embraced the dirt! Never have we enjoyed a shower as much as the one back at the Airlie Beach campsite.

As for our rashes..turned out we both had a reaction to a beg bug bite..lovely! Never mind about the jellyfish, perhaps we should've worn our sexy stinger suits to bed!

Less than a week left with Dolly now and we really can't believe how quick the last 4 weeks have gone. Just a few stops left now between here and Cairns- our final destination. I think there might be rears when we drop our precious Dolly back at her home!