We woke at 5.30 (eeek) and tried to silently get ready whilst the other two couples were still asleep. However, our bed was super squeaky and this proved rather hard. We had had the air-con on all night and so Garth didn't sleep well as was very cold! I, however, had taken out my sleeping bag and was quite snug - although my throat was really swollen and sore again :(

We walked round to the local bus stop where we had a 15 minute wait for our mini bus to pick us up, so we watched the sun rise and the street lights turn off. We had a shot wait at Abel Marina before boarding our boat. It could hold probably 200 passengers, but as its not peak season there were only 30/40 of us! Which was lovely!

We spent about 1 hour on the boat weaving thought the islands. We stopped at Hamilton Island to pick up a few more people. We had 3 horrible ladies sitting behind us who spoke so loudly and were so rude! We soon had to sail through open water to get round to Whitehaven Beach, the captain warned us it would be a bit choppy due to the wind. After our GBR experience, we were fully ready for this and it turns out it wasn't half as bad. I wasn't thrown out of my seat once. However, it was still pretty choppy and at one point a huge wave rolled up over the front of the boat and it was good the glass was there with the door SHUT or we all would have been washed overboard. Many people started being sick which was quite funny. The lady behind was complaining that it shouldn't be like a roller coaster...how did she expect to get to the beach?!!?? Stupid woman!

We arrived at Whitehaven beach just as the sun was settling up in the sky which was just perfect!! We all disembarked from the front of the boat and the sand was just sensational. It was extremely white as it is 98% silica sand (they are not sure where the silica has come from as it's the only beach in the Whitsunday islands that has it!) and so it doesn't get hot in the sun and its so fine it squeaks when you walk on it! Just amazing! As we were the first group there we had the beach to ourselves. Garth and I raced ahead of the group to take some photos with the beautiful empty beach behind us.

I enjoyed playing with the sand for a bit and then we borrowed some sting suits from the staff and went for a swim (there are apparently lots of jelly fish). A few people swam without suits but we didn't want to risk it. The water was cool but fine once in. It was so blue and the sand at the bottom of the water was just divine!

We then wondered up. The beach for 30 mins (the beach is 4km long!) and there were hundreds of blue and black butterflies flying past us up the beach - it was like paradise!! I tried to get some photographs of the butterflies but it was hard! We made little videos for Leo and the Taljaard kids and thoroughly enjoys our time on the most beautiful beach we've ever seen!!!

At 11am we left the beach and filled ourselves with cream tea which was very nice! The boat sailed past the mouth of the famous Whitehaven river, but as we were so low down (not in a helicopter) we couldn't really see it -but we were there!

It took about 1.5 hours to get back and the water was much calmer on the return journey. We had to changed boats at Daydream Island.

Back at the hostel we went for a swim in the Arlie Beach Lagoon which was very cold in entry but nice once in - and it was nice to swim in the sun and without worry of jellyfish, crocs or sharks!! It also really hit us how young all the backpackers were all around this area!

We showered and had pot noodle for lunch. I bout and sent some postcards and then spent the afternoon researching more hostels for the rest of our trip. Can't believe we've done a week already and were half way through!!

The bar was busy that night with a really good DJ, an acoustic solo artist who was great with his loop peddle and some fire dancers! W had an early night and a nice chat to the other couple in our room from Barnes!