Airlie Beach & Whitsundays

Wed 7 Feb 2007 28 °C

We arrived at Airlie in the pouring rain and walked to our hostel. The room was nice we had an ocean view but the place had a strange layout. We had to walk through the kitchen to get to the one bathroom that 8 people shared? The 2 other girls in the room were really friendly too.

The town itself is small, just a modern main high street full of cafes and souvenir shops and tour operators. We'd booked to go on a 3 day/2 night sailing trip around the Whitsundays departing the following day. After calling to confirm the trip I was told to phone back in the morning for confirmation that the boat would still sail due to gale warnings. Sure enough, the trip was cancelled and the rain kept coming. All roads North to Cairns were flooded and closed. People we spoke to had had to fly from Cairns to Airlie in order to make their sailing trip only for it to be cancelled. There isn't a lot to do other than the sailing trips in Airlie.

That night a storm really got up. large tree branches and metal signage boards had blown on to the streets. We seeked shelter in Magnums Bar, then Shenanigans, an Irish bar in town. There was only the 5 of us in there, an old bloke at the bar called Rory and 2 irish lads behind the bar, me and Steph. As it got later and few more walked in, it turned into a good night.

It rained for 2 days, we kept an eye on the weather forecast and decided to take a chance and book a snorkelling day trip to Whitehaven beach on saturday.

Friday came and the sun shone! We spent the day at the lagoon in Airlie. Airlie doesn't have a beach to speak of so they've created a man made lagoon which overlooks the ocean. Was a nice relaxing day just mooching around the lagoon.

Saturday and the sun still shone. We were collected from the hostel and boarded the boat pretty early. The first stop was Mantaray Bay where we did some snorkelling. We had to wear these ridiculus looking stinger suits to protect us from the jelly fish. As I'm not a good swimmer I donned a life jacket and 2 noodles as well, I looked a right nerd. The water was warm but the visability wasn't brilliant because the storms had churned up all water but we did see lots of fairly small and colourful fish and coral. Oh, and we did see Elvis, he's four foot in length and is known to be curious and swims out near the boats often.

Back on the boat we made our way to Whithaven Beach and bbq'd on the beach. There wasn't many stingers there so most people got in the ocean - the shallow water was as warm as a bath! Whitehaven is like paradise, turquoise shallow waters, white sand and palm trees. After the bbq we walked up to the Hill Inlet lookout for a great view of the island.

Back on the dingy to the boat and then the boat made its way back to Airlie. We both had a great day and I hope to do some more snorkelling when I get to Cairns.

The Lagoon at Airlie