Australian Vacation - Day 10
Airlie Beach
Another early start today, had a shuttle bus pick us up from the apartment at 8am to head to the Airlie Beach marina to take a cruise of the Whitsunday islands. The only problem was that the weather was dismal. Despite this not being the rainy season, it’s going to rain for the entire week here.
The boat was another fast catamaran. All of the Whitsunday islands are closer to shore than the Great Barrier Reef. First stop was Hook island. They have a small resort on the island that’s one of the cheaper ones in the islands. The box jellyfish season has just started down here and these things are insane. If you get stung it can mean weeks in hospital. So when they gave us the opportunity to go snorkeling, we decided to skip it, especially since we had just spent 2 days on the Reef enjoying some much better snorkeling.
The next stop after lunch was Whitehaven beach. This beach is widely regarded as one of the best in the world. It’s several kilometers of pure white silica sand on an uninhabited island. We came in at high tide, which cut down on the size of the beach, and on top of that it was raining on and off, so that put a damper on things. We tried to make the most of it and walked down the beach.
If there’s one flaw to Australia’s beaches, it’s that you can’t actually swim in them for half the year. The jellyfish are the worst problem, since they’re tiny and there is no antidote. But there are other issues like sea lice, and larger creatures like sharks and rays. It’s strange that you come across these beautiful beaches and find no one swimming in them even when the sun is out and the weather is warm.
Last stop for the day was Daydream island. Home of a sprawling resort with tons of pools, hot tubs and their own marine life pool. I managed to coax Andrea into the pool here for a while, before we took walk around the resort and found a hidden cache of kangaroos hiding behind some bushes.
Getting some much needed laundry done to end the day, another day tour tomorrow but more rain in the forecast.
