As I write this blog I realize that nearly three months have passed by since I went on the most amazing trip of my life yet (date manually changed). The only reason that I can think of why I haven't wrote a post about it is my belief that I could not adequately depict how amazing it was through the text I wrote along with the video and images that I captured. With that, here's my attempt....
Brisbane ✈ ✈ ✈Airlie Beach
We took a taxi to Brisbane's domestic airport. This was my first time flying since I arrived in Australia three months prior. That was most of our stories, so we didn't know what to expect. Going through the "Australian TSA" (not sure what it's called here) was a breeze. Most of the people on the trip were American so when we proceeded to security we began to take off our belts and shoes. We pulled out our toiletry bags and we took out our laptops as well. To our surprise most of this was not necessary. All we had to do was pull out our laptops and walk through the metal detector (not the body scanning one). I'm not sure if I liked this or not as it seems really easy to get something through.
When we arrived at the Great Whitsunday Airport, we took another taxi to get to our accommodation. It was about a 30 minute ride or so. Riding along, I asked the driver to take us on the scenic route so that we could get a feel for our base for the next few days. Doing so, we drove past part of the bluest water that I had ever seen. After being in awe for a moment, our driver took us through the main strip with all of the hostels, shops, travel agencies and clubs before heading to our "resort", Club Crocodile.
Although Club Croc wasn't the nicest place that I ever stayed, it was perfect for us. It was clean and big enough with a beautiful pool area and for a great price. There was a small issue in the girls room with a fairly large spider and cockroach, but Chaston took care of that. Oh and there may have been a couple getting a little too close to each other in the hot tub, but Marcus took care of that. Other than that no complaints about Club Croc.
First Day = Mainland Exploration
As mentioned, we were stunned by the picturesque beauty of Airlie Beach's waters. Once we got our bags down we left to explore it on foot. Turns out not far from our front door there was a nice beach walking path. The second we spotted the water the picture taking began. Seriously, I had never seen anything like it.
The beach walk took us directly to the main strip of town. There we just grabbed a quick lunch (I got a club - not that you care). Then we went looking for the sandy beach. I stopped at a market on the way to pick up souvenirs for two friends during the hunt. To our surprise all the beaches of Airlie Beach are rocky. They did have one man made beach area though. As it was man made, the sand was weird feeling. Still it was beautiful. There were tons of shells, a beached boat and nice views of the harbor/port area. (Claire (my mermaid friend) got her share). It was guarded off by a floating net where we took photos of course. At the edge of the net there were little fish that kept jumping up and birds who took advantage.
While messing around in the water, the guys had a little competition. The first one was to see who could fly the highest in the air. As I was the lightest, I won. The next was the one where you sit on top of each others shoulders and fight one another. To my surprise, I won that one as well. I bet you're surprised also!! My victories concluded the first day explorations...
Second Day = Sea Voyages
This day we took to the high seas to explore the Whitsunday Islands. It's a good thing that we did because apparently, Airlie Beach was supposed to be getting a bit of rain.
Cruise Whitsundays had an "island hopper" pass that allowed us to go to Lady Island, Hamilton Island and Daydream Island. We left from the Able Point Marina for Daydream Island.
The day couldn't have been more perfect to get on the water. The sun was shining and the nice blue water wasn't too rough on us. The ride over was a lot of fun in itself. If that's all we got to do was ride the boat over, then it would have been worth it just for that.
Daydream Island was the first stop that we made. The dock was part of the Daydream Island Resort's property and we had full access to their facilites as a part of the cruise. We got off and searched for the beach front. Walking through the property, I discovered their artificial reefs and aquatic life including fish, stingrays, sharks and sea cucumbers. The first beach we came to was Mermaid Beach. Not much of a beach area as the shore was covered in shells and corals. It was a cool place for skipping rocks and taking pictures though. There was another beach around back called lovers beach or something weird like that. We saw a wild wallaby there, and that was pretty neat. After leaving there, we went along to catch the boat headed for out next destination.....
Hamilton Island was a bit more developed you could say. The docks were right beside the Hamilton Island Airport. When we came in I saw a plane land, all the shops and the residential homes of the island from the boat. We got off and searched for food. Had a quick bite to eat and then caught the free shuttle to the resort.
The Hamilton Island Resort was very nice. It had numerous pools. Some had poolside bars and one of them was actually used for dolphins once. We took advantage of the poolside bar and headed to Catseye Beach with our beverages. This beach was one of my favorite beaches in Australia. The sand was so soft. You could walk out into the water for the length of a football field it seemed while still touching the bottom and seeing your feet beneath you. It was relaxing and as beautiful as it could possibly be. We all enjoyed the beach so much, that we decided to just stay there for the rest of the day and forget about Long Island.
The second day sea voyages ended with a nice serene cruise back looking at the sun disappear behind the mountains of the islands. As we disembarked the boat, they played really sad music and all the staff were lined up on either side of us along the dock. It was rather sad actually. It was as if they were saying thanks for joining us at the most beautiful place in the world. We're sorry that you have to go back to your simple lives. They were wrong... I still had two more days!!!
Third Day = Best Beach via Boat
On this day, we took a another ride out to the islands with Big Fury (a huge rafting style boat). We arrived at Shute Harbour early in the morning where we were met by the Big Fury team, paid our discounted group rate, grabbed our "stinger suit" and boarded our turbo charged raft. This time our destination was a bit farther out to both Hook Island and Whitsunday Island. It was also a bit more wet because the raft was open to the splashes from the water.
The water was even more choppy this day so the ride was more intense. We passed by Daydream and Hamilton Island to our right and the inclement clouds that were hovering above them. Our skipper was great. He pointed out many things during our journey including a few of the 100+ beaches we passed, a small island where one of the deadliest snakes in the world lives and a natural statue of Adam and Eve we passed along the way. He also told cool stories of his encounters with whales and famous people while at the Whitsundays.
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| Eve on the left Adam on the right.... |
Our first stop was off the coast of Hook Island. The driver of our raft stopped and we all turned our attention to the skipper again. He gave us a demonstration of how to properly snorkel. As I had never snorkeled before I was paying close attention. Most important thing I got out of the presentation was that the universal distress signal was to yell and wave your arms in the air. With that, I grabbed my stinger suit then put on some flippers and a face mask headed for the side of the boat and jumped in.
Snorkeling for the first time took some getting used to. I imagined that it wouldn't be that difficult, but it took a second to wrap my head around the fact that I could breathe under water. Got over that and off I went. When I looked under me, I saw coral and fish everywhere. FREAKY and cool!!! I've always seen what coral looked like on television, aquariums and pictures, but never like this. It wasn't as colorful as I had though as there was a lot of sand covering it, but it was still beautiful.
During this whole time I kept getting my goggles filled up with water. I would stop, take them off, pour out the water and then put them back on over and over and over again. Apparently this was because my mustache wouldn't allow the suction to work properly. Eventually, this got tiring as I was constantly trying to avoid the coral. At one point I gave up and just stood right on top of the coral for a breather. I'm sorry... I've confessed my sins... Wasn't much longer before we all got back on the boat and headed off to...
Whitehaven Beach, is repeatedly ranked as one of the best beaches in the world. A recent list puts it at No. 11. It was a quick ride from Hook Island. A part of Whitsunday Island, Whitehaven Beach appeared to cover over a mile of the coast. The sand was the brightest white sand that I'd ever seen against the deep turquoise waters below and vibrant green foliage of the mountains above. We docked a little off the shore and walked onto the beach.
Walking on the beach was a different experience. Because the sand is 98% silica, it squeaks with each step you take. In fact the sand from the beach was used to make the glass of the US Hubble Space Telescope. Unfortunately, the clouds were pretty overcast that day, but the landscape was still amazing. We all laid out on the beach until our buffet lunch was ready. Walking into the woods a bit, there was a camp site setup for us complete with picnic tables and bench seating. The meal was huge! There was so much food, it was pretty good AND it was all we could eat. There were a few uninvited HUMONGOUS GIANT LIZARD CREATURES (lace monitors?) that wanted to get in on the action as well.
We ate our food and then took a hike through the nature trail. Mandy and I were late leaving for the hike so we were stuck in the woods alone. We caught up to the others by screaming and stomping really loudly to avoid the snakes and spiders that were waiting to kill us (don't judge). Reaching the top we met up with the rest of the gang. The views were again breathtaking. There were completely untouched shores below the mountain that we stood atop. I liked it so much so that I stayed behind with a random group of folks from our raft and headed back with them. When we got back we realized that everyone had boarded the raft and was waiting for us to get on! Oops. Our bad. We sprinted to the raft and made our back to Airlie Beach which concluded my third day adventures.
Fourth Day = Going Deep Down Under
The final day of adventures was the best day of adventures. A few of us ended up getting a really good deal on a Great Barrier Reef scuba dive from Cruise Whitsundays one night. We woke up to meet our ship crew at Shute Harbour the next morning. The "MC" for our trip was a short hyper little lady affectionately referred to as Little Fish. After she explained the events of the day we boarded the boat. Interestingly enough, we were warned that the waters were going to be extremely rough getting out to the reef, but conditions on the reef would be much better....
Rough was an understatement. The huge boat that we were on was crashing up and down with the extreme rain amongst the harsh waves. I noted that there were people who didn't fare to well with the "motion of the ocean" as I saw them lose their morning tea that was provided for us. I myself was fine. :-) The ride out took a bit over two hours (maybe even longer - I don't remember). When we got to the reef the sun was shining and the waters were calm just as we were told they would be.
Our ship pulled up beside this huge pontoon in the middle of the ocean to dock. We were one of the first groups of people up for the scuba dive, so we had to get off the boat and go quickly change into our scuba gear. The gear included a wet suit, flippers, goggles, a lead belt to keep us down and a huge oxygen tank. We put the gear on and walked down beneath the pontoon onto a submerged platform. They split us up into guys and gals and gave us a quick crash course on how to properly scuba dive. It was just the day before that I went snorkeling for the first time, and like snorkleing scuba diving took some time getting used to. Once you're under the water there is no coming up quickly for air or readjusting yourself. That's pretty freaky. We were offered the option to have someone hold our hand, but our leader decided that the guys didn't need it. DAMN!
After satisfied that we knew what to do, we were off. There was a series of ropes that lined the waters. We were told to grab onto them to help us dive deeper. As soon as we swam off the platform I saw huge blue fish just chilling out beside us. By this time, I had already grown used to breathing in and out through the mouthpiece. The coral at the reef was absolutely breathtaking. Seeing the vibrant colors, giant florescent clams and exotic fish was very surreal. Our guide grew confident that we knew what we were doing towards the end of our time and he let us drift off on our own within a reasonable distance. Every now and then I would look around the deep blue for his flippers and gaze at him for his approval for me to continue as I was. Sometimes I got a thumbs up and other times he waved me in closer. He seemed like my underwater father or something. After about 45 minutes, we swam back and took off our gear.
After scuba diving the first time, we all decided that we wanted to do it again (for an extra cost of course). With that, I didn't have much time to explore the rest of the pontoon. A huge buffet lunch was provided complete with giant shrimp (not that I like shrimp all that much). I made a few trips to the buffet line as any budget student would do. After eating I checked out the rest of the pontoon. There was a nice little water slide into the reef that both Chaston and I took advantage of. SO COOL! There was an underwater observation deck where you could see people as the dove into the water from the slide. There was also an underwater viewing boat that drove around the reef. I didn't have enough time to take the ride, so I just hopped on for about 10 seconds to get a view. Always gotta get ya monies worth! 
The rest of day out on the reef included a bit of snorkeling and our second dive. Snorkling was better this day than the day before. The goggles stayed on properly so I was able to enjoy the sights below (see video at the end). The second dive was much better. I saw more fish and wasn't as nervous to go farther away from our instructor. I even touched some of the coral. It seemed like we stayed under a bit longer this time around as well. Once that dive was over it was time to head back to Club Croc and then to Brissy.
The next morning, most of the group left out early. Nick, Emily and myself had a different flight so we waited around for a bit before heading back home. This trip was the greatest trip of my life to date, and I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to experience it with such great people.
Until next time,
Kyron S. Whitfield