A short but sweet visit to the Whitsundays

I love visiting new places and seeing new things. I especially love doing this when accompanied by fun people like Anne and Caitlin. Anne, Caitlin, and I flew to the Whitsundays for a brief visit. Though we only had approximately 48 hours there, we maximized our time and saw quite a bit. 

We arrived at the Proserpine airport in the afternoon on Thursday (May 5th), and made our way to Airlie Beach. We took the overpriced $18 per person shuttle. Airlie Beach is approximately a 35 minute drive from the airport. We arrived at our hostel Base Airlie Beach Resort, and were happy that we got a 4-bed dorm all to ourselves. Again, the Australian hostels didn't disappoint us. Clean, spacious, and most importantly, no bugs! 

The weather forecast said that there would be scattered clouds with a chance of rain on the days we were there. We saw that there weren't  too many clouds in the sky when we arrived, so we quickly changed, and went to the nearby man-made lagoon to take advantage of the sun. 

After some time in the sun, an ice cream, and walking around the mellow streets of Airlie Beach, we headed back to our room to shower up before dinner time. For dinner, we went to a cozy restaurant down the street with outside seating. We were initially drawn to this place because of a guy playing an acoustic guitar in the restaurant. We liked him at first, but felt he sang waaay too many sappy songs after a while. Though the musical performance wasn't to our liking, we did enjoy the great 2-for-1 pizza deal; two large pizzas for the price of one! Only $22. Madness! Once our stomachs were satisfied, we headed home and went to bed early. Like 9pm early. We were so tired! The next morning (May 6th) we were ready to see more than just the surrounding shops and restaurants near Airlie Beach. The Whitsunday Islands are made up of 74 islands, and only 8 of these are inhabited. We booked a 3-island boat tour, and were picked up at around 7:30am.  

Our first stop was Daydream Island. This is the smallest of the Whitsunday Islands; it's only 1km/0.6miles long and 400meters/0.25miles wide. The island has the world's largest lagoon-style aquarium, containing over 40 marine fish species and 50 coral varieties. Our nice tour guide, Becki, showed us around and provided lots of fun facts. 

The most memorable fact: All clownfish are born male, but when the current female of the group dies, the most dominant male will transform into a female. When Nemo's mom died (in Finding Nemo) the dad, Marlin, should have turned into a female. That would've probably confused the kids though... 

We saw some other wildlife beside sea creatures. There were lots of bush-stone curlews walking around Daydream Island. They are also known as Murder Birds because when they communicate, they sound like someone is being killed. Charming birds, indeed. We weren't fortunate to hear the murder birds communicate, but I'm sure they are just as hilarious as the screaming/laughing birds that I have previously mentioned. 

They were all about mermaids at Daydream Island. Mermaid statues, mermaid paintings, mermaid-named restaurants. We took a picture with one of the three mermaid statues by the beach. Poor mermaid, we kind of just climbed all over her. Our next stop was Hamilton Island, one of the largest inhabited islands. We had lunch here at the Marina Tavern, ice cream at the ice cream parlour, and browsed around in the cute shops. 

We considered investing in some real estate while there, but unfortunately our student budgets did not make the cut. The cheapest apartment we found was around $400,000, and the most expensive house we found was $3,500,000.  The last stop on our trip was Whitehaven Beach, a 7km/4.3miles stretch along Whitsunday Island. The sand consists of 98% pure silica. This gives the sand a beautiful white color, and also makes the sand squeak when you walk on it. Before we got off the boat, we were told that we could grab stinger suits. Though jellyfish season is over, the guides said there could still be some swimming around in the water. To be honest, we weren't too concerned with the jellyfish. However, we couldn't pass up an opportunity to look like beach ninjas, so we each grabbed a suit when disembarking the boat. The suits were truly magnificent. Had it not been for the fact that we would technically be stealing, we totally would've brought the suits home with us. They covered the majority of our bodies, except parts of our feet and faces. The mitten hands were likely the best part. 

Me doing cartwheels

Caitlin posing 

Whenever I'm on a beach, I get the urge to write something in the sand. I'm not the only one who gets this. There weren't too many sticks on the pristine beach, so Anne had to make do with what we found. 

Instead of writing something corny like "Whitsundays 2014" or just hearts (like I did), Anne wrote "I'm writing with a stick". She's a clever one!  

While enjoying our time at Whitehaven Beach, we suddenly saw a shark in the water. We were in the water splashing around at the same time, so I'd say that we were technically swimming with sharks. Based on what we saw at the Daydream aquarium, we concluded that it was lemon shark. 

See the dark spot in the water? That's the shark!

Though our excursion likely doesn't seem too strenuous, we were exhausted by the time we got back to our hostel at 6:15pm. We counted down the hours until it was an acceptable time to go to bed (we concluded that 8pm was an early yet acceptable bed time). Initially, I attributed my tiredness to my old age (ha ha). However, I think Caitlin, the spring chicken of only age 21, fell asleep first, so maybe we just needed sleep. 

Beautiful sunset on our way back to Airlie Beach 

We flew home yesterday morning (May 7th). The visit to the Whitsundays was short but sweet. I wish we could have stayed longer, but I am happy that we had a chance to go and that the weather cooperated a little. 

Last night I had the pleasure of accompanying my friend, Christian, to a World Cup Celebration. It was an event that raised funds for Special Olympics New South Wales. Their mission is to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disability. This provides continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, and build friendships with their families, coaches, other Special Olympics athletes, and the broader community. Christian works for the Western Sydney Wanderers FC, a club that supports Special Olympics NSW. 

The celebration featured lots of entertainment from (among others) the Ten Sopranos, Anastasia Zoi, and Rio's Brazilian Dancers. There was also a raffle and an auction. Despite my limited knowledge about the World Cup (and being pulled on stage during the Brazilian dancing act), I had a great time. The food was delicious, the entertainment was enjoyable, and the company was excellent. Most importantly, lots of money was raised for a great cause!

Love, 

Suzy