Airlie Beach

I have been to Airlie once before but it was under totally different circumstances. Quite a number of years ago I came up here with my daughter Rachel where we had a great Mother/Daughter 10 days in Airlie Beach and Long Island which is one of the Whitsunday Islands. Things have changed since then but it is still a great place to visit. The caravan park we are staying at is out of town a bit so we are out of the hustle and bustle. The only problem is there are midges or sandflies here and they like to eat me. We have been doing a bit is sightseeing as there are so many beautiful beaches. One day we headed into Proserpine as Shane was there back when he was at school and wanted to see it again. Proserpine is surrounded by sugar cane fields and I would say this is its main industry. After driving around and stopping off at the local bakery, which had been recommended, we drove out to Lake Proserpine and the Peter Faust Dam. Lake Proserpine is stocked regularly with Barramundi fingerling and is renowned for its one metre Barra, but of course we didn't have our fishing gear with us.

Peter Faust Dam

Looking out in the water we could see lots of black marks.
 It turned out to be a mass of Cormorants feeding on a school of small fish

On the way back to Airlie Beach we stopped off to have a look at Conway Beach and Cedar Creek Falls. Conway Beach was a pretty location although the beach had a lot of weed along it from the incoming tides.

Conway Beach

Cedar Creek Falls weren't flowing very much due the this area not having much rainfall lately. But the swimming hole at the base of the falls was a delightful little swimming area. As its school holidays there were quite a few families taking advantage of the water.

Suck a lovely swimming hole at the base of Cedar Creek Falls

Another beach we have driven out to see is Dingo Beach which turned out to be a beautiful beach. As stinging jelly fish (stingers) are a problem when the water gets warm the beach had an enclosed netted area for people to swim in. Talking to the guy in the local cafe, he said that they rarely get stingers here. He also said, "we don't have any crocodiles because the Sharks have eaten then or maybe we don't have sharks because the crocs have eaten them". So between the stingers, crocs and sharks I'm certainly not going for a swim. But I did walk down and put my feet in the water and it was the warmest beach water I have ever felt. Does that mean there could be stingers - oh well I'm not testing out that theory.

Another amazing view from Dingo Beach

I did put my feet in the water and it was the warmest water I have ever felt

The Whitsundays, Queensland

The Whitsundays, oh what a magnificent part of the world. While we are staying at Airlie Beach for a while we just had to get out into the islands. So yesterday was the day to cruise out amongst the most amazing scenery anyone could hope to see. The transfer bus picked us up at 7.15am at the front of the caravan park for our 5 minute transfer to Shute Harbour to board our vessel MV2001.

Looking down on Shute Harbour

MV2001

After heading out through Whitsunday Passage we stopped just off Black Island, also known as Bali Hai' mainly for the tourists as the name Black Island wasn't attractive. At Black Island we were given the option of doing some snorkelling just off the beach or spending some time in the glass bottom boat. Even though I do love snorkelling I decided to go in the boat with Shane. Between you and me I wish I had had gone with the snorkelling, but it was still beautiful gliding over the various types of coral and exotic tropical fish. 

Heading out through Whitsunday Passage was stunning

Coral

more Coral

Then it was back to MV2001 for a lovely cold meat and salad buffet. With that we then headed to Whitsunday Island for a lovely walk through the National Park and onto the most amazing view I have ever seen in my life. As I came along the path over a small rise the view that was in front of me literally took my breath away. The lookout had an amazing view over the famous Whitehaven Beach, which was voted the best beach in the world - yes the world for 2015. The colour of the water was various shades from the most intense to a mellow shade of turquoise and the sand was the whitest of white I have ever seen.

The most amazing view I have ever seen

Then it was back to the boat, but there was still something I had to do. Even though the walk was quite tiring I just had to turn right and head down to Whitehaven Beach to walk in that stunning sand and maybe go in the water. The walk to the beach was only 50 metres and then once again my breath was taken away with the sight of the white sand and beyond it the luminescent, turquoise water. The sand is actually 98% Silica and it is wonderful for exfoliating your skin and cleaning your jewellery. I did rub it over my skin but didn't have any jewellery on to clean. As I thought I couldn't resist it and had to get in the water. It was nice and warm and I could have stayed there much longer than I did but I had to get back to the other side of the island to get the transfer dingy back to the MV2001.

Walking out onto Whitehaven Beach

The water was just to enticing to resist

Once back on board we we treated to afternoon tea which consisted of cheese, various cabana types of meat, dips, lots of fruit and cakes and tea and coffee. I must say the food on our three island cruise was pretty good. Then it was off to Daydream Island for an 1 1/2 hour stop to do whatever. We had met a nice couple on the cruise so we all decided to sit by the pool and have a drink. Daydream Island Resort has a living reef pool meandering throughout the grounds. The pool had a shark, a shovel nose shark, several stingrays, lots of very ugly sea cucumbers and numerous types of tropical fish.

Just a couple of the tropical fish in the Living Reef

Then it was back onto the vessel where we were greeted by a cocktail for each adult and then off on  our trip back to Shute Harbour. We arrived back on the mainland at around 5.00pm

The perfect sunset on a perfect day

Even though we were pretty tired after our big day we were both so glad we did it as it was an amazing  day.