Airlie Beach & Whitsunday Islands

We drove into a sunny and very beautiful Airlie Beach and headed to our hostel, Base X. 

We were staying here as we had a voucher and there were no free rest sites nearby and we were able to park up and stay in the camper. After grabbing a quick lunch of chocolate spread toast we headed to Airlie Beach lagoon, which wasn't dissimilar to Cairns lagoon (this is not the picture, but the view from our lagoon spot). We were lucky with the weather and it was perfectly sunny and we even managed a quick dip and a suntan.

The following day we were booked onto an Ocean Rafting tour of the Whitsunday Islands. Now if you don't know what this is, I suggest you google it as it is pure heaven, literally and you'll want to book a trip to Australia on just seeing a picture. Unfortunately we weren't blessed with the weather that you will have seen on google but at least it wasn't raining. 

Ocean Rafting is this insanely fast speed boat and we quickly arrived on Whitehaven Beach (5th best beach in the world). The sand was pure white silica and the sea was clear as glass. 

We went on a short hike to a lookout point where we got spectacular views of the beach and surrounding areas and it was beautiful. After a packed lunch we headed to our next spot. 

We arrived at Mantaray Bay for snorkelling. Nathan and I had opted out of hiring a wetsuit on the hope we wouldn't get stung by some of the stingers in the sea. But it wasn't that we needed to be worried about, it was freezing and we were the select few just in our bikinis and swimming shorts. However we grinned and bared it. The water was perfect and clear an we managed to see loads of fish. 

After about 20 minutes I was freezing so had to get out and unlucky for me only I only had my thin, rubbish little travel towel so I remained freezing with blue lips for the rest of the journey. 

We then went to our final snorkel site which was located just off Hook Island. I then made the executive decision to not go again as I was beyond too cold however Nath went out and look at this absolutely incredible picture he took.

He managed to swim with 3 turtles, he was thrilled. 

After snorkelling at this site, it was time to head back and it was really choppy so we got splashed a fair bit and I was struggling to warm up. When we finally got on dry land away from the wind and sea I warmed up a bit.

We then headed to the supermarket to stock up on food and I very randomly bumped into a girl from my form at school. It really makes you realise how small this world is. We has originally planned to stay in Airlie Beach for another night as we had a free night but the weather the following day was overcast and drizzly so we headed further south on our journey.

Xoxo