Day 15
I wish I could start this week off with some incredible story of grandiose adventure, but in reality we had finally succumbed to the beast that is Magnetic Island. On the 7th (technically 15th) day, we rested. And we rested hard. We’re talking naps in the hammock, naps by the pool, naps in the pool, and naps at the bar by the pool. We rested freaking hard.
Day 16
The night before we had been playing cards with a couple backpackers, when we had the brilliant idea to wake up at 5 am to watch the sunrise in a secluded bay. It’s incredible how good ideas can seem the night before, but the reality of a 5 am wakeup after a night of laughter and cards is much different from the jovial walk pictured the night before. Still, with plenty of yawns and grouchy mutterings, we walked off to find our secluded sunrise bay. The walk itself was an incredibly lengthy climb over steep terrain with zero natural lighting, resulting in plenty of stubbed toes and scraped shins. As we walked along, we were actually fortunate enough to see a beautiful Echidna half burrowed into a hole in a rock. The aussie in our group began to tell us about ways to pick up an Echidna, however we decided to leave it in piece and simply take photos and memories.
Eventually we arrived at our sunrise destination, and witnessed the arrival of the glorious Sun King on His blazing throne. It was a sobering reminder of what exactly travelling is about: the journey itself. Because as beautiful as that sunrise was, no rational person could ever equate it with the effort it took to walk the several miles in the dark. The highlight of that experience was definitely not the sunrise, but rather the walk, the discoveries, the getting lost, and the finding our way again.
Upon arrival back to the hostel, I felt quite ill and decided to rest in bed for a couple hours while Caroline went off for a second walk. She did the Forts walk, and managed to spot herself a wild Koala! Lucky duck! After she returned, we both began to feel the spell of the island start to work it’s magic again, and decided it was time to move on from that place. We hopped the next ferry, and travelled back to Townsville. (Fun Fact: we have used wifi all across both this country, and New Zealand, and the fastest wifi BY FAR as on the darn ferry. Funny, huh?)
After arriving in Townsville, we were driving back to our campsite when we heard a ruckus by the side of the road. We stopped to check out what it was, and came across a massive drum circle. So, at 10:00 PM we did the only logical thing, grabbed one of the drums, and started pounding away. We stayed for a couple hours partying with the Townsville drum circle group, and had such an amazing time in support of Ecuador Earthquake Relief.
Day 17
The magical spell of the Island now lifted, we realised how much time we had lost and immediately began preparations for the next leg of our journey: Airlie Beach. This involved over-priced laundromats and coffee shops, as we refuelled, cleaned, and reconnected to the world through the magical internet for the first time in a long while. I have never been a huge fan of social media, but I have to say travelling without it would be incredibly lonely and difficult.
After leaving Townsville, we headed south to Airlie Beach, passing through the town of Home Hill. We knew there was a campsite here, but had no intention of stopping; that is until we saw the free campsite offered by the town. Most free campsites in Australia are dingy and dirty, with toilets covered in spiders and undrinkable tap water. Home Hill offered a pristine, beautiful campsite with clean bbqs, plenty of space, and free (yes, free) hot showers. Basically paradise on earth. We stopped here for the night, watched some tv, cooked hotdogs, and had a peaceful/relaxing night.
Day 18
We woke up and immediately went into driving. I have to warn you, we are working with some pretty serious time restraints here, and as such can’t stop everywhere. Also, unlike NZ where all of the exciting stuff is minutes apart, there is a lot of driving in Oz. Basically, this boils down to the simply fact that the next few weeks might contain a lot of sitting around and a lot of driving. Because Townsville to Hervey Bay isn’t jam-packed with things to do. But I’ll get to that a little later.
Anyways, we drove for several hours before arriving in Airlie Beach in the mid-afternoon. The only exciting thing that happened on this particular drive was that we passed a giant mango. It’s gonna get a little bit boring, okay?
Arriving in Airlie Beach, I was immediately struck by how backpacker-y everything was. Kind of like Queenstown, NZ, this place struck me as a town set up purely to make money off of backpackers and tourists. I think there is a huge difference between a tourist town (like Banff and Cairns, where tourism is a very large part of their profit, but the town exists for other things as well) and a backpacker town, where everything is designed to give the impression of perfection, but is really all just fake to entice poor backpackers into over-drinking at bars and spending thousands on tours. I noticed all this rather quickly, and yet we still managed to fall into the trap!
Airlie beach is the gateway to the Whitsundays; beautiful, tropical islands with flowing sands and gorgeous coral. And we couldn’t not go, right? After several hours pestering a tour guide for better deals, we finally bought a couple tours and caved into the backpacker trap. Satisfied with our purchases, we headed to a far off truckstop/campsite.
Day 19
In the blink of an eye, we were on a boat.
It’s funny how over-used that expression is, and yet when you wake up at 5 am to catch an early morning boat, it really does feel like the blink of a half-asleep, bleary eye. Why were we so suddenly thrust upon a boat, you ask? Let me explain.
Throughout our trip I feel like we have been slaves to the poor weather; always getting the timing wrong, or having to wait for sunnier skies. When we rolled into Airlie, we did a quick weather check only to realise that weather was once again not in our favour. The next few days were a mixture of heavy rain, and even heavier rain. Except we noticed that tomorrow (today) was sunny, and despite not making a decision until 7 the night before, we booked for first thing in the morning.
So that is why we were driving to the Marina at a ridiculous hour in the morning, and boarding before we even knew what was happening. The stinking weather.
The boat was called the Mandrake, and I have decided to dedicate an entire post to this trip, so I won’t go into every gory detail here (nor show many pictures). However, I will give you a general overview of what we did. On this day, we simply sailed to our first anchorage in Hook Island. The sailing itself was epic. Amazing. Exhilarating. It reminded me that I freaking love sailing. There was a storm brewing to one side, and the winds were so strong the boat almost keeled over. It was epic. We slept that night in a calm anchorage point under the stars, protected on all sides by the steep mountain slopes of Hook Island.
Day 20
We woke up incredibly early, and immediately set sail (I drove the boat. No big deal. (TOTALLY A BIG DEAL IT WAS AWESOME)). We sailed to the beautiful, world famous Whitehaven Beach. It was incredible, and exactly like all of the photos (which is rare). We saw massive stingrays and a couple sneaky sharks.
From Whitehaven we sailed up to the northernmost island: Hayman Island. Here we went snorkelling twice, and it was the best snorkelling yet! We saw so many giant fish, and I even saw a cuttlefish/squid/IDontKnowWhatItWas. We anchored where we snorkelled, and spent another evening on the boat.
Day 21
Our last day sailing, we started the day snorkelling a massive soft coral field with a cute little green turtle. From there, we started heading back to Airlie slowly while admiring the incredible views and islands. It really was an amazing trip, and such a joyful group of people to experience this with.
Back on dry land, we were utterly exhausted. The late night conversations and early morning snorkelling really knocked the stuffing out of us! We had so many plans for the afternoon, but postponed them in favour of sleep. Sailing is exhausting!
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