Airlie, the Whitsundays and Agnes

I arrived at midnight n checked into Nomads hostel, I got a 4 bed dorm to myself so got a good nights sleep. The next morning I checked out,
left my luggage in storage, bought supplies and headed down to the Marina to board the Mandrake, owned by OzSail. It held 13 ppl on board, who were generally ok but no firm friends :-( you win some you loose some. The weather on day 1 was hot and it was brill to be on an ex racing sail boat, wind in my hair, sun on my face relaxing with the water bouncing below us. We even had time to snorkel - and see turtles!! There is just something so uplifting about watching a turtle slide gracefully through the sea. I love it! However, day 2 poured down with rain and it was cold. The morning was overcast n unfortunately this is when we visited Whitehaven beach (amazing beach n blue clear waters, best seen in the sun!). It is as pure as it looks on the postcards, pure white glassy sand...powdery therefore quite hard to lay on! I got to see some sting rays in a pool left by the tide. Pretty awesome! All in all I had a good time, day 3 weather was better and brightened up by the time we docked at Airlie beach.

Airlie itself is just a hub for trips to the Whitsunday. The lagoona is nice which is where we spent the following day sunbathing before getting a night bus to Agnes Waters/1770These two towns are tiny. Agnes has a pop of 300 and 1770 a pop of 63! We stayed in Cool Bananas hostel (yes, there was a big banana outside), which is really chilled out n laid back.

We're just off the towns main road and ten min walk from the main strip. That's me being nice, the strip is a bakery, shop, post office n greyhound stop! Speaking of which I should tell you all about my pleasant night bus experience...of all the modes of transport I've taken, coaches are the worst. However out here the greyhound is fine, better than the national express (it usually leaves on time!). It's just that I couldn't sleep on the coach, for whatever reason, but I assume I had snatched sleep or dozed cos I was on the bus a good 10 hrs! The unfortunate thing is the driver stops at about 3am n everyone has to get off the bus for security n therefore even if you had fallen asleep, you have no chance at a full trip asleep. So Hel (who, by the way, slept like a baby throughout the journey!) had to put up with a grumpy Rosie, even though the breakfast mcdonalds stop did help cheer me up, until I had my real breakfast at the hostel. Beginning to think im a bit of a hobbit when it comes to food!

Anyway, at 10.30 we took a free tour of the towns put on by scooteroo, a fun activity company who takes a grp of ppl out on bikes for the afternoon. Hel and I signed up straight away and so found ourselves sat on the back of a motorbike come 3 o'clock! Having never ridden one I was slightly apprehensive but was told all I needed to do was relax n let my shoulders down, the bike would do the rest (oh, and keep your foot near the break!). So off we went, up hills, down hills, round bends, corners n then the overtaking began! I saw wild kangas on route to the seaside where we bathed the sunset whilst eating potato wedges (they were ace) then back on our bikes heading home. All of this was of course done fully fitted out with cool biker gear cos we were part of the biker gang, "Hell Yeah!" (their catchphrase, not mine) so hel n I got out tattoos done an hr before we left and then picked up our biker jackets n helmets from the venue. The tattoos really hurt, but were mandatory so now I have 'born to be wild' on my chest...

We then spent the next two days either on the beach or doing Internet research (we took the nights off to meet people n relax with wine n board games- battleships, scrabble n connect 4 - Helen is a connect 4 wizz, she won every game!) about our next fun activity - Fraser Island. We finally booked the tour then left the next morning to Hervey Bay.