Airlie and Wet Whitsunday

Leaving the Coast we headed inland to check out Eungella Nationals Park for the day, one of the best spots to see wild Platypus in the river. Such strange little creatures and normally quite shy but we found one that was willing to put on a show.
Once the platypus had got bored we jumped back in the van to head to Airlie beach where we were camping for 3 nights. This far north we are very much entering rain forest territory, which means amazing birds, crocs, jelly fish and rain.

Airlie Beach is the gateway town for the Whitsunday Islands, a chain of island pretty much untouched and pristine. We took a day boat trip out to see the islands and to do some snorkeling, unfortunately the day we went it absolutely poured it down all morning and was cloudy all afternoon. Whitsundays? More like Wetsundays. While the viewpoint maybe wasn't as impressive with the clouds, Whitehaven beach was still beautiful. It has amazing soft white silica sand, a very good exfoliant, and the shoreline is home to a variety of small fish and Sting Rays you can see while paddling. They are amazing at camouflaging themselves beneath the sand so we had to be very careful where we stepped when swimming.

The snorkeling was also very impressive we saw a giant 2 meter clam (that has an amazing purple colour), some Wrase fish that were at least meter long, some very colourful corals and shoals of excitable fish that were very happy swimming in circles around us. Despite the weather we had an incredible time.

The next day we stayed in Airlie beach to check out the beach... however despite its name no one goes on the beach because of the stingers jelly fish...instead the town created a massive outdoor swimming pool (they call it the blue lagoon) where everyone gathers and has a swim. It's quite strange but we didn't risk the stingers and did as the locals did!Read more