Michael Meyer

Another day on and in the water... After not a good night - three idiots in my room were of the opinion that it is just normal to hold a long conversation (I would say at least half an hour) in the eight bed dorm at 3 am - my Ocean Rafting trip to the Whitsunday Islands began at 8:30 am. It was a daytrip with a speedboat. Most of the time we rushed over the sea with up to 30 knots. It was pretty fun. At the beginning, we were together with another speedboat of the same company and we jumped over their waves and they over ours. After a bit more than an hour we arrived at Whitsunday Island, the biggest of the Whitsunday Islands, where the short Bushwalk (about 15 minutes) to the Whitsunday lookout starts. Just before we arrived there, it started raining. Fortunately, the rain lasted only for some ten minutes. The view from the lookout was pretty amazing, however, I think, Europe has got islands that are similarly beautiful in my opinion. The bushwalk ended at the famous Whiteheaven beach. We went with the boat to a small bay that we had for ourselves. There, we had some lunch - mainly different salads - and a bit more than one hour beachtime. It was recommended only to swim with a bodysuit to be protected from jellyfish. I went for a short swim, but the water is actually too warm, not really refreshing. Well, the beer at the beach was good and cool though😄After the beach we went to a bay in front of Hook Island for snorkeling. Again, it was pretty beautiful to see the fish in their natural habitat. This spot was not so much for corals, but mainly for fish. We also went to a second snorkeling spot, as well in front of Hook Island. Unbelievable, it was so beautiful there: mainy beautiful corals, many fish. I think, I saw a stonefish (not sure if that is the correct name). My favourites where the loads of zebra fish I saw. Some bigger blue/turquoise and black ones where nice, too. And pretty much in the end, I saw two fish that had a pattern like a giraffe. At both snorkeling spots, I was the last one to go out of the water. Unfortunately, again, I cannot share the pictures that I took with my camera. Next and last very short stop was at another beach before we went back to Airlie Beach. Close to the marina, the skipper made some 360°-turns at full speed. In Airlie Beach, I had about two hours to walk around and have some food before I needed to pick up my backpack at the hostel and go to the bus stop. There I got to know from two Irish girls that our bus was expected to be 90 minutes late. Great - a 17 hours bus ride began with a delay🙃 Well, in the end we depsrted two hours late (even though the bus arrived with a bit less than + 90 minutes - the reason for that was a broken tyre that had to be changed) because the driver had to kick one guest out off the bus at Airlie Beach and was threatened by him. As far as I got to know, the man had smoked in the bus. The driver had to wait for the police, but the other one was gone by the time the police arrived.Leia mais