Pioneer Bay

The busride from Cairns to Airlie Beach took more than nine hours. Actually, I slept better and longer than I had expected before; until a meal break at about 9:00 am I had slept most of the time. Anyway, sleeping on the bus is not as refreshing as sleeping in a bed. From then, I looked out of the window most of the time. The area we were driving through was quite agricultural and green, e. g. I saw many sugar cane plantations, but not much cattle. At about 10:45 am, I arrived at Airlie Beach. It was very hot already. The sun here in Australia is so strong! At the hostel, I could already get into my room, an eight bed dorm again, pretty fresh because of the aircondition. I did a short walk in the main street to checkout if there was any possibilities for an afternoon program. There was not many options, but the sunset cruise on a sailing boat at 5:00 pm convinced me. Then I tried to relax and also had a snooze at the hostel. Unfortunately, there were quite a few clouds, when the sunset cruise started. Anyway, it was scenic also with the clouds. The boat, a wooden schoner, was nice. There were about fifteen people on board. We sailed out in the bay of Airlie Beach. A glass of champagne as well as some crackers with cheese were complimentary, further drinks could be bought. The light with the clouds and later the moon were beautiful, but we did not have a real sunset. There were two cruiseships in the bay. I am pretty sure, that one of them was the Artania again. It was also obvious, that it was raining at some places around. There was even a rainbow close to one of the cruiseships. Unfortunately, the rain reached Airlie Beach and also came towards us. Close before and in the marina, we got really really wet. It was a heavy rainfall for about five minutes. When the rain had stopped, I went back to the hostel to change my clothes and then went out for some dinner. However, it has been raining again and again the whole evening.Read more