The Whitsunday Islands

All of the excursions basically do the same. Go snorkelling, then to Whitsunday Island to see the best beach in the world, then go home, Various amounts of food and beverages are served on different boats. We decided to go on a small sailing yacht with a maximum capacity of around 24 and only 13 booked on it, rather than a larger catamaran that could take 80 with 78 people booked on it.

I’m not sure what the experience was, we didn’t sail because it was not sufficiently windy, the snorkelling wasn’t terribly exciting compared to what we have seen before and the food wasn’t anything special. However, the whole day was lovely, the crew, the other passengers and the white sand on Whitehaven Beach was amazing. We saw dolphins and turtles while motoring to and from the island. We saw the coral spores that have recently “bloomed” and have made a brown scum on the sea surface. We a.so played at driving the boat - what children we were.

Whitehaven Beach is a 7 km stretch along Whitsunday Island, it is known for its bright white sands, which consist of 98% pure silica. Local rocks do not contain silica so it has been suggested that the sands were brought to the beach by prevailing sea currents over millions of years.

Unlike regular sand, the sand on Whitehaven Beach does not retain heat making it comfortable to walk barefoot on a hot day. This sand is also very fine, and can damage electronic equipment such as telephones and cameras, although it is good at polishing up jewellery.

Georgie from Airlie, will tell all who gather and listen, that the beach's sand may have been used to make the glass used in the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1970s. However NASA has not yet verified this claim made by Georgie. They say that a resident from Airlie Beach is not an academic source. (We were told that this did happen).

We stayed another night at the same campsiteEn savoir plus