East Coast
We flew into Cairns from Ayers rock and spent a couple of days there before heading down to Airlie beach. The Cairns esplanade along the water front was very plush!
Airlie beach had a party atmosphere that we were too tired to experience. We had just spent 11 hours on the greyhound bus! Oh we forgot to say that we bought a tent in woolworths Cairns for $30 so we spent the night in Airlie beach in a tent. We spent the night flicking off ants, I think we put the tent up on top of an ants nest!
In the morning we set off on our sailing boat called 'Mandrake' with 12 other passengers and our crew of 3. The Whitsunday Islands are beautiful, we sat on deck burning in the sun enjoying the gorgeous views. We moored the boat and took a dinghy ride to a very popular island called whitehaven beach. We walked up to the lookout points where we could see rays swimming in the bay, another thing that we could see were big black evil looking clouds! To sat iot rained was a slight understatement, we don't think we have ever been that wet before! Our captin picked us up in the dinghy, it was jumping off of the waves in a scary way, we headed out to sea with no sight of the boat, it was raining that hard! Back on board, after making a hazzardly jump to get back on, we decided that we were so wet we may as well sit up on deck with our wetsuits and yellow macs. As thunder lightening and lashing waves continued we drank wine and toaste the elements! We felt like pirates! Oooh arrrh jim lad! After the storm there was a beautiful rainbow and sunset, it was so gorgeous!
Turtles kept popping up to see us and the diving and snorkling experience was awesome. It felt like someone had dropped us into the middle of a tropical fish tank. We even saw some 'Nemo' fish again! Jon took a couple of trial dives and went down to around 12meters deep. It was quite a scary experience breathing underwater but was very exillerating as a batfish swam with us for some time!
Nat would like all to know that she has had this photo placed here under protest but I think its the cutest!!
The following day she was a little sunburnt - not that you could tell.