Airlie Beach

We arrived in airlie beach on Christmas eve and after 2 hours we were feeling pretty sorry for ourselves! Reasons being we had checked into our 8 bed doom, done a food shop and bought alchohol for the next few days there was no time for present buying! It was as if Airlie didn't realise it was Christmas, so it was clear our celebrations were going to be minimal!! Especesially as nothing was going to be open christmas day apart from the overpriced lunch at our hostel! We were still determined to have a Christmas BBQ by the beach, and as it turns out this was the plan of about 20 other travellers. So we all hung out together and ended up having a great night! One of the guys there was from New Zealand and new Kriss friend from work. Small world!

Christmas day arrived and apart from a few 'merry chritmasses' the day went by without us realising it was Christmas day! We did have the christmas lunch, which was really nice, and spent the afternoon at the lagoon sunbathing, eating toblerone and drinking wine! We had another BBQ in the evening and met the same people from the previous night which was good!

Boxing day was spent doing not a lot. It was nice though to have an 8 bed dorm all to ourselves as everyone left! 

Woke up in time to check out and head to the marina for our 2 night trip around the whitsundays on the 'SV Whitehaven'. On arrival we wondered how 24 people would fit on the boat but as we went below deck we saw how! We managed to bag the 'honeymoon suite' which was right at the front of the boat. The double bed was triangular and there were 2 single bunk beds above it, so at times it felt like you were in a coffin!

We headed to our first snorkel destination. The water was so clear we thought it was better than the barrier reef! After that we had tea and cakes, then sunset nibbles, followed by dinner so we were pretty well fed!! We had a few drinks in the evening before heading down to the room. It was difficult to get any sleep as it was so hot!

An early start at 6.30 and after breakfast we went to Whitehaven beach for a few hours. We stayed on the beach until the tide went out and then headed to the viewpoint which was really beautiful. The sand/sea made swirly patterns and the sea looked so blue it was pretty amazing! see pics for that.

We headed back to the boat for lunch before heading to 2 more snorkelling spots. They were again both really good. We got out of the water and someone had swam with a turtle which we missed. We did see turtles and dolphins from the boat however but not quite the same!! Emma did see a stingray ray which she swam with for a bit.

After all the food the people we met taught us a card game called 'bottom' (clean name!). It was good to learn a new card game as snap and umbrella (pairs) was getting boring! We slept on deck that evening as it was cooler. It rained a couple of times but as we were under cover we stayed dry, the other people at the front of the boat got wet!! Ha ha, serves them right for reserving their spots early, typical Germans!!

We had a quick snorkel before breakfast which wasn't great as it was pretty murkey from the rain which felt pretty sketchy in the deep areas, especially with the amount of jellyfish we were swimming amongst! Thank goodness for stinger suits! We headed back and said our goodbyes. We'd met some great people on the boat!

We picked up out bags and the sun enjoyed cooking us as we walked to our next hostel. The hostel we were staying at before was booked up so we were staying at backpackers by the bay. It turned out to be a nicer hostel with 4 doom rooms and lax 'no BYO' policy like the other hostel which wasn't at all backpacker friendly!! They said you couldn't drink your own alcohol because they have a bar, which was well expensive. No such problem at this one though.  

Headed back into town where a bar had laid on free drinks and nibbles for the people who had just got back from boat trips. There wasn't many of us so it lasted 2 hours! We sat by the laggoon with the people we met to try and cool down as it was the hottest day yet!

We chilled out on new years eve, eve and chatted to Marc as Emily (who we'd met at mission beach) who were staying at the hostel too and before we knew it it was 1am and time to go bed!

After the realisation we weren't going to be able to spend new years in Sydney we thought our night was going to be a bit of a flop! But as it turns out we had a great night with Marc and Emily just by going to Airlie Beach Hotel! We watched the fireworks on the beach, which is a pretty cool way to bring in the new year! Shockingly no chip shops were open for our night time snack, so Maccas it was!

Overnight bus to hervey bay next!!