Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays...

Hey hey there,

I write a blog about 4 days ago saying about our trip up from Byron Bay to Airlie Beach, but unfortunately it hasn't come up on the website - looks like something went wrong there down the wires! Very very annoyed as it took me a little while...

Anyway, not going to bore you with every little detail that's happened, but we have just arrived back from the Whitsunday Islands. We arrived in Airlie Beach a couple of days before, and had fun just relaxing and finding Cedar Falls - a beautiful couple of waterfalls in a small pool a bit away from the town (and the bus loads of backpackers that seem to dominate areas like this!) We also enjoyed hanging around the lagoon, which is filled with beautiful water, where you can swim - jellyfish free. Lots of facilities, - bbq, loos, showers, lots of shops nearby... really really nice to escape the heat.

So we got onto Pegasus, our boat, on Sunday and sailed out to the Whitsundays, where we had a great time. Unfortunately the weather wasn't brilliant, so we didn't get to see Whitehaven beach, which was rated as number 2 in the world this year, (our skipper was stupid and didn't bother sailing us there as it was choppy), so we spent the time diving and snorkelling. The company wasn't good about preserving the coral, and it was horrible to see how much devastation there is and how much of it is dead. There were very few fish, much of the coral was dead, and generally very sad. Our dive instructor was exacerbating the problem by picking things up (if you touch coral you kill it). But we had a couple of dives to practise before diving in Yongalla - the ship wreck - tomorrow.

The boat was alright, loos horrible, food great (and lots of it too - and meat!) but the people were fantastic, and a real laugh. We stayed up socialising, and I stayed up a lot both nights getting over 300 bed bug bites. Hayley counted. I itch and scratch like a diseased thing. Horrible! Couldn't believe it - apparently they have super bed bugs here, from Indonesia (they think). I just think that they don't really scour the boats properly! But we had a great time on the boat anyway, and met some awesome people.

So came back last night, collected our van and ran a few errands (like going to the pharmacy for antihistamine tablets too). Met up with the others for a free pizza and a drink last night, so running errands again today before heading off to Ayr this afternoon. Diving the Yongala tomorrow morning, and then not really sure what we are doing! Probably heading up to Port Douglas, just north of Cairns, pretty quickly.

Anyway, hope you are all ok, with lots of love from us all,
Alice xxx