Whitsunday isands
18.12.2008 - 26.12.2008
34 °C
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Rob and Jo's Adventures
on rob_harvs's travel map.
So after a day at Mossman gorge and another day of R+R in port douglas we headed back down to cairns for a few hours while jo got he hair cut nice and cheap at the hairdressing academy! She was lucky though and it turned out well unlike the girl next to her who was screaming at the woman for ruining her hair haha. I parked up at the stinger free lagoon they have built in the middle of the city and had a swim for a couple of hours. We left cairns late afternoon and made it to a little village called Babinda just before dusk and the suicidal kangaroos that like to ruin your car in the process! Babinda…interesting little place, it consisted of a derelict factory a hotel/pub and a Spa mini mart that closed at 5pm…we arrived at 5.15. we managed a rubbish meal in the rubbish free campsite
and went to bed so we could escape early doors!
A five hour drive and we arrived in the capital of north queensland, Townsville. If we thought that heading further south would mean it was cooler we were wrong! It was BOILING! We spent 2 nights and 1 day there and during the heat of the day we went to the reef HQ aquarium 
and imax cinema which was a good laugh!
The day after and another 4 hour drive brought us to Airlie beach, the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. We got straight on and booked a 2 day 2 night adventure sailing trip to the islands from the 22 to 24th. The boat was called the British Defender, a 84ft racing yacht with a 115ft mast.
The British Army raced it round the world in 1990 and now the old bird is retired up here. 28 of us were packed in but it wasn’t that bad in terms of space!
The 1st day the wind was the strongest its been for months and we were almost perpendicular to the water!
Jo looked very unsure what I had got her into but the wind died down and it was nice and relaxed and much easier for us grinding up the main sail!!
After a bbq and a night on the boat we woke early for a sail and breakfast in tonge bay while green sea turtles surfaced all around the boat.
We then jetted over to the shore and walked up to the Whitehaven beach lookout!
The beach is recognized as 1 of the top 10 beaches in the world with it being 99% silica sand!
We got a few hours on the beach before getting back on the boat for lunch.
(the food was excellent by the way haha). After eating and more sailing we arrived at one of the reefs for snorkeling for as long as you wanted really.
We then went for more sailing and afternoon nibbles on 3foot spit (3 foot out of the water at high tide) and watched the sunset with a few beers/wines.
We did more snorkeling in the morning and then sailed back to port for lunchtime!
Christmas Day was good! Up far too early to open a few little prezzies and in the afternoon we had the typical aussie barbecue with some irish people and a couple of aussie boys we met on the camp site!
A good day was had by all but of course we missed you all at home!
Thank you for all your presents and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!!
Love Rob and Jo xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Posted by rob_harvs 18:36 Archived in Australia Tagged boating Comments (0)
It was a pretty amazing place…think of medowhall x 2 in size and x 100 in class! I think aside from all the designer shops overall the food court was the best bit!! Actually 1 of the cheapest places to eat in KL! We also booked tickets for the cinema a went to see the new 1 with Russell Crowe and Di caprio, can’t remember the name, in English! 
There is also a really nice park outside of the mall with some pretty good views of the towers! We went back at our time and had a short film about the buildings and then a ride up to the sky bridge between the two towers in a lift that goes 42 floors in 40 seconds…ear popping stuff. The view of KL was brilliant.
We decided only 1 night was needed there because it is SO expensive. Theres not a whole lot to do there either. We even had to book dorm rooms to save on the cost so Jo was in the female and me in the male dorm.
The evening we got there we headed straight out the highly rated night safari which is a zoo full of nocturnal animals (no cages) just natural barriers like water etc. We went round on a safari tram seeing everything from hyenas and rhinos to lots of different deer. We got home around midnight to go to our separate dorms where I nearly got in to bed with an indian man who while I was out had decided my bed was better than his and moved all my stuff to a different bed. Needless to say I didn’t apologise for my hand squashing his face in the dark! 
And that night we boarded our 8hour EASY JET flight to Cairns! Infact I’d say it was worse than easy jet, Jet star is the airline.
and organised our trip out to the reef! We went out on quite a big boat but with only 40 people on, some of which were diving. It took an hour to get us to the Agincourt outer reef site where we snorkelled 3 different reefs. It was AMAZING!! We both rated it as the best thing we have done so far!! 
And further still to cape tribulation where rainforest meets the reef!
thats rubbish for you guys! on the other hand here it is SUNNY!!! haha :D
Our friends Jackie and Awie are here too (they tipped us off on the weather) and we met up with them for a beach party on the first night haha
. Awie has alot of friends from his island on the east coast who are here to avoid the monsoons and work, so we are all good friends with the local guys who are running a bar on the beach....
No alcohol tho its muslim in malaysia and muslim malays who go anywhere near alcohol can face prison...on the spot urine checks by the religious police are common! We can buy it ourselves though and Langkawi is a duty free island!! 1 litre of smirnoff is about 5 pounds!!
it was a good team effort tho with Jo and Jackie doing the colours and small writing! and they are going to use it as the header for the new menus.
