Travelling through inland Australia: Days 36 and 37, Whitsundays and Mackay

Sorry about the absence of a post yesterday, but we were just too tired.

Yesterday was a long marine experience day spent among the islands of the Whitsunday Passage.

We joined our cruise at 8.00 am having got up at 6.00 am. Here is a picture of one of the three vessels that we sailed on.

Before, I start, I have to tell you a bit about this boat, which was moored at Abel Point Marina, Airley's Beach.

It is the D'Lisle III. It is for charter. It can accommodate just 11 passengers and comes with 6 crew members, including a chef. A week's charter will set you back Euro 100,000, while a single night costs Euro 17,000. Our tour guide was telling us that she once saw their fuel bill. She was not even sure that it was for a complete fill up or just a top up. It came to $30,000! Powerball is worth $40 million tonight. I wonder if it will be enough! Now, back to the real world, or as real as it gets up here.

We were a bit disconcerted when the cruise staff at check-in told us to expect rough seas especially in the afternoon. Being the intrepid sailors that we are, we decided ot p At one stage we had to sail across the Whitsunday Passage into the teeth of a 20 knot wind. It was bumpy but not rough enough to worry us unduly although Bev felt a bit queezy at one stage. We did experience some quite rough conditions on our return from Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island but they didn't last for long. Our skipper sailed us the long way around the island to avoid the worst of the rough seas, which was nice of him. I am discovering that I don't mind a bit of rough weather, I find it quite exhilarating.

The first port of call on our cruise was Daydream Island. We were impressed with Daydream. The Daydream Island Resort occupies the whole island. One end is given over to resort accommodation, swimming pools and at least one restaurant. The southern end, accessed by a pleasant walk overlooking the Whitsunday Passage, contains children's playgrounds, a small collection of shops including a very nice bakery and an outdoor cinema. The thing I liked about the resort was its understated nature. All the buildings including the accommodation blocks are no more than three storeys high. The resort swimming pools are extensive but not glitzy, no swim-up bars or that sort of thing, none that we saw anyway.. The shopping area also quite restrained. It struck me that the island is a good place for family holidays and for a rest.

Then it was off to Hamilton Island. If Daydream was all about being laid back and taking it easy then Hamilton Island was .... well, just let's say that "Hammo" is where the "Other Half" live and party and the other half include people such as Julia Roberts, Nigel Mansell and a couple of the beatles. There is some serious money in this place and the locals don't mind showing it off. The island contains several 4 and 5 star hotels and resorts. These include Qualia Resort, currently the best resort in the world according to the some of the travel magazines. There are also some serious boats in the marina. Here's one I found.

If this is not a once in a lifetime pic, I don't know what is.

I was not able to find out if Hamilton Island is Wild Oats' home port or whether it was here for Race Week. It is heeled over because the low tide had left it sitting on its keel on the bottom. The local yatchies were not impressed by this.

After lunch on the island and a quick trip around on the local bus, it was back on board for our trip to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. This is not just another beach. For a start, it is 9 kms long. It is 98% pure silica which means that it can, and has been, used to make the finest optical glass. Because of its high silica content, it never gets hot, although we did not put that to the test yesterday, it was very cloudy and cool.

There is just one difficult thing about this beach; it does not have a jetty. This meant that we had to be offloaded from our boat by tender, like this, and then deposited onto the beach

We were told that we would only have to take a couple steps through ankle-deep water to get onto the beach. Well, that was wrong. When we got there we found that we had no choice but to step off into water that was well over the bottoms of my shorts and certainly at hip height for Bev. Which meant that we had to spend the rest of the trip sitting around in wet clothes. To rub salt into the wound, we noticed that the remaining tenderloads of our fellow cruisers were deposited onto another, shallower, part of the beach. Still, it could have been worse, we found out that the water was not cold!

We didn't stay long which suited us fine and then enjoyed (even the rough bit) a pleasant trip home sailing around the Whitsundays as the sun went down.

We were mightily impressed with this cruise. The vessels we used were spic and span with plenty of very pleasant and professional crew members. Our tour guide was superb. At every stop she gave us a succinct and, at the same time, fully informative talk about each of the islands on which we landed and then gave us useful advice that we could use when doing our own explorations.

I think this day will prove to be the highlight of the whole trip.

Today, we drove down to Mackay, 150 kms away. It was an easy, if somewhat slow drive. I think I am going to have to get used to the slowness of travel on the Bruce Highway, it is only going to get slower the further south we go. The road was in good order with no road works. We travelled through mainly flat sugar cane country with mountains surrounding us in the not too far distance. It got more hilly as we got closer to Mackay but not dramatically so.

We are in a very nice caravan park, called simply, "The Park". It is located on the southern outskirts of Mackay which is a surprising well spread-out town, just off the Bruce Highway. It does not appear to be pet-friendly. It is very tidy with quite large sites, both grassed and slab, and wide, paved roadways. The amenities, while not large, are very good. I think this is a good stop-over park. It is not near any tourist attractions, although there is a large shopping centre near by, so it might not do as a destination park.

So, let's have some more pictures;

Abel Point Marina, Airley Beach

One of the denizens of the "Living Reef" fish pond at
Daydream Island

Daydream's three mermaids

Daydream Island Resort

Whitsunday Passage

The original building code on Hamilton Island said that buildings could not be higher than a coconut palm.
That didn't last long, did it. Only in Queensland