The Whitsunday Islands Part I (18th - 25th July)

Balancing Rock
South Molle Island

Monday morning and we leave the chaos of Airlie Beach and head to the quieter waters off South Molle Island.  We were hoping to drop into Day Dream Island for lunch on the way but as it is also awash with people and water craft we decide to go direct to Bauer Bay on South Molle.  As it is a lovely day we decide to tackle one of the walks at South Molle which covers the north east part of the island and takes us to Balancing Rock, Lamond Hill and back to Bauer Bay via Paddle Beach.  We have a quiet night in at South Molle and prepare ourselves to take on the summit of Spion Kop on Tuesday. 



Again the weather is sunny and warm so we head off on the walk to Spion Kop which is not all that long but does take us past some great look outs and the view from the top is excellent.  After a spot of morning tea at the Spion Kop look out we wander back to the boat only to find some very friendly bat fish on the way back to the boat.  Luckily we have packed some bread so couldn't help but to give them a few morsels.

Bat Fish Feeding
South Molle Island

View of Bauer Bay from Spion Kop

Wake Boarding at Whitehaven

As the forecast for the next few days is looking really good we decide to move to Whitehaven Beach on Wednesday.  The wind is back a bit today so we have a good sail around and as usual when we arrive the place is just going off with charter boats, ocean rafting craft, float planes and plenty of bare boaters to boot.  Luckily most of them leave in the afternoon and leave the rest of us in a bit of peace and quiet for the night, apart from some yachties that have taken up wake boarding at dusk!!

Whitehaven Beach - A Day in the Life!

We take the walk around the Solway Circuit and over to Chance Bay on Thursday morning before the chaos starts yet again!  Whitehaven is kind of one of those places where you can spend hours just kind of watching the coming's and going's and never get tired of it!

Friday morning and it is time to move on again (mind you the average sail these days is between 5-10NM so hardly taxing) with the plan to head to Tongue Bay which is at the north end of Whitsunday Island.  As we had been warned this seems to be the latest place for everyone to hang out and is looking really busy so we elect to move to Apostle Bay which is just next door and have the place to ourselves - apart from a couple of green turtles and also a couple of Dugong's which seem to call this place home.  We are pretty excited as it is really rare to see Dugong's.  Most of the afternoon is spent on the back of the boat looking out for more turtles and dugongs.

As we have down plenty of walks we figure it is now time to get in some hot snorkeling action so on Saturday morning we head off to the north end of Hook Island .  Our first stop is into Manta Bay (luckily we are the only ones here - yet!).  We pull up a mooring and before you know it we are feeding fish off the back of the boat.  This place is pretty awesome for snorkeling so we are both in the water pretty quickly to check out the coral and endless supply of fishies.   Just as we get out the water the charter boats start to arrive so we consider our timing to be "spot on".
In the afternoon we move down a couple of bays and pick up a mooring for the night and again go for another snorkel to check out the scenery in this bay. 

Sunday morning and we are hoping to get back into Manta Bay but unfortunately miss the chance as all the moorings are taken so we move along to the next bay which just happens to be empty and also has some lovely snorkeling so we can't complain!

Seems like we still cant get enough of this snorkeling stuff so we head over to Blue Pearl Bay which is on the western side of Haymen Island.  Luckily there is a mooring left and we quickly grab it as they are very sought after in this part of the world.  With a name like Blue Pearl you can only imagine how pretty this place is and again how good the snorkeling is.  Wish we had an underwater camera but we don't so you will just have to imagine how good it is.

At this stage we are planning to head back into Airlie on Thursday so will hopefully get to write another update then on the rest of our time in the Whitsunday Islands.

BTW I had a triple thriller weekend regarding sporting activities.
Carlton quite easily accounted for Essendon (and Eddie got 8 goals - *YAY*)
Stoner won the Moto GP at Laguna Seca
Cadel Evans - the first Aussie to win the Tour de France



AWESOME!!!