SAILING AROUND THE WHITSUNDAY ISLANDS AND THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
The Great Barrier Reef, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, is likely to be the first thing you think of when Australia comes to mind (if it's not spiders or kangaroos), so it has long been due for us to have a look at it ourselves! Considering the unpredictable summer weather conditions in North Australia with cyclones, we decided to go visit the Whitsundays Islands from where you can reach the Southern part of the Reef. We spent three days sailing around the Whitsundays and flew above the Reef - sadly the bad weather didn't allow us to also sail out to the Reef or snorkel and dive there, as the captain decided we're too inexperienced in sailing to try to beat the 4-5m waves in the ocean between the islands and the Reef - in retrospect we can't argue with this decision as we could hardly manage the 1-2m waves too!
THE WHITSUNDAYS
The name of the Whitsundays came from Captain Cook who discovered the Whitsunday Passage on the Sunday of the Whitsun-Pentecost (7 weeks after Easter). Actually this happened on Whit Monday, but at that time the International Date Line had not yet been established, and the term remained in use since then.
There are a total of 74 islands and islets among the Whitsundays. The total area of them is about 280 km2 with the population of just ~1500, with most of them uninhabited, so this is the place where you can have your own island if you want to! It's a favourite tourist destination and one of the most popular yachting spots in the Southern Hemisphere due to the pristine beaches, white sand and turquoise water.
On the mainland Airlie Beach is the starting point for most cruises around the islands. This is also where you'll find the most vibrant night life and a wide range of restaurants and accommodation, including backpacker hostels. We stayed a night before sailing at Magnum's, the most popular hostel, which was a positive and a surprisingly quiet experience in the heart of the happenings.
After the devastating March 2017 cyclone that hit the town, life is mostly back to normal by now. Everything is concentrated around the main street by the promenade with a few bars that have live music each night, shops, cafes and restaurants. On the promenade there's also a public lagoon for swimming, which we found a fantastic phenomenon in Queensland and a great place to rest between trips to the islands. It's especially useful in the heat, as in summer you can't swim in the ocean without a protective full-body swimming suit to protect you from the multiple types of deadly jellyfish! What a shame...
From Airlie Beach you can easily organise a day-trip to the best-known spots on the islands, but if you want to go for a multi-day trip, some research and advance booking is highly recommended. The eco sailing boat we took, the Kiama, was pre-booked for weeks in advance.
The best known spot of the Whitsundays is Whitehaven Beach on the Whitsunday Island itself, which is the largest of the group. The beach is a 7km long stretch with crystal white silica sands - it's the only beach within all the Whitsunday Islands that has sand of 99 percent pure quartz. It's a wild beach on an unpopulated island, which helped it to be named the top Eco Friendly Beach in the world in 2010, while it's also competing for the title of the Whitest Australian Beach each year and has been consecutively one of the top 10 beaches of the world. With its fame comes popularity too, so you have to be lucky to arrive at a different time than when many other boats empty day-trippers here for a few hours.
On the Whitsunday Island all tours will take you up to Hill Inlet or Tongue Point Lookout above the beach, where you can see the amazing view from above as the tidal currents in the shallow water move the powder sand, creating ever-shifting ridges with a fusion of colours. This is amazing from the air too, but the view from the lookout is also stunning.
You can walk down to the beach itself for a swim in the year-around 26 degrees water (in a stingsuit in summer) or just to sunbathe on the white sand. The shallow shoreline is a popular nursing place for baby lemon sharks and stingrays, which are sometimes easy to see even from the beach. They`re not dangerous at all! There's also a stunning tree trunk on the beach which looks fantastic with the turquoise water behind!
Snorkeling and diving are popular activities on any boat trips, and the best spots are said to be around Hook island and Hayman Island. The former is also where multi-day boats anchor for the night in protected bays. We found snorkeling a little disappointing though with limited fish species and many grey corals, but the reefs around the islands are part of the inner reef and not the outer, the proper Great Barrier Reef itself - as we learnt afterwards.
A popular stop on cruises, Langford Island, is a tiny island with a lookout over Hayman, Black and Hook islands, and is known for its long narrow stripe of sand, which is mostly under water in high tide. The island is easily recognizable from the air with its narrow sandy beach. Although it doesn't take much time to discover the whole island, by this point we were really eager to stretch our legs and step on soil after being on the moving boat for 2 days!
Closest to the shore and Airlie Beach, Long Island is one of the islands where you can go out for a day to chill out in the Palm Bay Resort as a day trip. Although websites suggest otherwise, there's just one company organising these trips these days, but as there's only a handful of people on the trip, we found it a nice, almost private experience! The island has some walking tracks too, and it offers nice kayaking along its shore. We have given these a short go, but otherwise made this day especially relaxing and stayed by the pool with cold drinks most of the day. :)
THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
As mentioned earlier, due to adverse weather conditions we could't snorkel on the big reef itself - so this has now become one of our top bucket list items - but luckily we could fly over the Reef in beautiful sunshine, so we could see the islands as well as the Reef from the air! We flew in a small 12-seater plain with GSL Aviation; it is a truly extraordinary experience that should not be missed! Interestingly, from a boat hardly anything could have been seen from this beauty since the reefs are underwater, so it looks like there's just ocean all around the boat until you go into the water! The colours are so otherworldly, it's hard to believe what you see!
The most famous reef is the Heart Reef - a popular destination for private helicopter tours which can land on a pontoon - see on the photo above - so that you can snorkel around the heart. Not bad, although it won't be a long snorkel, as the island itself is only 17m wide, so it's pretty hard to spot it from the air too! The water around the reefs is unrealistically turquoise and clean, we could even spot a manta ray elegantly swimming in the water from the air - truly unbelievable!
Next up, the highlights of a few days on the Magnetic island in Queensland, a chilled tropical island with wild koalas on the trees!