Unfortunately the next day was overcast and the dark clouds looked as if they were about to let the rain fall, but luckily they didn’t. I had packed my new hat in hopes of a sunny day and before I even got on the boat the string on it broke, and they wouldn’t even give me a new one later because I had thrown away my receipt.

We spent some time at Whitehaven Beach where there was the whitest and softest sand I’ve ever touched. Apparently it is good to polish jewelery on which I can attest to since I polished my old tarnished earrings in similar sand on Fraser Island, and they really did shine. The tides were really remarkable and the changes were dramatic. We were on the beach until the tides started to change and the water receded from the banks creating a stream. We had to leave or the boat would get stuck in the sand. But before we did I took a walk in the “creek” and on my way saw a stingray.

Our boat on Whitehaven Beach

Me on Whitehaven Beach as the tide goes out

Next we were going to go snorkelling amongst the coral and on our way there we saw a whale. We didn’t get very close but we could clearly see it breaching. I’ve never seen a whale in the wild before so I thought it was pretty spectacular. Then at the end it dived into the water and its fanned tail stuck out of the water and slowly sank like I’ve always seen in movies. The sun had even come out when we arrived at our snorkelling site which was nice, but the water was still cold. There were some beautiful fish and I spotted another stingray. There was a lot of Staghorn coral which is coral that looks like daggers and sometimes I’d follow a fish into the shallow end and realize that only a few inches bellow me were only spikes which was a bit frightening since the coral is sharp. Nevertheless, I avoided being stabbed.

When we arrived at the dock we noticed that instead of one flight of stairs (which we had climbed down) to get up to land we had two. The tide had uncovered a whole flight of stairs, with shells growing all over them. I thought that was pretty remarkable.

That morning we decided to go on a short hike to one of the beaches on the other side of the famous Mother Beddrock. Since we were going to the beach we opted not to take our camera, which was the wrong decision, because there was noone at the beach to take it and there were some nice sights to take pictures of. We ended up in Murray Bay which was a small secluded beach at the edge of a private property. We went for a snorkel since we had our gear with us now that we owned the gear. It was a refreshing activity after the hike and in the morning with a few interesting fish, but nothing like on the reef, but we had expected that. Bowen has many little secluded beaches and it was a nice visit.

Then we were headed down to the major tourist destination, Airlie Beach, the depot for the Whit Sunday Islands. On the way we flew by the big mango, and didn’t stop, which I wasn’t particularly happy about, even though it didn’t look very impressive from the glimpse I got.  It was just a discoloured misshaped spherical thing. Australia is full of “big things” which by definition the thing has to be bigger than the real thing which people built to attract tourists to make money since in most places there is nothing there. Some of these are so unimpressive you don’t even realize it is a big thing like the big Captain Cook in Cairns.

We found a nice campsite which ended up being the best one we stayed at the whole trip. There was a bouncy pillow which is great fun, mini golf, a pool and even outdoor movies at night. Of course they play only kiddie movies but seeing Bee Movie was okay. I could have stayed there all day but we went to town where we had a barbecue by the beach.

Australia is renown for its barbecues but they don’t barbecue with coals like the Americans do.  Instead barbecues are basically smooth steel grill plates that fry the food more than barbecue it but they are free and clean in many public places so we took advantage of them.
The town of Airlie Beach itself is not impressive, just a bunch of tourist stores where I bought myself a hat, to keep the sun off my face and neck and tourist tour centres where they sell you tours. We went into one of the tour centres and looked through the brochures on all the different trips we could do around the Whit Sunday Islands. We spent a great deal deliberating and comparing prices of tours. We wanted something that would only take one day and be good value for money and settled on the Fury which is the high speed rafting boat which would take us snorkelling and to the famous Whitehaven Beach. We booked the tour for the next day.

There are also lots of insects all over Australia, more so than in other places I feel and this ant is just one of the many we saw.