Whitsundays to Magnetic Island

Whitsundays Cruise

We went on a sailing cruise on a catamaran called 'Camira' to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. The weather was miserable for most of the day so we spent much of the time sheltering under the trees next to the beach. Then we sailed to a snorkeling spot. Even though there was a fair few of us in the water, the fish didn't seem to mind. The trip included food (fab BBQ lunch) and booze from 11am. So you're thinking we got p*ssed, right? Wrong! The snorkeling took up a lot of that time so we only had a few drinks plus Jamie was sea sick on the journey there so he didn't feel like drinking too much. It managed to stop raining on the way back to Airlie Beach so we chilled out on deck.


Camira just off Whitehaven Beach.


Me and J on the beach in between the rain. Look at the sky behind us.


It was a bit windy.

We got talking to 2 couples on the boat and also met up with them for drinks later on. It was a good night. We played some boys v girls pool. We went for pizza after and in true Jamie style, J also managed to fit a pie in (Jamie comment:- The pizza was tiny and we shared it, so i was still hungry!)


This is Pierre the possum who visited the camp kitchen every night while we were at Airlie Beach. You could feed him food, he especially liked pasta. On one occasion Jamie pretended he had some food but pierre didn't know this so he munched Jamies thumb. J gave the possum a smack to stop it and he ran off p*ssing everywhere because he was scared. Pierre is a special possum cos he's the only ginger one we've seen and he taught J a lesson.

Townsville

Once we left Airlie Beach. We went up to Townsville where we spent a couple of days before we went to Magnetic Island. While in Townsville we went to the Museum of Tropical Queensland. The most interesting part was the HMS Pandora exhibtion. The ship sank on the Great Barrier Reef in 1791 and the museum has salvaged artifact from it. It was the boat that went in search for the HMS Bounty after they heard of the mutiny. Thats the history lesson over with! They also had a talk on one of the cannons that was on the Pandora, which was entertaining.

Townsville from the lookout in town.

Magnetic Island in the distance.

Magnetic Island

Townsville was the stepping stone to Magnetic Island. We spent a few days here. The day we arrived we had a look around the small village we were staying at called Horseshoe Bay.

Me walking down Horseshoe Bay beach.

Having a beer at the pub with my new hairdo.

The view from the pub.

The first morning, we had brunch inside a wildlife sanctuary, then a tour around with the chance to hold a few different animals.

Jamie the snake-charmer, the snake practically fell asleep on him! Its a carpet python by the way.

Me keeping a close eye on the snake. It was actually really nice to hold, an unexpected neck massage!

Me & J with the very cute Dexter. (Quick fact: 'koala' means 'no drink' as people used to believe that they didn't drink anything. But that's not true because they take moisture from the eucalyptus leaves).

A blue tongued lizard with another strange tonguey creature.

And there's the lizard's blue tongue.

Jamie's got a new bird! (a black cockatoo)

Jamie with a small croc.

Afterwards we went for a walk around The Forts, which was a WW2 gun post and barracks. It was also a good place to spot koalas in the wild.


At the top of The Forts hill.

A nice view of the island from The Forts.

A mother koala and her joey in the wild.

Another wild koala.

On this day we bumped into a friend of Jamie's, Brinky. Jamie knew he would be in Australia, but it was a huge coincidence that he was here at the same time as us. We had a few beers with him and his girlfriend Jo.

The next day we walked to Balding Bay, the unoffical nudist beach of Maggie. Most people were wearing their swimmers, but we had the pleasure of seeing a chubby old guy parading his 'goods' up and down the beach. In the afternoon, the campsite feed the lorikeets so Jamie decided to go and have a go

The birdman of Maggie Island! And yes he did get some sh*t on him!