From: "Pete" <[email protected]>
To: thegang
Subject: Island hopping in the sun...
Date: 17 July 2001 08:52
So, greetings once more from down under (or, if you belong to one of the increasing number of addressees located in the southern hemisphere, just greetings)!
Well, it's been something of a disappointing week at least in the respect that we haven't seen The Big Anything (unless you count The Great Barrier Reef, which is also The Worlds Biggest Living Thing, according to the snorkel instructor on a boat trip we took).
So anyway, I believe when I last wrote to you all I had just reached Rockhampton ('Australia's Beef Capital' it said on the sign, a fact that we honoured with lamb chops). From there we caught the boat over to Great Keppel Island, a smallish tropical paradise, mjust inside the Southern Boundary of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Well the island itself was beautiful with deserted beaches (if you walked a bit), some nice inland walking tracks, and for when doing nothing got too much, a resort with a couple of pubs to relax in. Well, after a first day of doing nothing, but have a look at a couple of beaches and well, sit on them. I took up the hostel's offer of free snorkel hire, to kill the second day.
So after a fifteen minute walk to reach the beach, which was recomended by the guy at the hire place, I don mask and flippers and set out swimming for the patch of coral just off the shore and clearly visible from the beach. Ten feet out, and only in waist deep water, I leap to my feet coughing salt water and blinded by the fact that my mask has just filled up. Hmmm....maybe there's more to this than meets the eye.
After adjusting my mask etc. and taking a couple more short 'practice' swims, I finally reach the coral just off shore. Well, it's probably just that it was my first experience of the Reef, but I was well impressed. I saw a couple of dozen schools of fish (mostly the regular silvery kind but a couple with blue or yellow stripes), all sorts of wierd and impressivly coloured reef fish swimming around in ones and twos, and best of all an old barnacle ridden turtle cruising along the bottom gently. The remainder of the afternoon was then spent watching the band in the pub (just because we are now technically in the tropics doesn't mean that the water was warm!).
The next morning we caught the first ferry back and hopped in the car for our drive up to Airlie Beach. Airlie is one of those places that only exists because of us backpackers propping it up and as such, was disapointingly full of English people. We did meet up with a couple of folks from earlier along the track though. Another day of 'recovery' on the beach (not that Airlie actually has much of one, in spite of the name) then next day we were off for our Whitsunday Island Day trip.
First stop was Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. It is the sort of beach which you only think exists in fiction. Crystal clear waters, which were warm and calm, the finest and whitest silica sand I have ever seen, but at the end of the day it's just another bloody beach and I'm starting to find it hard to get excited about them.
Second stop on our tour was Hook Island for snorkelling, fish feeding and the underwater observatory. Well, the coral and the fish were far more impressive than at Great Keppel, with more varieties and greater numbers of the groovy coloured ones. Unfortunatly (and I think this may at least in part be due to the entire cruise entering the water within a ten minute period) the water was really cloudy and that kind of spoiled the experience. The Water was warmer than on Great Keppel though. The underwater observatory was also unfortunatly a little disapointing. As someone who quite happily spent more than an hour in the 'reef room' at Sydney Aquarium, gazing through huge windows at artificially constructed reef, it was a bit of a let down to view the real thing through small, badly scratched panes.
And the water was still cloudy. The fish feeding at the surface was better, and we actually got very good views of the fish we didn't see from the observatory, just by looking over the edge of the jetty.
The final stop on our tour was South Molle Island, which was basically a resort with a coral beach. We had a beer. Although this may sound like I didn't enjoy the Whitsundays, this would be misleading. I thought it was the most fantastic place. I spent all of the time that our boat was sailing from island to island on deck, usually hanging over the bows, soaking in the tropical paradise and the fantastic views.
So after leaving Airlie we forged on to Townsville, our launching pad for a couple of days on Magnetic Island. So we arrived relativly late in the afternoon and left relativly early the next morning (10.30, but that's early by backpacker standards!). I did, however buy myself a new camera, since the well loved SLR purchased at Cheverell Fete finally gave up the ghost on Fraser Island. Thanks once again for that generousity Mum!
Anyway, Magnetic Island is another tropical paradise in the sun. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find new ways to describe these places, although they are all undoubtedly unique. We spent a couple of days there just, well, chilling. I dived into Homer's Odyssey which I bought back in Brisbane and have only just got around to. I have been reading a rather bizarre travel book about a couple of blokes tour Australia in an old Ford though (strange parallels, eh?). What am I rambling about, none of you care...
After Magnetic Island it was on to Cairns, a comparitivly long drive, especially with no Big Stuff to look at. Cairns is probably the most tourist oriented place that we have visited so far. There are many many hostels and far more Poms than is healthy outside of Britain. The whole place is brand new, with development still going on in the newly pedestrianised centre. It is amazing what a strong pound (and dollar and yen - I'm not arrogant) can do to a town.
Yesterday we took a drive up the coast to the Mossman Gorge, which was very nice, Port Douglas which was touristy, the Hartley Creek Crocodile Farm, which was incredibly neat, with snakes and emus and stuff as well. The Croc show was especially good considering that it essentially consisted of an hour staring at a muddy pool with a bloke standing in it talking. Still the brief occasions that the Croc could be coaxed to life (it is winter and they are cold blooded) were well worth the wait, as we watched it attack a bit of leather on a rope repeatedly. Plenty of big ugly crocodiles there though. Came back via Cairns beaches. None of them really measured up to Whitehaven of course.
Today we caught the Kuranda scenic railway, which funnily enough went to Kaloundra. The views from the train were quite spectacular, and the town itself was very pretty (by Australian standards) although it was also extremely touristy. I think I liked the inside of the pub best. Being 500m above sea level they did have a Big Boat though (first since the Big Pelican - I could sing).
Oh well I guess I better go, I hear that there's a Big Captain Cook just down the road.
No Worries!
Pete