Another popular stop on the east coast for backpackers is Airlie Beach, known as the gateway to the Whitsundays. Traditionally people go on a three day, two night sail around the islands, with prices ranging from the ultra budget to the top end. Unfortunately for us the boats at the budget end are "party boats" catering for very young travelers who want to get incredibly drunk for three days. Rather than pay great amounts of money we opted for a cheap boat transfer to one of the Whitsunday Islands where we would bush camp for two nights.
Airlie Beach feels like a tourist trap - plenty of hotels, motels and hostels line the esplanade, and in between you're spoilt for choice by souvenir shops and cafes and not much else. The hostels do battle for backpacker bucks with front of house bars, loud music and plenty of drinks promotions like free beer and pizza at 7pm :) Sadly the hostel we stayed in - Magnums - left a lot to be desired. We paid $24 each for a "deluxe 8 bed dorm" that smelt of damp and in which the air-con didn't work. Magnums do cater for campers though, so when we came back from our island adventure we opted for the campsite, which at $22 for both of us made a lot more sense, especially since the facilities for campers were much nicer than the en-suite bathroom of the "deluxe" dorms! If you're in Airlie and are considering Magnums, save money and pitch a tent. If you don't have a tent, then save your money and go for the larger, cheaper dorm - the deluxe dorms are not worth the extra expense!
The one winning feature of Airlie Beach, besides its proximity to the Whitsundays, is the beautiful artificial lagoon that graces the waterfront. Stingers like the box jellyfish and irukandji make swimming in the sea off Airlie Beach dangerous, so its nice to have a place to swim in sea-water while safe from these tentacled nasties. Enough about Airlie Beach though, the true star of this blog are the Whitsunday Islands!
Whitsunday Islands ParadiseI'm sure you've all heard of "the best job in the world", but in the off chance that you were living under a rock last year, here's a short recap - Tourism Queensland needed a "caretaker" for a tropical island - duties included swimming, feeding the fish, delivering mail to the resort, and writing a blog about the experience. The salary - A$75,000. The perks - living on said island, in a five bedroom villa, with all expenses cared for! The Whitsunay Islands are where the lucky bloke who won the selection process was posted.
The Whitsundays are a group of some 75 tropical islands, all of them protected as part of the Whitsundays Marine Park and the Great Barrier Reef protection area. The islands are very hilly - they are the tops of continental mountains that were flooded in the last ice-age. Some are deserted rocks just a few kilometers long, while others are enormous and have the full works, resort, town mall, resident population, even an airport. One thing the islands all have in common is their beauty!
Our chosen destination was Paddle Bay, on South Molle Island. South Molle is home to the Koala Adventure resort, so we at first thought our camp site might not be as secluded as we had hoped, but it turned out that the resort was partially closed - when we walked through there was no-one around except a cleaning lady. In fact South Molle was pretty isolated while we were there; I don't think we met more than 10 people, and none of them were staying at the campsite, they all came in on private boats to explore the island.The camp site itself was in a very nice location at the northern tip of South Molle with coral beaches on both sides and a tidal causeway to Mid Molle Island. The campsite has plenty of trees and lots of long grass to set your tent up on, making for one of the softest beds we've had in our adventures in Australia. There were plenty of coconut trees around so Justyna and I got to try our hand at skinning and opening a fresh coconut. I can attest that it this really hard work, hats off to whoever invented the machine that takes the thick fibrous skin off coconuts so that we consumers get a small, hard nut in the shop that only needs a nick with a knife to release its treasures.
The Whitsunday Islands are famous for their snorkeling, in fact the group of islands is part of the Great Barrier Reef protection area, even though the reefs themselves don't form part of the same ecosystem. Unfortunately for us, the weather hasn't been kind to the Whitsundays of late - Cyclone Ului blew through about three weeks before we arrived, and it was followed by lots and lots of unseasonal rain. These factors combined to make the sea around the islands very murky - we could see no further than a meter when we tried to snorkel, so after cooling off in the water we decided to head back to dry land to explore the island.
Our meandering took us across to the southern end of the island to Sandy bay, though this is quite a misnomer as the beach is almost entirely made up of dead coral, just like Paddle Bay! On the way we didn't see any of the island's goannas, though we did catch sight of a retreating brown snake; and of course there were plenty of spider-webs along the side of the footpath. Creatures of the feathered variety were more visible on the island. Our campsite at Paddle Bay was home to a couple of spotted curlews - the pamphlets about Molle Island say that these birds can usually be heard but are rarely seen because of their great camouflage. Many a time we would be walking towards the picnic table or the toilets and we would hear a sound like a kettle whistle - closer inspection of the immediate surroundings revealed the curlews hiding in plain sight. The birds stand stock still when you approach, and they blend in very well to the undergrowth that they live in.
I cannot say whether our experience of the Whitsunday Islands was any better than that of people who opted for a sailing trip - they certainly got to see more of the islands than we did. I can confirm though that if you opt to camp in the Whitsundays you won't have many people to compare notes with, this is an unexploited option that not many people know about. Waking up on a tropical island that is practically yours is a great experience and provides a nice break from the masses that throng the east coast.
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