This last week I have been kicking back with the beautiful people on the northern Queensland coast. My good mate Wazza invited me up to join him on his boat and to sail in the fun race on the weekend. As usual, Tigger was keen to join me but had to decline due to a previous engagement (good one Kiero... ) so the cammo ducks Bill and Ted stepped in to save the day.
My journey started around 4am on Wednesday morning trapped in a packed minibus on route to Sydney airport surrounded by whining kids, a couple of drunks snoring off a big night and an abnoxious american who smelled like old KFC... Not a good start but Bill and Ted cheered me up at the airport as they were excited to check out the wings on the big virgin birds...
I met Wazza and Amnon at the sailing club in Airlie and promptly settled down to a few beers as the rain which was about to plague us all week came in... After getting my gear on the boat, we joined the usual suspects at the BBQ for dinner. This is done most nights and is a nice social place to meet other boat people and have a chat. Also the place we found some of our crew for the fun race including the awesome Abi and Andy from Newcastle in UK.
Thursday was just casual wandering round Airlie and stocking up on food and drinks to survive the next few days. Airlie is a very pretty little town but I was surprised as to how little it really is as the area is such a well known place world wide. Its population is only about 6000 however there is almost double that with tourists and backpackers and people on boats... Maybe the crocodiles are keeping people away... Just kidding - this one's a fakey...
A big truck had parked on the lawn in front of the sailing club at Airlie and Waz, Amnon and I were invited in to have a peek at the Cartlon Draught Brewery Academy. The walls on the trailer open out to make a mobile pub and the owner was more than happy to give us a quick tour. Waz was so impressed he needed a drink...
And the ducks were keen to find out about golden showers...
On Friday Waz and I sailed over to Daydream Island (below) and tied on to the public mooring to go and explore the island. We left the crocodile floating out the back and found out later someone had seen it and panicked and the resort staff had to go out and put him back on deck... Ooops... :)
On the island we found a mini golf course. Since Tigger had had so much fun on the last one, I couldn resist taking the boys for a round and checking out the shark pool...
We'd developed quite a thirst wandering round the island and soon found ourselves stealing some resort towels and sitting by the resorts pool with a few beers until Waz discovered conditions were right for a bit of kite surfing...
He's picured here getting some air and showing off to the mermaids...
Saturday was fun race day and we had recruited a great crew. Aside from me, Waz, Ben and Ralph we also had Abi and Andy from Newcastle UK, Alex and Victoria from Liverpool and the good old random Space Cadet. After a slow start and a big lull half way through, it turns out Waz got third in his division and scored a bottle of Bundy rum (full strength...) at the party. The Liverpool girls also scored second place in the Miss Figurehead comp and didnt even have to take their tops off. Grand effort to all!!!
On Sunday Abi and Andy joined us for a sail out to Border Island and anchored in the bay there overnight. Abs entertained us that night with her fantastic cooking, guitar playing and gorgeous voice and Monday morning we scouted the island Wazza thought could be good for flying. Waz and Andy went off to do some exploring so Abs and I did a little bush bashing of our own... We started off on a promising path down the hill but soon had to back track but the track we'd just been on had dissappeared... Half an hour later and covered with scratches we emerged back up the top, found the boys and went back down for a swim and a snorkel. I wish I had of had an underwater camera!! The snorkling here was just awesome with sooo many different colours and types of fish and when you dived down to about 10-15 feet you could hear the whales talking to each other. Sooo cool!!
On the sail back to Airlie we got the boxing kangaroo spinnaker up, saw a mother whale and her calf breeching about 75metres away from us and Andy caught a shark!! You couldnt have asked for a better day!!
Tuesday was supposed to be my Adrenalin rush, acrobatic tiger moth flight but there was a storm blowing in and sadly I missed out. We'd been watching his guy do loops and spirals over Airlie all week and I was sooo keen to get up there but since I was leaving Tuesday night, I couldn't even re-book... It will just have to go on my wish list for now...
So that was about it for my Whitsundays adventure. There's always plenty more stories and Bill and Ted are amped about going on another soon. Maybe New Zealand? Canungra?... I had an absolute ball in Airlie and big thanks go to Wazza for making it all pssible. You're a legend buddy!!!
I got back into Newcastle at 2am this morning. We were lucky to get in to Sydney as thanks to the APEC meeting and Mr Bush making an apearance, the airport was closing at 11.30pm and we had to land before 11.
