12/11/2015 Airlie Beach

the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands. Hard to believe it's already November. The stores are already decorated for Christmas and yet it doesn't feel like Christmas at all. It all feels so unreal when your family isn't here and it's 38 degrees and sunny.

Today we arrived in Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands. We realized that it only took us 2 months from Perth to get here and we have already covered half of Australia (at least around the outside).

Airlie Beach not only offers the best opportunity to visit the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef, it is also a cute little tourist town that is not yet overcrowded.

Here in the small city center (one street) we strolled around and went for a swim in a lagoon. It's really cool that there are so many lagoons at the beach here because swimming in the ocean is not allowed or recommended. Since we could only find a campground 20 km away (behind a gas station :-D) and didn't want to stay in an overpriced and dirty hostel, we didn't want to waste any time here.

When I say waste time, I mean that we wanted to book a tour to the Whitsundays and had to do some research first to find out if a one-day trip would be enough or if we would rather spend three days on a sailboat there. We also had to check the price-performance ratio.

Well, you probably don't care about that :-D. The Whitsundays (you should definitely google it) are beautiful and unique island groups located in the Great Barrier Reef. It is an absolute must to visit these islands on a trip to Australia.

The offers here vary between a one-day tour, where you zoom over to Whitehaven Beach, the most famous beach in the Whitsundays, with a speedboat and do some snorkeling, or you can book a multi-day tour where you spend the days and nights on a sailboat and cruise around the islands and bays and go snorkeling and just relax.

For us it was clear that we definitely wanted to do a sailboat tour. After all, we have never been on a sailboat before and we have never slept on a boat in the middle of the sea.

We went to the information center and a very nice lady advised us! It was clear here that there are party boats with up to 65 people, but also boats with only 14 people. In the end, all the boats do the same things in the days, but there are also more comfortable or more modern boats and there are many more differences. A flyer for the 'Kiana', an old-looking sailboat caught our eye. We thought, 'That's what we want'. How awesome is that? Cruising around the islands on an old-looking sailboat, snorkeling, and what's special about it is being able to dive. Yes, diving. Of course, we don't have a diving certificate... but on this boat there is a diving instructor who is with you around the clock and as a 'non-diver' your first dive there is free of charge. Just for trying it out =).

Mike had a big smile on his face.. Jenny, on the other hand, was somehow really scared :-D. We booked the tour anyway and since it starts in two days, we got it much cheaper than it would actually be. It includes all meals including 'coffee and cake', a double room just for us, many snorkeling stops and diving stops (in the Great Barrier Reef), and of course a visit to the Whitsundays, Whitehaven Beach, and the other bays. Just great, the weather is supposed to be good too, so we hope for the best =). Already super excited, we went to the next caravan park (where we also leave our car alone for the weekend) and eagerly await tomorrow. :-)