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Airlie Beach is a small costal town on the East Coast of Australia, the launching pad for tirps to the Whitsunday's..the exact reason why we had braved (we were all feeling slightly fragile) the trusty Greyhound and arrived in town.
Again we had all our accommodation booked for us so all we had to do is find the hostel and check in, this was a breeze and we went to our room. Again the set up of our accommodation was almost like a resort, individual challets (with en-suite showers and toilet) centred around a swimming pool, volley ball court and plam trees. We were all pleased with 'Nomads' had to offer us.
There are loads (probably hundreds) of different boat trips you can go on to visit the Whitsunday's, we had chosen 'The Atalntic Clipper.' All of us had heard good things about the 'Clipper' on our travels so this was the boat for us. The trip we booked was 3 days, 2 nights on the boat sailing around the Whitsunday's, stopping at several different bays and sites along the way.
We had little or no food with us and needed a couple of bits to take on the boat with us. Airlie Beach (town, if you can call it that) is one strip of shops, bars and cafes, all of which are rather pricey. We needed a Woolies or a Coles for our suplies, luckily for us we had passed both on the way through (they were in seperate locations to each other), a little bit outside of Airlie Beach itself. It was mid afternoon and with Belle and Koo not wanting to do much, myself and Joe volunteered to do the 'shop run.' Joe was slightly concerned with my offer and questionned how close these shops really were to Airlie Beach, I reasurred him that they wern't far, maybe 15 minutes away, "max." 30 minutes later we finally reached Coles, I admit it was slightly further than I first thought.
During our time in Australia we had seen adverts on TV for a shop called 'Rivers' which has some cheap sales on and a place that you could defiently pick up a bargain. I had noticed one on the same industrial park as Woolies, so after a quick discussion we decided to pass on Coles this time and head for Woolies and Rivers.
We were already 30 minutes away from the hostel when we had reached Coles, how much further could Woolies be from there?...in turns out quite a way! After a casual 1 hour and 6 minutes (we timed the journey, initially to show how close the shops were) we arrived at the second retail park complete with a Woolies and a Woolies, not a Rivers in sight. I'm not sure what I was doing on the bus into Airlie Beach, but I now know I was not paying attention.
After avoiding being killed by Joe (only just) we headed back on the return leg and this time determined to beat our first leg time. Im pleased to report that we did, returning back to the hosel in just over an hour, not a bad effort. The only downside to the trip was that we had decided to do it wearing flip flops. My feet had faired well, Joe on the other hand had two massive blisters on the inside of his feet, right where his flip flop strap sat, we estimated we had walked about a 6 - 8 mile round trip.
With Belle and Koo well rested, Joe in pain and me having again just escaped death by Joe, we headed out to a bar which had promo's on food and drink for those who were heading to the Whitsunday's the following day. Not many people turned out for the pre - Whitsunday's 'party' but we enjoyed oursevles, eating a meal that wasn't beans or noodles, washed down with a rare thing in Australia, a pint. It was heaven! We didn't stay in heaven long though, as we all wanted to catch up on some sleep and get a nice early night ready for our boat trip.
Armed with one small night bag each, some goon and sunglasses we made our way down to the marina. When we arrived we found Andy (The Canadian from Mission Beach), he too had chosen the 'Clipper.' We checked in, filled in a safety declaration and then made our way down to a jetty and boarded the 'Clipper.'
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del can't wait for whitsunday!!