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G'day dingos!
Here is an update from the amazing Whitsunday Islands. Discovered by Captain Cook in 1770, they are made up of 74 islands, the largest being Whitsunday Island (named after the feast day it was discovered on, though it was actually discovered on a Monday, but Whitmondays sounds rubbish). Just beyond lies the Great Barrier Reef southern section, including Heart Reef as mentioned in the last blog.
Our first day here was spent fervently looking for the best tour deal and counting our dollars. We haven't mentioned it yet but Australia is not cheap. The Aussie dollar is pretty strong at the moment and is partly to blame, as are high wages here. The bottom line is beer is really expensive (about 7 pounds a pint!) So we have been having quiet nights in and spending the money on great tours instead!
This time we booked onto sailing a tall ship 'The Derwent Hunter' for the day to two small islands in the Whitsundays 'Black Island' and 'Langford Island'. At each we stopped off and snorkelled over the nearby shallow coral reefs. Compared to up north the coral was brighter but there were fewer creatures about, and still no turtle seen! Langford Island is mainly sand, it is very fine and white here because of an extremely high silica content and the water very blue because of the way minerals in it filter sunlight...hopefully you get the idea from our photos! Sadly we only got to pretend sail because there was virtually no wind, but Brenda and I (mainly I, I felt) got to haul up the sail anyway. Seeing the islands and bay from the boat and snorkelling was a fantastic experience.
We also spent some time doing a bushwalk to Coral Beach near to our campsite. We were hot and pretty keen on a swim. Then we saw the croc sign. Most mainland beaches here are unsafe to swim due to saltwater crocs. It is also approaching stinger season (check out our stinger suits from when we went snorkelling, sexy!) so wearing a suit is recommended. You can also swim in stinger-netted areas which we tried out on a visit to the deserted Dingo Beach the next day.
You will also see from our photos that we attempted to make pancakes in our campervan. Mine looked very much more like cakes, mashed into small pieces because they stuck to the pan and would only come out in bits. Brenda's were much better!
Next up we will update you with our trips on Fraser Island, whale watching and taking a light aircraft flight off the beach.
To finish, an odd fact from our tour guides - can you guess which two marine animals can breathe with their bottoms?? The sea cucumber and one of the 6 types of turtle found here!
Bye
David and Brenda
xxx
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