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For the past week, we (along with jill) rented a wicked van and drove 17 hours up the coast of Queensland...first stop, Airlie Beach...Airlie Beach is a tourist destination because it is the gateway to the whitsunday islands and the great barrier reef. We, however, spent most of our time in the huge public swimming pool, called the Lagoon. It's surrounded by palm trees and grass to sun bathe on, and is the highlight of the town...
That night Jill stayed in a hostel with some of her friends, and we slept in the van in a parking lot. Yay!! The next day we went on a hike to the top of Mt. Rooper, where there were gorgeous views of the islands. We thought we saw a panther...something black was moving around in the bush...but it ended up being the tail of a wild turkey. He was black with red and yellow on his neck. Not as exciting as we were hoping, but still cool...
That night, we drive to Conway beach to stay the night. On the way there we stopped to look at a waterfall we'd read was really beautiful. 5 kms of potholed dirt road later, we arrived. It was eerily silent when we got out of the car. It seems the waterfall had dried up, and all that was left was a large rock wall with a pond below it...Bummer...so we continued to Conway beach, and headed to the caravan park, where we could park our van without getting hassled.
Conway Tourist Park had more inhabitants then the whole town on Conway beach...It was spring break so there were a lot of families traveling, but it seemed odd that so many people would go to Conway beach on their holiday...There just wasn't much there and it was out of the way, it just seemed strange..maybe the swimming pool with the water slide attracted people, or the huge "jumping pillow," an inflated toy for kids to jump on...I'm not sure. But there we were, surrounded by people with their huge campers, chairs and tables, televisions, floodlights, they'd just made themselves -literally- at home. It was a version of camping we hadn't seen before...
So we made our way down to the beach. It was night, but the full moon lit the way. We got there expecting to see water, but there was none. Where's the ocean? So we decided to walk to it. Seek it out. It had to be somewhere...
We walked carefully through the wet sand, hardened and shaped like small waves, teasing us about the existance of ocean nearby. We watched the ground, careful to avoid washed up jellyfish (in case they were still alive-or poisionous!), until finally we saw the water. It was shallow, but had a strong current, like a river coming rapidly towards us. The tide was now coming in, and fast. There were no waves, as the great barrier reef thwarted them, just a flood of sea water rushing in.
We got back to the shore before the tide, and sat on a bench that overlooked the scene...The landscape was transformed from desolate sheets of wet sand to a sparkling oasis of reflected moonlight...a beautiful way to end the evening...
more on our adventure to come soon!
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