Woke up about 4am this morning freezing my ass off. Where the hell is the humidity gone?? We had 2 sleeping bags but couldn't be arsed with the hassle of unrolling etc. I grabbed a blanket we used for sun bathing which carol quickly proceeded to 'borrow'! Marriage eh?!
Had breakie about 9am out of the van before heading towards Airlie beach! Finally our chance to go see whitsundays! Really looking forward to this!
By the way, our fridge is now sitting at 12 degrees. The bloody milk is nearly bubbling inside it!
I called the nice man at Apollo who advised me to continue with my drive to Airlie and give him a call if it hasn't resolved. We drove towards Airlie via Ayr and stopped off in Bowen for lunch next to the ocean. Very beautiful town - Australia the movie was filmed here a few years ago, which starred Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.
Had quick stop in information centre before getting our resident tourist picture taken with the giant mango off Bruce highway which Bowen is probably most famous for :-)
Arranges a refrigerator technician in Airlie through Apollo as temperature didn't get any better!
We drove the 50 min drive from Bowen to Airlie, to an outskirts suburb called Cannonvale where the depot for Multi-Volt were located. They fixed the problem in about an hour, finally my beers can be cold again, I mean the milk :-)
We drove into Airlie, stunning views (am beginning to see a pattern of 'stunningness' on east coast already!!).
We parked up in car park near ocean and went on search of our whitsundays trip!
Ideally our preference was one trip which would encompass the great barrier reef, Whitsunday's, snorkelling and we would love to see some whales! So we strutted to ATM assuming we would have to book 2 maybe 3 separate trips an spend about 2k. While at ATM we noticed a shop called Whitsunday Sailing Adventures. Michael behind the counter greeted us in a way we were getting all too familiar (and even starting to say ourselves!) "g'day mate, howye goin"!!
He performed a very detailed sales pitch which gave us a choice of 6 boats, multiple options and different routes. One stuck out and Carol/I agreed on it immediately. It was a 3 day/ 2 night cruise which included multiple stops around Whitsunday's, I think the only ship to venture far enough up north to get to great barrier reef, including snorkelling & all equipment, a free intro dive, all meals AND because whales were migrating through islands at the moment, there are tons around to see!! All this and max 14 passengers ex crew. Score! All this for 450$ per head.
Michael even gave us discounted powered camper accommodation for the next 2 nights and recommend lots of free parking around Airlie when we are away for the 3 days!
We checked into caravan site / hostel which was jammed and getting worse as we left before parking up and taking a stroll through the Airlie beach main promenade. Lots of bars with live music already but bot much going on! We stopped in fish/chip shop do some chops to have with last nights curry and got a bag of chips which I think would have fed Queensland no worries for $6! Really starting to like Airlie :-)
Noticed a lot of nice fish restaurants..Defo going to try one tomorrow at some stage before setting of on our 3 day cruise!
Early night tonight hopefully after long day driving and will get to know Airlie a little better tomorrow!! Until then!!