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Right...so we decided to have 2 pretty long days driving, this is what we figured was needed to get up to our next port of call. North of Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island there is nothing worth seeing until you get to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays. We set the alarm for 6am and drove for 5 hours up to a place called Rockhampton. The road was long and straight, and we only came across a car ever half hour or so and we passed maybe 2-3 small villages. We stopped of in one of these places, called St Lawerance and we felt we had stepped into a horror movie. The place looked like it was stuck in the 1850s and there was not a single person in sight, but a rusty looking swing and a boarded up school. Unfortunately the reason for the stop was for gas. The gas station was also the village store, liquor shop, post office and cafe and it was run by a women with a beard and who was barely understandable. As you might guess we got the hell out of there fast. These are the poor poor mining areas, literally miles and miles from anywhere and the people are so poor with no reason to leave, life has not changed for them as it has elsewhere in the country. It is very like the deep south in America. We felt very uncomfortable.We decided to stay the night in Yepoon, a small little town on the coast. There was not much there but it served a purpose as we found a great campsite, with a lovely lady who let us stay there for peanuts. The following day was another long drive up to Mackay. This is quite a large town but there is nothing to do as tourists so, again we found a good campsite on the beach and had a bbq. The following day was just a short drive up to Airlie Beach - where the Whitsundays are. This place is very different to anywhere else we had been to so far. It is 95% backpackers, anyone not a backpacker owns a backpacker bar; shop etc - so the atmosphere is pretty electric, especially at night. Airlie Beach has a very large man-made lagoon, a swimming pool right on the beach open to anyone to sun bath by or go for a swim. It's a free 5 star resort type facility and we spent the first day chilling out there in the sun.The second day at Airlie started out with heavy rain, so we explored the various shopping centres around town. We also drove up the coast to Shute Haven, the furthest you can go out on the Peninsula where Airlie is situated. This provided us with spectacular views of the Whitsundays, and to make things even better, the sun came out. That afternoon we just chilled out by the lagoon. We also booked ourselves onto a Whitsundays trip for the following day.Thursday 19th June turned out to be one of the best. We headed down to the harbour for 7.30am and caught our boat out to the Whitsundays. The weather was beautiful, clear skies and hot. We headed out first of all to Hook Island, where we stopped and did some snorkling. This was Jo's first time snorkling, and she was a little nervous. It turned out that she loved it and we saw hundreds of fish and good coral. After that we all went on the glass bottom boat. Our next port of call was Whitehaven Beach - world famous, and rated as one of the top 5 places in the world you must swim. It did not disappoint. It was absolutely stunning, 5 miles of untouched white sand with the clearest water imaginable. We spent a good 2 hours here swimming and sun bathing before heading to our next stop - Day Dream Island, appropriately named. There is a 5 star resort located on this island and we spent a few hours by the pool, on the beach and walking around the island, which gave great views of the area. Then it was time to head home. It was a wonderful day and a must for anyone who is lucky enough to visit the area. Sadly time dictated that the following day we had to leave and move on to our next destination. This was Bowen, home to possibly the best or some of the best beaches on the East Coast, many of which have awards. Bowen is also where they filmed the new film "Australia". The town itself is odd. They are stuck in the 1940s - the buildings and streets look like something out of a wild west movie, or a horror movie, the streets were deserted, not a car in sight and pretty run down. However, they know it. There are signs all over the place joking about the 1940s style of the town and the locals are proud of this fact - and this was the reason why they filmed here. Anyway - the beaches really are great. We found a campsite up by a place called horseshoe bay, which turned out to be the best beach in the area. Our first night we just had a bbq and relaxed. Our second day in Bowen was a really hot one, so we had a beach day. The next morning we moved on and drove up to Townsville, the capital of north Queensland. The best place to be here is The Strand, a long boardwalk running along the beach with all sorts of activities and cafes along it. It is also home to the world's largest saltwater pool, called The Rock Pool. We also found out there was a market going on so we spent a few hours exploring there, Jo buying quite a lot of cheap jewellery. That evening we drove half an hour north to an area called the Northern Beaches and spent the night camping in a free campsite in Saunders Beach. The following day we drove north and finally we reached Cairns.
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