Whitsundays & Great Barrier Reef

19/01/2012 - 26/01/2012 32 °C

Mission Beach, certainly a mission to get to, perhaps not one you should accept. Moving swiftly on, Airlie Beach awaits. What a treat, apartment overlooking the bay, beautiful sunny days and table tennis. Kaz is hitting new heights in the sport, and more surprisingly showing a real passion for it. Accommodation choices are now based on availability of table, bat and ball. Retirement may come early to me after all.

The Whitsundays provide a welcome distraction from the rigours of table tennis and pool lounges. Arriving onto Camira, our 37m catamaran for the day, you know you’re in for a great day mostly consisting of lounging. Camira sails from Airlie to Daydream Island, Whitehaven beach and then another location forgotten.

The real highlight is of course Whitehaven. The postcard pictures are the same in reality, perfect (minus the guy wearing a stinger suit one size too big looking like a boy wearing his dads shirt).

Our last hurrah for Australia was a trip to The Great Barrier Reef. A high speed Cat whisks the hoards out to a pontoon on Knuckle Reef. En-route, the diving ‘mafia’ aboard the ship start the sell. A combination of curiosity and male bravado (yes, I was a little scared) and within a few hours we’re side by side learning to blow bubbles. Diving is quite honestly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Hard to explain, everyone should just try it once. Looking forward to the next time already.

So its off to start the final leg of our trip. Sth America is ahead and its back to school, one week of Spanish lessons. Unfortunately I have to sit next to the dux of the class so learning Spanish should be embarrassing; at least I can copy the answers.