Whitehaven Beach

Whitehaven Beach is the reason we came to Airlie Beach. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great day yesterday, but this is really the main attraction. We booked a seat aboard the Southern Cross when we arrived a few days ago and set sail with 26 other tourists and three crew members promptly at 8am.

The first stop on our trip today was a nearby island for more snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. It was beautiful, but not quite as nice as the reef we saw off Cairns. As we learned from our crew, we were now snorkeling at the "inner" Great Barrier Reef; the "outer" Great Barrier Reef would be at least a three-hour journey from Airlie. Because the "outer" Great Barrier Reef is what most people want to see and Cairns is only a one-hour boat ride away, many tourists head there for prime reef-viewing (as we did). Anyway, we were in the water for about an hour before it was time for lunch and another sail to Whitehaven Beach.

On our way to the snorkeling site. The weather definitely cooperated today!

Didn’t get too many good underwater pictures because the water was a little less clear than at Cairns. But I liked this black-fish, white-fish duo.

After our lunch and an hour-long sail, the only thing between us and the famous Whitehaven Beach was a short walk up to the overlook. It was really hot (think mid-day sun in 93 degree weather) but the views were breathtaking!

Whitehaven Beach!

The white sand combined with shallow water creates the amazing “swirling” effect in the water. No wonder Whitehaven was voted one of the Top Five Beaches in the World!

We made it! (And yes, I know I need a haircut.)

Once we’d all snapped a bunch of pictures we headed down to the beach itself. It’s really bright – both the water and white sand reflected the already intense sun – but a spectacular sight to see!

Driftwood at Whitehaven Beach.

Another island just off the beach.

Got another couple from our group to take our picture before heading back to the boat.

The wind had died down a bit so the sailing was slow back to the marina. Fortunately we had an engine to help us out a bit! Plus, the crew let some of us try our hand at steering the boat in the milder conditions. I guess I did a decent job because they kept me at the helm for almost an hour – pretty cool to have been at the wheel of a former Americas Cup racing boat!

"Captain" Foster. Sarah thought it was hilarious that the crew were so excited to have an American steering the Americas Cup boat.

Sarah and I were both ready for dinner by the time we pulled up to the dock so we ate at Barcelona, a tapas place right by the marina. The food was great and the views couldn’t be beat. All in all, an excellent day in Airlie – definitely a must-do if you’re a beach lover like us and make it down to Oz!

Airlie Beach

After Sarah and I took (intentionally) cold showers after our hike up Castle Hill, we had a relatively short drive to Airlie Beach. Sarah volunteered to drive though, so this would be her first experience driving on the “wrong side of the road.” Despite some initial nervousness, she did great and we made it to Airlie beach in just over three hours.

We were both pretty hungry for lunch by the time we arrived so we found a parking spot in town and grabbed a quick lunch at Jane’s Café. Jane herself was there to greet us and make my sandwich and Sarah’s salad – both were delicious, just what we were in the mood for! After lunch we checked into our hotel and, due to the rainy weather, we headed to another café in town to spend a few hours sorting out all our Great Barrier Reef photos and catching up on the blog. Sarah also did a little shopping, naturally.

The weather got worse as the evening progressed so we decided to just head back to our hotel, order a pizza and relax. It’s hard to motivate to do much else when it’s pouring rain outside!

Fortunately when we woke up today the weather was looking more promising. The sky was still overcast but all signs were pointing to sunshine in a few hours. We started the day by strolling around the weekly market in town, which was a little disappointing (heavy on generic trinkets). Then Sarah took me into the shops she had scouted out yesterday – we both needed a few more summertime items so it was a productive way to spend the morning.

We drove to the Fat Frog Café for lunch just as the last of the clouds burned off – it had really turned into a beautiful day! Once we finished our delicious lunches (Sarah swears she had the best coconut water she's ever had) we snapped a few pictures of the view and headed to Cedar Creek Falls for some fresh water swimming.

Cannonvale Beach, just across the street from the Fat Frog. That sailboat looks like it's listing pretty hard to one side...

We were told by many locals that the Falls would be “Awesome, mate!” due to all the rain yesterday. Well, we weren’t that impressed. It was nice to cool off in the water, but there was no waterfall…

Even with all the rain last night, no waterfall for us today. Oh well!

Once we had cooled off in the water, we headed back into town to see some of Airlie’s beaches. We ended up settling at The Lagoon – which was sort of like a public pool (very similar to the lagoon in Cairns). We spent a few hours relaxing by the water and enjoying the views.

Perfect afternoon to spend by the water.

Feeling a little restless, we decided to end the day with a walk along Airlie’s waterfront boardwalk. The boardwalk was only completed a couple years ago and it shows – it was immaculately maintained and offered some awesome sunset views!

Walking along the boardwalk.

Sunset on the marina.

We finished the walk right around dusk and headed back to our hotel to get cleaned up before dinner. We ate at Capers, right on the main drag in Airlie. Great atmosphere and we both really liked our food – worth a stop if you’re passing through Airlie. Tomorrow we have our big tour booked to see Whitehaven Beach so hopefully the weather is as nice as it was today!

Townsville

We got up early on Thursday so we would make it to Townsville by lunchtime. We jump-started the day with - what else? - two iced coffees before saying goodbye to Cairns and hitting the road.

Our drive down the east coast of Australia is primarily on Route A1, which connects all of the scenic beach towns we are passing through. So far, being in the middle of nowhere in Australia still seems pretty scenic.

The eastern coast of Australia contains so many small beach towns with views just like this.

Alex and I (like millions of others!) have recently discovered Serial and have blazed through the podcast episodes over the past few weeks. We were in the middle of listening to Episode 11 when we passed a fortuitous billboard advertising Murdering Point Vineyard, open at 9:30am. It was 9:27am so obviously we decided to stop and pick up a bottle to take with us. I was a little embarrassed that we arrived so early but 1. We were not the only customers and 2. We were offered free tastings anyway!

Seems like a pretty ominous name for a winery, no?

The grounds of the Murdering Point Vineyard were pretty beautiful - definitely goes with the "tropical fruit wine" feel!

After grabbing a bottle of "North Queensland's best wine" (is that like saying the best cheesecake on 57th street?") we finished the drive to Townsville and grabbed lunch in town. We checked in to our guesthouse and headed to The Strand, a strip on the water with restaurants, parks and swimming areas free of "stingers."

Hard to complain about the beachside views here.

The weather was really pleasant so we just laid around under the palm trees for a while, enjoying the breeze. Just like Cairns, we felt like Townsville was generally pretty quiet; however, Townsville is clearly less of a tourist destination and there were a lot more locals out and about.

We cleaned up early and left in search of Internet access - which is absolutely essential when backpacking. Australia's available WiFi has been lacking (I know, first-world problems, right?) and we've been perpetually behind on emails, trip planning and blog posting. After trying three different spots we gave up and walked to our dinner spot: Guzman y Gomez. The Australian-version-of-Chipotle was actually having its grand opening in Townsville so we had burritos for free - can't beat that when traveling on a budget! (Also they were delicious!

Before leaving for Airlie Beach on Friday we managed to get in a quick hike up Castle Hill for a view of downtown Townsville. We got up pretty early to beat the heat and ran across many local hikers, walkers and runners who were getting their daily exercise. The scene reminded us of Runyon Canyon in Los Angeles (minus the celebrities of course).

Even though it was cloudy the view was still worth the trek!

We were - again - drenched after this brief hike but glad we got to take in the views and fit in a little workout. Now it's time for me to try driving on the wrong side of the road - wish me luck!

A Day in Daintree

This morning Alex and I took advantage of our rental car and drove about an hour north to the Daintree Rainforest and Port Douglas area.

We started with a hike through the jungle at the Aboriginal-owned Mossman Gorge. While the trail was pretty flat and the sky was cloudy, it was so humid we were both drenched after the hour-and-a-half circuit.

Very scenic coastal drive from Cairns up to Mossman Gorge.

Another pull-off along the coast.

One more - this time from the top of one of the many hills in the area.

Paused during our hike to snap a photo of Alex by one of the (many) massive trees scattered throughout the rainforest.

Here's a different tree - hopefully you get a sense of how big they are!

We saw a handful of birds, lizards and...turkeys on our walk through the rainforest. These Australian Brush Turkeys are native to the rainforest and we saw a few of them kicking around piles of leaves (preparing a nest for their eggs).

Feeling much more exhausted than we should have after a relatively easy hike, we stopped for lunch at the very first place we saw: Goodies Café in downtown Mossman. What a pleasant surprise! The menu contained so many healthy, delicious sounding options that Alex had to finally force me to make up my mind and order (fresh watermelon juice and Moroccan chicken wrap). The veggie-packed sandwiches were just what we needed to refuel for the day before continuing on toward Cape Tribulation.

Getting to the Daintree Rainforest is only allowed via ferry (at least from the south) so we were happy we didn't have to wait in line too long. Given that you must turn your engines off and stay in the car - no AC! - we were happy the ferry ride took all of five minutes.

Our hostel gave us a great map detailing all of the best spots in the area so we headed first to a nearby lookout point, Mt. Alexandra.

Where the rainforest meets the reef.

After taking in the views at Mt. Alexandra we continued north to Myall Beach. We opted to skip the rainforest hike offered there and just headed straight to check out the beach.

Beautiful (and empty) Myall Beach in Daintree.

Unfortunately there were no stinger nets so we couldn't go swimming...but the views were still worth it!

We had noticed the Daintree Ice Cream Factory as we drove past going north so we decided to stop on the way to Cow Bay Beach (we were healthy for lunch, right?!). The place is very cool - they grow all kinds of tropical fruits to flavor the ice cream and identify all of the trees on the property. Since the only item on the menu is a sampling of the daily four flavors, Alex and I were glad none of the flavors contained nuts! Our favorite was actually a local ingredient called the Wattleseed, which tastes similar to espresso.

We took our treat and drove the short drive to Cow Bay Beach, which we had all to ourselves.

Hard to decide which I liked more: Myall or Cow Bay.

The weather had cooled a bit so we rested comfortably on the beach until it was time to head back toward the ferry.

We made it back to our hostel just before dinner time and walked next door to the Green Ant Cantina for some Mexican food. While the meal was delicious I was surprised at the cost; our hostel had advertised $5 drinks and $5 meals, but a beer cost $9. Oh well - can't complain as our drinks and meals were both great!

Tomorrow we drive to Townsville for the night and continue our Australian road trip!

The Great Barrier Reef

It is difficult to describe The Great Barrier Reef, one of the most beautiful places in the world, without over-using the extremely positive adjectives we use conversationally ("amazing", "incredible", "breathtaking" for instance). We could delve deeper into our vocabulary and produce some more exotic ones (like "magnificent" or "spectacular") but rather than describe what we saw, we'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Sarah and I booked a full-day boat tour on the Ocean Freedom - we'd been recommended this boat by our hostel, our rental car agent and many, many reviewers online. They did not disappoint. The crew was friendly and knowledgeable, the food was ample and delicious and the weather provided a perfect backdrop for the day. There were around 50 other passengers with us and we spent the day snorkeling around the reef and sunning ourselves on the boat. We were lucky enough to see many different kinds of fish, sea turtles, an octopus, a barracuda and even a shark (albeit a very friendly, not-interested-in-eating-humans kind of shark)! Sarah nonetheless got out of the water pretty quickly after the crew announced that a shark was in the area! All in all it was a great day and we saw some of the best scenery of our trip!

En route to the reef.

Looking back on Cairns.

Almost to the reef!

Snorkeling Video

Giant clam on the seafloor.

Blue starfish on the reef.

One of many parrotfish we saw today.

Sarah snorkeling.

Looking back at our boat from the glass-bottomed boat tour we had post-snorkel.

A glass-bottomed boat wasn't really necessary though - we could see straight to the bottom of the water the whole time!

A sailboat nearby.

Back on the boat - view from the upper deck.

The second snorkel site.

After six hours on the reef, our boat returned to the marina. It was an incredible day and Cairns should be a must-see on anyone's Australia itinerary given its amazing access to The Great Barrier Reef. As Sarah and I walked back to our hostel, we stopped near the lagoon in town to look at the Christmas tree there - it's easy to forget we're only a couple weeks away from Christmas when the weather is like this!

Merry Christmas from Cairns.

Tomorrow we drive north to Daintree to explore the rainforest. Very different than a day on the ocean but we're excited nonetheless!