Our week at Airlie Beach & Hamilton Island (4)

WEDNESDAY 26th Feb

Our ferry was due to leave at 12:15 but we had to vacate our accommodation by 10 am. Kelly took the boys to one of the hotels for a bit of machine time to keep them amused while Jo and I had coffees at the marina, opposite the ferry terminal.

Again, Kelly, Jo and the boys took their Kwells beforehand but, as it turned out, it was hardly necessary. It was a different catamaran that took us back - higher and faster and it took a different route. It was pretty windy but Miller decided he'd be the tough guy and stick it out all the way outdoors (with occasional company from his Mum) while we all went inside on the top level:

As you can see, Jo and Asher even felt well enough for games of Uno.

On alighting we hauled our cases past the marina to a bus stop, failing with the first bus that arrived as it was cash only - just 50c each anywhere you wanted. It was a fairly short journey on the 2nd bus to our accommodation at the Big 4 Adventure Whitsunday resort where we had a 3 bedroom cabin next to the pool and the waterslides:

Kelly and I walked over to the nearby mall and picked up some groceries and a Mexican takeaway for tea, after which Miller and Asher headed for the pool - in the dark!:

The temperature was still lovely - it's so consistent - no more than 28/29 C at the peak of the day and no less than 24/25 C overnight - and what's more, no bugs. Nobody got bitten - in fact, we hardly saw a mozzie or a fly all week - despite this warning sign:

We had expected the tropics to be full of bugs - especially as it was rainy season. Adelaide, the driest city in the driest state in the driest country/continent in the world actually seemed to have more bugs than Queensland at this time.

THURSDAY 27th Feb

We all spent some time at the pool in the morning - in fact, Kelly, Miller and Asher got pretty red. Asher insisted that we all had to go on all of the many water slides - but it was good fun.

The boys spent some time on the bouncy pillow:

and Asher took a pedal car:

Next, it was mini golf. We walked up to Reception to get the clubs and balls:

After a competitive round, Asher was declared the winner of the mini golf:

FRIDAY 28th Feb

Time to leave. We checked out and picked up the airport shuttle and we even had time for breakfast in the terminal which has a lovely aquarium in the middle:

Chris picked us up at Adelaide airport and took us to - where? All will be revealed in the next post.

Our week at Airlie Beach & Hamilton Island (3)

MONDAY 24th Feb

Kelly drove the buggy over to the bakery at the marina and brought back coffees and lots of pastries and pies. We sat on the balcony and made a start on them and this attracted a few cockatoos. I shooed them off but noticed that one of them was eating a grape, which I then discovered had been fed to it by Asher, who didn't understand what a bad idea it was to encourage the birds.

Kelly, Miller and Asher then went out for a ride on the buggy while Jo and I decided to get showered and changed, but, before we did that, Jo carefully took the plates of pastries and pies off the table on the balcony, covered them in clingfilm and put them on the kitchen table which was well back from the balcony and past the TV viewing area.

After our showers we came back to the kitchen to discover that the cheeky, greedy birds had not been at all deterred and had helped themselves to a feast:

After clearing up the mess and securing all the bifold doors, Jo and I went for a walk - out to the marina then up the steep hills to a couple of viewpoints:

The middle photo above shows Catseye Bay and our accommodation building. Turning the camera round:

There were also plenty of these signs around:

Kelly kept the boys on the move - to Wildlife Adventures and other attractions and I joined Kelly and Asher later at one of the resort pools and a dip in the warm ocean - on second thoughts, that was yesterday. When the tide went out you could walk out as far as you liked. There were warnings of "seasonal stingers", it being the wet season, but there was no sign of any jellyfish and nobody was put off going in the sea.

Today we tried one of the other resort pools - a larger one with a swim-up tiki bar in the middle. One great thing about Hamilton Island is that all the resort pools are freely available to all - you don't have to be resident at that particular resort.

TUESDAY 25th Feb

We had hoped to get the boys on the Kids' ATV's but when we got there we discovered that it was only open on Mondays so we did the go-karts instead. We did the safety drill then squeezed these Formula One style giant helmets on - they were hot, heavy and sweaty. The karts had to be driven by adults so we had to ride on dual steering ones which were exceptionally heavy - especially round the tight bends:

Kelly really wanted the boys to experience a ride in an ATV. The only one available was a 4-seater driven by an instructor/tour guide round the island so Jo and I decided to leave and tackle the trail walks. The boys seemed to have a great time and were impressed to see where Johnny Depp filmed Pirates of the Carribean 5 and also saw where other famous stars - like Oprah Winfrey and Taylor Swift - had recently stayed.

We managed just one short dusty, hilly trail walk to Hideaway Bay:

There were warning notices about sharks and jellyfish and also this unusual one:

We had been scrutinising the weather forecasts as there was a tropical cyclone developing off the North Queensland coast and we were sailing back to the mainland tomorrow (Wednesday) before flying back to Adelaide on Friday. Albert was the first named cyclone of the season - thankfully it stayed well offshore but it could have had some effect on wave conditions - we would see tomorrow.

Our week at Airlie Beach & Hamilton Island (2)

SATURDAY 22nd Feb

Kelly decided she'd like to buy a top for tomorrow's crossing - just in case it's colder out at sea - and I joined her, partly to recce the walk down to the ferry port to check that we didn't need a taxi to get there tomorrow. Asher then decided that he would like to go too, so the 3 of us set off - and it was a fairly short walk down to the port and the marina.

From the port, we looked back at our resort:

The units with the blue roofs form the Wyndham resort that we were staying at.

Kelly got a hoodie and Asher a pair of water shoes. We picked up more snacks at Woolworths and headed back - and that was the extent of our excursions today. We had some visitors to our apartments:

This was far from the last time we would get a close-up with cockatoos. Note the turquoise seas beyond the marina - everywhere was like this. Was this an effect of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef?

We still had the occasional showers passing through but they were much less frequent than yesterday and mostly only lasted minutes. Everyone just carried on doing what they were doing. You could see the squalls coming and I caught this rainbow:

SUNDAY 23rd Feb

After breakfast we rolled our bags down the hill to the ferry port where there was some interesting art:

All the ferries are catamarans. Our journey was scheduled to last 85 minutes with 2 brief stops on the way to let off passengers. Jo and I sat at the back of the deck in the direction of travel while Kelly found a spot facing us where she and the boys could snuggle together. We knew the crossing was going to be a bit rough as it was windy but it was far from cold - even out in the open ocean.

All bar me had taken Kwells as a precaution but only Asher seemed a little affected by the movement of the boat but he put on a brave face here:

First stop was Daydream Island:

Then it was Hamilton Island - first of all at the airport. The runway goes all the way from one side of the island to the other - a distance of just one mile which is pretty short, but we watched as some reasonably large planes took off and landed.

The other side of the marina - just minutes away - was where we got off. One of the hosts of our apartment met us and drove us the short distance to our property, which was in Catseye Bay, overlooking the beach. We had huge bifold doors to our balconies:

Visitors get round by golf buggies - hundreds of them - no cars allowed:

We had lunch at a marina restaurant then took the buggy on a short island recce:

One of the other notable features of the island is the number of wallabies everywhere. In the gardens beneath our accommodation, every morning a small team came out to clean up their poo from the grass. The other wildlife notables are the hundreds of cockatoos - more of them later. 

Our week at Airlie Beach & Hamilton Island - Day 1

FRIDAY 21st Feb

Chris kindly drove the 5 of us - me, Jo, Kelly and the boys - to the airport, leaving Old Noarlunga at 5 am. Chris didn't have enough leave left to join us for this holiday so he returned home to work - and also to oversee the work that was planned on the toilet block - while the rest of us were swanning away in North Queeensland again.

We flew in to the small but lovely Whitsunday Coast aiport (Proserpine):

It was a bit bumpy coming in and our pilot had to abort his first attempt at landing due to the high cross winds but we made it safely second time around.

The airport shuttle bus took about 40 mins to get us to our resort high up in Airlie Beach, overlooking the ferry port and marina. The 2 nights we had booked here had been done at the last minute as the original Air B&B that Kelly had booked was cancelled, as the property had been water damaged during the recent floods in the area.

I've commented before on how large Queensland is - Airlie Beach is almost 700 kms south of Port Douglas, where we had spent a week in January, but over 1,100 kms north of Brisbane. Definitely tropical.

Our resort was lovely and we had 2 adjacent rooms at the top of one of the buildings, each with large balconies that we could talk to each other from. The boys were very happy here - good wifi and an excellent pool and adjacent hot tub - what more could they want?

The restaurant and bar are next to the pool and are open fronted, but, happily with a decent roof to take the brunt of the regular fairly heavy showers we experienced on our first day. The rain never stopped anyone using the pool and hot tub, least of all our intrepid duo:

We took the resort shuttle bus downtown - a very short journey, but one that is very useful on the return back up the steep hill to the resort. Walking round the touristy town we came to the large outdoor lagoon style pool - similar to the one we had used in Cairns. Jo demonstrated the new top she had bought over her new swimsuit:

No restaurants for us in the evenings - the boys like to go online or watch a movie and snack/gorge in their apartments - and we were happy to do likewise, albeit with a couple of G & T's.

Last week in SA

SUNDAY 16th Feb

No photos taken so not sure what happened today. Suspect we stayed put and had a quiet day.

MONDAY 17th Feb

I suggested we go for a local walk this morning and Jo surprised me by saying we should tackle the hill opposite - going up any kind of gradient being Jo's least favourite and most complained about activity. So off we set - across the pedestrian bridge:

and up we climbed:

Multiple stops of course, but Jo made it to the top:

Now the decision is which way down? Three options - the first, to the left of the above picture has a steep gritty, slippy fiinish; the second, to the right, is the infamous Pipeline trail where I had a nasty fall last year - which still gives me shudders. The third option is just to go back down the trail we had just come up.

I described  the options to Jo to let her decide - surprisingly she chose the Pipeline option, probably because I had made a remark about exorcising my demons. Mostly downhill but including the steep and slippy Pipeline section itself. Careful baby steps and try to find the slightly grassy option to the side of the main track. There could be no holding of hands - I took the lead and Jo followed - even more gingerly than I did:

I said mostly downhill but there was one short but steep and tricky section:

Then we arrived at the scene of my accident last year - it's a rock wall with a few natural footholds:

Last year, I was on my own and doing this trail the other way round - clockwise - so I was coming down the rocks backwards when I lost my footing and tumbled head over heels before landing in the river reeds below this spot.

We had originally intended to reach this spot and then go back the way we had come as the next section after this, if we carried on, is a narrow slippy path high above the river. However, I had told Chris that we would be back before 1 pm and it had been slow getting to this point so the shortest, quickest option was to carry on anti-clockwise. That was a decision that proved to be a scary one for Jo, who spent most of the time on all fours, clinging to whatever she could find above her.

We survived without any damage this time.

After dinner that evening, Jo and Asher went for a dip:

TUESDAY 18th Feb

Chris had a meeting in the Somerton area of the city this afternoon and offered to take us there if we wanted another beach walk, and he would pick us up after his meeting finished - an offer we gladly accepted.

Chris dropped us off at a nice beachside cafe and Jo and I had a spot of lunch before heading along the beach northwards towards Glenelg, arriving there about 40 minutes later. Glenelg is well known to us, having stayed there a couple of times. Whichever beach we go to, we have to do a walk to the end of the jetty - and this was no different:

We walked past our former accommodation and the restaurants and bars round the small harbour there, until eventually it was time for cold beers at the Stamford Hotel:

WEDNESDAY 19th Feb

Another "no photographs" day for me so I'm guessing not much happened? I think we took a stroll round to Long Shot cafe for a bit of lunch and then crossed the road for Jo to take this one of me beside the local book exchange, which I've been using regularly:

THURSDAY 20th Feb

It was the day before our next little adventure - a week up in North Queensland's Whitsunday Islands - and Jo's swimsuit was shot so we drove over to Big W at Seaford and got her a new one. After that we headed to Port Noarlunga and, for the first time parked south of the pier.

The plan was to beach walk to the Onkaparinga river mouth but I spotted a trail through the dunes that would hopefully lead us a bit further up the beach. It was hot - and so was the sand. We were both wearing flip-flops (aka thongs) on our feet and it felt like walking on hot coals at times. The sand was very soft and it was a bit of a climb up the dunes so we were both pretty knackered by the time we eventually arrived on the beach:

The decision now was whether to carry on towards the river mouth:

 - or head back to the port for some cold beers. As we hadn't intended a long walk today we hadn't taken water with us, so it was a no-brainer.

Back in Port Noarlunga, it was mid-afternoon on Thursday and a surprising number of licensed establishments didn't open until 5 pm - or, worse still, not until the weekend. We ended up in Drifters, which worked out pretty well in the end.