Airlie Beach

The brakes are getting worse as the ‘power assist’ is broken. Rather like giving birth you now have to push pretty hard before anything happens. Also air-con is on the blink and takes 5 seconds or so to fire up – fingers crossed as its still over 30-degrees and fairly humid. The garage assistant tells us to watch out for theft and Mickey Finns - sounds like a lovely place….

On arrival our apartment has a wonderful view of a building site but at least we can admire it at our leisure from the outdoor Jacuzzi. We go to a great man-made lagoon with imported sand, palm trees and rocks where the kids have hours of fun.

The next stop is Vic Hislop’s shark show where the entrance is shaped like a huge shark’s mouth. The guy is a bit of a nutter who goes out after suspected man-eaters on a tiny boat. Once caught he inspects the stomachs of the shark to check for human remains then freezes them and carts the carcasses round the country in refrigerated trucks for his shows. He believes that sharks are the scum of the seas (only the dangerous species such as tiger sharks) and is convinced that government figures for shark deaths (about 1 per year in Australia) are grossly understated. Whatever your views you have to hand it to the guy he has large ‘cahonas’.

The main reason for coming to the Whitsundays is for sailing but the wind is too strong and kids aren’t allowed in many of the proper racing boats anyway so we settle for booking a large catamaran instead. Although tourists and not proper sailing we enjoy our day to three of the Whitsunday Islands. Tiny Daydream Island is first measuring only 1km by 500m but there is plenty to do with sharks and Manta rays on display and we struggle to get back in time. Next is Hamilton Island famous for its jetset. We the hoi polloi have to make do with the local bus as without my driver’s license I can’t even hire a golf buggy to take us round the island. Disappointment is short-lived as the views are great particularly from the Cat’s Eyes. The final stop is at Whitehaven beach rated as one of the top 10 in the world in a recent survey. It is an amazingly pure white (98% silica we are told) and several miles long. Karen and the kids don their fluorescent yellow full body stinger suits and look like the ‘incredibles’.
Actually incredible sensible I realize as I swim past a few jellyfish with less protection than a devout Catholic. We head back to Shute harbour at sunset reflecting on another successful family outing.

It’s Australia Day and we need to celebrate the country’s 120th birthday in style so we head to Magnums. We start with the traditional Cane toad racing where I sponsor number six ‘dash’ who makes a promising start but fades badly. Next up is the surf board bucking bronco which we wisely leave to the youngsters and it’s all interspersed with great music from the Rock Wallabies. Their version of a track from Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish you were here’ album was quite surreal with the addition of a didgeridoo ‘Just another brick in the waaoooaaaoooall’. Although it wasn’t a Sunday we had a good ‘session’ to mark the end of our visit to the Whitsundays.