The Whitsunday Islands

After lots of running and swimming at the beach, an exhausted Ben went to stay in kennels for a couple of nights at Mackay, and we drove up the coast to Airlie Beach in readiness for our whale watching trip the next morning.
Of course we had a drama in the morning when we were waiting for the bus to take us to Shute Harbour, just down the coast, for the boat. I had naively assumed that when the lady on the telephone had said that a bus would pick us up at 8.20am, that it would be a ‘whale-watching’ bus with pictures of whales on, and other people of a similar destination aboard. But no, we were supposed to have boarded a service bus that stops at the hotel at this time. Luckily, we had half an hour until the boat left so we drove ourselves to the harbour – I didn’t need this kind of stress at such an early hour of the day! It turned out we got a great seat on the boat, on the top deck right at the back and we watched Shute Harbour fade into the distance as we sailed through the many (74 in total – only 7 have resort facilities) Whitsunday Islands into the vast expanse of the Coral Sea – home of the Great Barrier Reef. Our cap’n for the day assured us that it was perfect whale watching weather, and he had a good feeling about the day, which I am sure he says every time he runs this trip, but it made us feel optimistic anyway!