Blog 16; A Cave, the GREAT Barrier Reef and our first Huntsman

Wow, what an adventure we have had! No wifi for a couple of days so I have not blogged, so grab a cuppa and catch up!

First of all, we stayed in a cave in a rainforest for two nights! Yep, a cave. Admittedly it was a man-made cave, but oh my goodness it was special. (What3words inciting.flaunts.retrieve)

We only slept inside, everything else was outside. This was the view from the loo;

This was the view from my shower;

And this was the view from the ‘kitchen’ area;

We showered each morning with wild turkeys running around, and if you went to the loo in the middle of the night you had to be really careful not to step on a cane toad – they were just little ones, only as big as cobbles, but even so! Emily even had a night-time shower...that was a little quicker and a little spookier!

Here is a little video of the place

And a nighttime view to our kitchen

There was a window to the sky right above the bed, and it had mirrored walls, so when the sun was up, you knew it. The host had provided breakfast of muesli and Icelandic yoghurt, with milk for tea and OJ. It was absolutely surreal having an outdoor shower, then putting breakfast together knowing that you were the only humans around – until the neighbour’s dog came over to say hello – she gave us quite a fright!

This was the view from my bed this morning;

The doors are sliding glass doors that were reclaimed from a cruise ship that was being broken down, and you could sit on the lovely bean bag chair (covered in our stuff in this pic) and just watch the animals go by – wild turkeys, gecko, birds, and lots of other stuff.

We were super vigilant for creepy crawlies (by super vigilant, read terrified of!) and just as we were getting ready to leave, one of those gnarly Huntsman spiders made its way in through the door – we left a bit quicker than we had planned 😊

It was a lovely relaxing stay (apart from the terrifying creepy crawlies) and we are so lucky to have been able to stay there.

So that is where we have been staying – what have we been up to? We have been snorkelling on the Barrier Reef, and it was indeed Great!

We booked a tour with Thundercat Tours and I was so impressed by them – my Travel Agent critique came out in force, but I could only give them a 5* review. and it was really good value for money. They were attentive and professional, provided a yummy lunch and snacks and generally made the day safe and fun!

We made our own way to the boat as we stopped by a dive hire place so Emily could rent a prescription mask – it was only $20 and so worth it so she could actually see underwater! We collected wetsuits – the water was warm, but the Ozzies all had jumpers on and were saying we would be cold, so we thought we should comply. There are no pics of me in a wetsuit, but here is one of Emily in her mask (she is gonna kill me!)

We were on a catamaran which was extremely smooth on the water, even when we were racing the other boat

I honestly have no words for how beautiful the reef is. I have dived in Cyprus, Egypt, and the Caribbean – and in each time I was told the reef was beautiful, but I have never seen so much colour as I did in the Whitsundays. I have also never regretted not finding Emily’s go pro so much!

We had two snorkel adventures, the first one at Hook Island on a healthy section of the reef and as I said, it was stunning, so colourful, so beautiful, so bounteous and so many fish. The boat also provided pool noodles which, although I did not need one, I was so glad I took one, because just floating, being quiet, not even swimming meant that so many fish came up to say hello.

After the first snorkel, the crew handed out scrummy chocolate brownies to keep the energy levels up and we moved to the second section at Manta Ray Bay. This part was affected by a hurricane about 7 years ago and the whole reef was destroyed. It is starting to regenerate though, and because of the currents the fish were still there – this time MUCH bigger! Almost 5’ in length some of them, and they give off a slime as a defence if you touch them (I didn’t). The crew also threw some fish food into the water once we were in, and oh my god I was swimming in a shoal of fish! There were thousands of them – predominately Yellow and Blueback Fusiliers, Butterfly Fish, Cardinal Fish, Clownfish, Gobies – oh so many.

Hats off to the Thundercat team, they have a coral nursery and are heavily involved in the regeneration of the reef – I meant to ask how they transplant coral from the nursery to the reef, but I forgot!

We also spotted a whale and dolphin from the boat, but I don’t have pics of them.

After the snorkelling we had lunch (excellent) and went to the main Whitsunday Island to visit Whitehaven Beach – so gorgeous. White silica sand in the bay that they call the swirling sands,

and the water is so shallow and clear that you can see the baby sharks and rays. The sharks were too quick for me, but this cheeky ray was so busy snacking that I got a few pics of him.

Here are some spam pics

After our snorkelling adventure we had dinner in the town centre and headed back to our cave – thank goodness we had two nights in the cave – the first night we were big ‘fraidy cats and could only go to the loo together, but the second night was so much more chilled.

Airlie Beach is a great little place – but it is all about the sailing and the Whitsundays. Emily and I were discussing how great it was that there is a swimming pool next to the sea, and that keeps the humans out of the way of the boats as it is quite a busy harbour – oh contraire, it seems that it is to keep the humans out of the Crocodiles! We were given the sage advice that anytime you see a lagoon/pool next to a body of water, it is there for a reason, and it will be fenced off to keep the crocs out. Duly noted.

Today we relocated to Townsville, which is the capital of Queensland, but it does not feel like a capital city, and we hardly saw anyone at all when we drove in – even so, we are here to go to Magnetic Island, which we are visiting tomorrow.

Today has been really hot, so we were ready for some aircon tonight and decided a night at the cinema would be a good idea. We went to a regional cinema as it was the only one showing the movie we wanted to see; ‘To catch a killer’, and Emily was in her element when we got there and it was proper old school, with authentic movie posters on the walls, and vases of flowers each side of the screen. For the movie I would give it 6/10 (Emily gave it 3/10, but she has a Masters in Film Studies so what do I know), but the cinema and staff get 10/10 from both of us – plus, there were only 6 people in the cinema, so it was like a private screening!

As I said, we are off to Magnetic Island tomorrow – we may have to go via a GoPro shop…..