September 21-27th, 2006
For break Soleil and I made plans to go to the Whitsundays together for a few days. We booked a sailing trip and decided to meet up at a hostel in Airlie beach the night before we left, which was Thursday.
I left Townsville around 3:30 and took a Greyhound bus (all by myself ☹ ) up to Airlie beach- four hours away. I got to the bus stop in Townsville about 30 min early – after a long, embarrassing walk trying to find the station. When I got there, I started talking to this interesting Aussie bloke. He decided to tell me his life story about how his boyfriend, just broke up with him and he gave him everything, and how is mom got a sex change and now wants him to call her his dad, and he wanted to know if I knew any gay Americans.... Yea he was quite interesting…
The bus ride wasn’t that bad – we watched two movies, had a stop for dinner and got to Airlie beach around 8pm. I found the hostel pretty easily, checked in and asked if they could tell me where Soleil was staying. They told me they couldn’t say exactly where she was staying but that she was really close to me. So I went to my room to find 6 Korean guys eating pizza. They offered me a piece, which I refused. They could barely speak English, so I dropped off my stuff and went to find Soleil. Well, she was asleep in the next cabin – I recognized her scar and her bag – but I didn’t want to wake her, so I wondered around the hostel. I met these really nice Aussie guys, and had a few drinks with them. Then Soleil wondered by with her friend Sara, so they came up and hung out for a while, and then went to get some food. After we got some food, we got dressed and went out on the town. We ended up at this one bar down the street and I ran into one of my friends from London! He was taking a semester aboad in New South Wales, and was in Airlie on his break as well. We talked for a bit, exchanged numbers and decided to meet up again after both of our sailing trips.
This is Soleil and I with two of the bartenders at the bar we went to
Then it started to get late so we decided to go back and get some sleep for our trip tomorrow. I slept in Soleils bed cause I didn’t want to go back to my room with the Koreans.
This is Soleil and Dave in our room at the hostel
The next day I got up early, and went exploring Airlie for a bit. Soleil, Sara and two of Soleils friends from Brisbane – Dave and English – all hung out on the beach all day and made necklaces from the cool shells on the beach. That took us pretty much all day. Then we went and checked in, got some beer and boarded the boat.
Once we got on the boat they took all our shoes – supposedly its safer to walk around the boat barefoot. The four of us were the only Americans on the boat. Everyone else was backpackers from several different nationalities, including, Irish, Swedish, British, German, and Dutch. It was so much fun getting to know everyone.
This is Soleil and I at the bow of the boat as we left the marina
We set sail for 2 hours, it was so relaxing and the view of the Whitsundays was beautiful. By the time that we got to the island, it had gotten really cold, so everyone went snorkeling except Sara and I. We decided that since we couldn’t get a nice warm shower after being freezing let alone any shower, we didn’t feel like being cold and wet. Once everyone got back on the boat they had put out some snacks and we all started drinking. We sailed to a different location, then put the anchor down and had dinner. The stars were even more beautiful out in the middle of the islands then they were on the tablelands. After dinner we all played drinking games, talked about each others countries (And no one said ANYTHING bad about America – it was a first since I’ve been here!) After all the games on deck started getting boring, we went down and played some beer pong on the engine, with metal mugs and a plastic bag tied up into a ball. The deck hand and cook played with us. It was soo much fun. But all the sun had worn me out so I was the first one to pass out. It was so much fun to sleep on a sail boat!
This is Soleil and Dave playing some beer pong
This is soleil in our bed - sorry its blurry but thats how big our bed was
This is the sunset off the back of the boat - and the one below it is of Soleil, me and the Captain
The next morning the Captian started the engine at 7am, we had breakfast and were off to White Haven Beach which is an island of very fine, pure white sand – beautiful. It was under protection so you weren’t allowed to take any shells/sand/anything off the island. We played football, hiked up to some lookout and hung out in the water for a few hours.
This is our crew on White Haven Beach
Then we headed back to the boat. We sailed to a different snorkeling spot, and we all went snorkeling again. It was beautiful, Soleil had an underwater camera so I’ll have to get some pictures off her of that.
This is our crew on the deck of the boat
Then we set sail again and Soleil and I put up the little sail that time. When we got to our anchoring point we ate dinner, played mafia and a few other drinking games. I passed out again – first – it was kinda embarrassing.
The engine started at 7am again, then we had breakfast and sailed back to Airlie Beach. It was the most relaxing, beautiful and fun trip I have been on.
When we got back to Airlie, I went back to the hostle and checked in to my room for the next few nights. I was meeting up with a few girls from Townsville, so I got put into their room, and a bunch of our friends from the boat left their stuff in my room cause they were headed to a different town in the evening and had no where to leave there stuff. So it looked like I packed 6 bags all for myself, it was kinda funny. Then we all ate lunch together and returned to the beach to finish our necklaces, and then headed over to the lagoon and played some football in the water.
This is Soleil on the beach searching for shells for our necklaces
Sara and Soleil left for Bundaberg around 5pm and the rest of us went to have a few jugs of beer with the rest of our crew from Apollo. Then we just went out for the rest of the night and had a great time. I went back to the hostel with all the Townsville girls, and I got to sleep in my own bed for the first time the whole trip!
I slept in the next morning, then went to the lagoon and laid out all afternoon. We went out again that night, but had an early night in cause I had booked a scuba diving trip for the next day.
The next morning the people from the Seasations – the scuba diving boat – picked me up and brought me to the marina. We went out to two different dive sites, they gave me all my gear, tanks, lunch and everything for only $100 aussie dollars! It was a great trip. I got to see a giant raiss (I call it a napolean fish) named elvis and a found a nudie branch on my own. It was fun. I met a bunch of people from James Cook University on the boat too. One of the girls actually studies Physical Oceanography, which is something I was interested, so she told me all about her degree and made me even more interested. My buddy was a guy from Perth, he was a really cool guy. So that was a great trip.
I got back to Airlie pretty early, so one of my friends and I went to have a few jugs before everyone else was ready to go out. Two more guys had moved in to our room, they were both Americans so we got to know them and told them to come out with us. I met up with Ryan again (my friend from London), and I also ran into a few people from Lawrenceville while I was out too. Its amazing how small the world is!
But that was my trip. It was a blast, but I was ready to go home.
There's a lot more pictures if you look for Apollo under links to the right
