road trippin': to airlie beach

Arriving at Airlie just as the sun is setting.

After waking up to a beautiful scene of the wide beach, blue water, with the sun just rising, we had some breakfast, packed our stuff up and went exploring around Inskip point for a little bit.

Then we made our way to our next rest stop, Gladstone, where we would be staying at Shane's cousin's place for the night to break up the long drive to Whitsunday Islands. The next morning were on our way, for a day of driving... a 7 hour drive to Airlie... a bit tiring but we got to Airlie just as the sun was setting and saw a really pretty landscape of the boats and their silhouettes on the water. Airlie Beach is located in the famous Whitsunday region. We were hoping to get there a bit earlier because we didn't want to try and find a camp spot and set up in the dark and so we went to the first caravan park that we saw. It was pretty well booked up except for one spot which was a spot meant for a caravan, so it was kind of crappy but we made due. Set up camp, made dinner then went for a cruise down to the main strip and strolled around to a couple of bars to have a drink.

The long, 7 hour drive from Gladstone to Airlie

On the way to Airlie, Shane being a creep with his moustache

Airlie's main strip

Drinks at Magnums and yes I had to be seen with this guy and his moustache lol.

We woke up to a nearly deflated air mattress (which was later fixed-ish), so that means there was hole in it from when we were setting up in the dark. Anyways, we took down our tent to try and find a better camp spot. I'm not sure how many times we had to take down and set up our tent during our road trip but I'm pretty sure we had our system down packed for a fast set up! So we and found Island Getaway Holiday Park for a good price and a much better camp spot. We expected the weather to be really warm and sunny, but unfortunately for us, it was really windy, and rainy so we had to extend a couple days at Airlie because we wanted to do a sailing trip and go to the Great Barrier Reef and had to wait for the winds to calm down.

After setting up our tent, the weather held up so we had lunch by the bay overlooking the water and the sailboats, which was really nice. Then we soaked up some sun (tried to, clouds started to roll in) at Airlie Beach Lagoon which overlooks the bay. It's a man-made lagoon that provides a saltwater, swimming environment that is completely safe from stingers (jellyfish, which are abundant in the summer) all year round.

Lunch by the water, great view

Airlie Beach Lagoon

Airlie Beach Lagoon

Soaking in some sun by the lagoon