Whitehaven Beach - Whitsunday Islands

Magnetic Islands was an excellent getaway, but now Gin & I were ready to get to Airlie Beach (jump off point to the Whitsunday Islands).

Since we had gone for diving at the great barrier reef and had did the live aboard with Taka Dive, we did not have any further intensions on getting on another boat. Sailing in the Whitsunday Islands seemed to be the most common thing all tourist did. Gin & I certainly were tired of being on the silly tourist track and wanted to do something different. We decided to do camping at the Whitehaven beach on the Whitsunday. Since I have virtually no real experience with camping and Gin only remembers her camping experiences from her childhood, we decided to do camping for only 3 days. Fortunately our travel agent got us everything we needed in order to camp at the Whitehaven beach.

We hopped on a barge (a small boat) with all our camping gear and all excited to check out the famous Whitehaven beach. It was almost a 2 hour ride to the Whitehaven beach. The captain of the boat told us to look around for humpback whales since it was that time of the year. Unfortunately, we didn't see any whales.

Once we arrived at the Whiteheaven beach, it was full of daytrippers. I could not believe how many people were around the beach area. Gin & I get an awesome spot to camp on the beach about 50 feet away from the water. Besides a German couple, there was no one around camping at the Whitehaven beach. Once we setup the tent, we were both ready for a nap, especially since there were so many daytrippers at the beach. Being a weekend made it a lot worse and to make matters worse, it was school holidays. So needless to say, everyone wanted to have a piece of "heaven", Whitehaven beach was the answer.

Luckily by the time we woke up from our nap (around 4pm), all the day trippers were leaving and most of them were gone. The entire Whitehaven beach was almost deserted. Now we realized why everyone wanted to be at the Whitehaven beach. It was absolutely gorgeous. The white silica sand and the crystal clear turquoise colored water was absolutely breathtaking. Gin & I laid there watching the sun go down and listening to the sounds of the waves. It was almost a reminder of our little beach resort in Fiji with the beach front bungalow. It was prestine nonetheless.

We hung out until the sun went down and we soon realized that we were being eaten alive by the sandflies. Neither one of us had any experience with sandflies, but boy it was a very itchy experience. We had no idea how many places we were bitten by the sandflies until we started scratching everywhere. I ran back to the tent and grabbed our all-natural-insect-repellent. At this stage it was only damage control. We were informed about the sandfly problem before we left for the Whiteheaven beach, but we had no clue it was that bad. Luckily a woman at the pharmacy told us to buy something for afterbite and boy I'm glad we listened to her. It made a huge difference between a night of scratching vs a night of relatively less scratchy sleep.

Since we watched the sun go down, by the time we got to making dinner it was getting really dark. We had no lantern or substantial light around to cook dinner so we had to use our flash lights. Luckily the camping gear included a flash light, but unluckily it didn't include a lantern. Under these circumstances you have to start improvising and start making mental notes for the following days we had left. We managed to cook some gluten free pasta and it was delicious. The camping gear included everything but food, so we had to buy our own food. We had brought so much food from the supermarket that we could've camped there for a week. So running out of food wasn't a concern at all. We watched the beautiful starry sky and then decided to hangout inside the tent since we were getting bitten left & right. Gin taught me how to play blackjack and I taught her the Indian version of "Rummy" before we scratched ourselves to sleep.

We woke up early the next morning to the sounds of singing birds and the waves. All I had to do was open the tent "door" to get a beautiful view of the beach. Since it was monday and early morning, we had plenty of time to have the entire beach by ourselves before the daytrippers would arrive. We took full advantage of that and took several snaps of the beach and laid around the beach.

Unfortunately, the daytrippers started arriving after a couple of hours in the morning and soon the beach was starting to get crowded. It didn't matter to us since we already had our spot in front of the beach in between our tent and the ocean. Soon it was lunch time, but the stove wasn't having it. It would not ignite and we had no matches or a lighter to ignite the stove. Fortunately, the "scamper" barge that brought us there the previous day arrived there again and we informed the guy (Wayne) about our stove situation. He told us that he'd come back with another stove since he had more people to bring to the island. Unforunately, it brought a big group of people with kayaks to stay at the camp site before they would head out with their kayaks in a couple of days. There was no Whitehaven beach to ourselves. We had to share!

The couple in charge of the kayaking group (Aussie Sea Kayaking, http://www.ausseakayaking.com), Mark & Jo, were the only people we were sharing our camp site with. The rest of the group stayed at a different site. While they were still bringing their stuff from the beach to the camp site, Mark yelled out "Whales!" and told everyone to come quickly. It was the first time we saw whales. Without Mark & Jo being around, we wouldn't have seen them. Later we borrowed some match sticks from them to cook breakfast. Thanks to Mark & Jo we were able to cook our breakfast. As the day progressed, we had to bum a few more things from them besides just the match sticks. As if that wasn't enough generousity, they invited us to stay with them on our way from Whitsunday Islands to Brisbane. We told them we'd take them up on that and they were happy to hear that. It was fun chatting & hanging out with them.

Gin & I went back to our spot on the beach and continued reading our book. I can't believe that I'm still lugging around Shantaram which I started reading 3 years ago and still haven't finished. It has traveled with me to many countries in the hope of being read by me. I have a feeling that I will finish the book in India since the book started in Australia and ends in India it would be very appropriate.

In the evening Mark invited us to join them for a hike to a lookout. They had never done it before, but we were glad to join them. There were beautiful views from the lookout. We hung out there for some time, took some snaps and relaxed. It was a fun short hike.

After the hike, Gin & I cooked and ate dinner. We hung out on the beach looking at the stars and talking about life. I always wonder why we don't make time to do these things back home. Gin had a very good answer to that: "We get too caught up in our daily routine and don't enjoy life." I think it was very well put. Anyways, it was a beautiful starry night and we hadn't had any care in the world. We made a promise to ourselves to enjoy more of life when we return to USA.

Soon we went back to the tent, played cards again and then called it a night. We were contemplating making this camping trip for 5 nights instead of 3. But we were happy with our time spent at the Whitehaven beach and I had my first camping experience here.

Next morning, after eating breakfast, we laid on the beach again reading our books. I decided to go snorkeling and Gin opted out. I put on my stinger suit and went out in the water. We did know that Whitehaven wasn't known for snorkeling, but I wanted to check it out anyways. What you know, they were right. There wasn't much there for snorklers. However, I did get bit by something and I asked Jo what it could've been and she said it probably was a water lice. Soon the day trippers starting arriving, but there weren't quite as many as there were on the first day. The reason we think is because the school holidays were over and it wasn't a weekend.

It was our last day before heading back to Airlie beach. We were told that the scamper would come pick us up anytime from late morning to late afternoon. So we had to stick around the campsite waiting for Wayne to pick us up. While we were waiting for scamper to pick us up, we met a school teacher from Melbourne. His name was Ian. He was informed that they'd come anytime from midmorning to late afternoon, so he was packed and ready to go. We ended up chatting with him until late afternoon when the scamper arrived to pick us up. In the mean time, Ian shared his vegemite with us and after trying it twice, I had to spit it out. He ate crackers and vegemite for lunch. I was impressed by that (also a bit disgusted but that was because I didn't like vegemite). No offence to Aussies, vegemite is NASTY!

When Wayne, the scamper captain, arrived, he informed everyone that came with him for any tour or camping that there was a storm apporaching and it was best that everyone went back. He made no promises of returning to pickup anyone in the middle of the storm. Everyone that was camping was smart enough to leave. It took a lot a longer before we left Whitehaven beach because people that were camping there for more nights had to pick everything up unannounced. We had to do the same with other campers all around the Whitsunday Islands. The process took so long that by the time we arrived at the Airlie beach it was already pitch dark and the last shuttle bus to Airlie beach from the harbor had left 20 minutes before. Thanks to Ian, who was heading back to Airlie beach as well, who picked up the taxi tab. We had left all our luggage with our tour agent and they were already closed. This meant that we'd have to stay an extra night at the Airlie beach instead of heading down to 1770/Agnes Waters. So we hungout with Ian. He introduced us to his buddy Stefan. Both of them had brought students with them from Melbourne University. Stefan is a firefighter in Melbourne and both Ian & Stefan bring college students during their 2 weeks vacation from Melbourne University. It was fun hanging out with them and we decided to meet up again in Melbourne before or after doing the great ocean road trip.

Overall, I was very happy with our decision to camp at the Whitehaven beach instead of falling into the tourist trap of sailing the Whitesunday Islands. It was my first camping experience and I loved every bit of it (maybe not the part with the sandflies). It was also really fun meeting Mark & Jo and hanging out with Ian & Stefan. We look forward to staying with Mark & Jo and hangingout again with Ian & Stefan in Melbourne.