More Magic in the Whitsundays.

My World for this week, Whitsundays, Australia.

More Magic in the Whitsundays.
The reef Jet Catamaran roared off again around another big island to the next wonderful feature of this trip; the bush walk to the top of Hill Inlet to the lookout viewing point. This time the shore is very rocky so the reef Jet can not go very close in, which means all 68 of us must be transferred to the shore in the inflatable, quite a time consuming job but it was all handled very professionally and we landed each group with a crew member who led us up the bush walk track.

The track started off gently then became much harder, steeper with giant rock steps to negotiate, which us unfit oldies found rather hard on the knees, Daphne found a nice shady seat and said, we were to go on without her she would just rest there and wait for us. So we did leave her and made our way up many more giant rock steps and steep bits, puffing and panting we suddenly arrived at the top and in front of us was the most magnificent view over the Inlet, all snow white sands and azure waters with small boats and people sparkling in the sunshine, a long way down. We and everyone else were enthralled and took lots of photos.

After some time we were amazed to see Daphne come up over the top to join us. A young crew man had stopped with her and encouraged her to give the walk another try, he gave her his arm and at times nearly carried her but he got her up to the top, her enthusiastic thanks and big smile were all the payment he needed, a lovely young man. So all of us were able to get the full enjoyment from this beautiful sight.

Going back down was so much easier, we even looked for the wildlife that was supposed to abound in the area, but the 68 noisy tourist laughing and chatting plus 3 oldies puffing and panting, had driven the wildlife to the ground for the day.

Slowly, we were all transported back to the Reef Jet, but not without incident as the tide had dropped while we were walking and even the inflatable dinghy had a hard job negotiating its way through the rough heads of coral sticking up out of the water and worse the coral just below the surface, the bottom could have been torn out very easily, but all was well and we soon found another cup of coffee awaiting us along with a huge fruit platter with lots of fresh pineapple and many other fruits too.
While we enjoyed all that yummy pineapple the Jet powered its way home around the many Islands of the Whitsunday’s.
I went up to the top deck and chatted with the Captain, who was scouring the horizon with his binoculars for Whales that apparently journey regularly through the Whitsunday Passage, his plan was to take us Whale watching to finish the day. Wow, now that would have been something! But no Whales blew or lifted their tails or what ever Captain was looking for, unfortunately.

I noticed the sun was starting to go down over the island peaks and suggested that maybe we might still be out on the water when the sun actually went down so I could catch some sunset photos. He replied that it could be arranged, and as a driver myself I heard the engine being throttled back to much slower revs, and I knew we would indeed still be out there for the sunset. I gave him my best big smile and raced out onto the front deck to wait for the big moment, several others joined me and we snapped that golden sun all the way down complete with sun path across the calm ocean waters! More magic!
This little slow down did make us very late back into port, but I didn’t hear anyone complain that we had been on board for more than 12 hours!

I captured my favourite sunset picture here at the marina, through the masts of many yachts and a palm tree, looks like a peacock sunset to me!
By the time we had been bussed back to the camping ground we were very tyred but exhilarated as well, not wanting the evening to end we decided we were all too tyred to cook and went out for a takeaway meal, a huge Chicken and plum sauce Pizza with a basket of chips was wolfed down very quickly with a small splash of wine!
What a great day we have all enjoyed, we will sleep well tonight.