NORTH QLD ADVENTURE - DAY 31 - BOWEN TO AIRLIE BEACH.

 It was very hard to get motivated this morning.  We are feeling pretty exhausted from five weeks of pretty full on exploring this amazing State.  Fortunately, we only had 70kms to go to our next destination which is Airlie Beach.

We were going to drop by Fay and Chris and say goodbye on our way out but in the end they dropped by to say goodbye to us as they were ready to head out before we were hooked up.  It was nice to get a few photos of us all together before they left.  We have met up three times now since Cairns and have enjoyed each other’s company.

 

 We pulled out of the caravan park at 10.02am and had a good run to Airlie Beach.  Initially we were going to stay at the Discovery Park here as they had a deal, pay for three nights and get four, but even that was dearer than what it would cost us staying at the Island Getaway Caravan Park paying for all nights with our Top Tourist Discount.

So happy we chose this park, it is really lovely, only five minutes from the main centre of Airlie Beach and the Lagoon.

It was a little after 11.30am when we arrived at the park here and it took us almost an hour to set up.  It was then time for a bite to eat before we had a short nanna nap.  We are feeling the heat at the moment which is making us quite tired.

Anyway, we wanted to be out by 3pm at the latest because we wanted to go check out the meeting spot of our Zig Zag Whitsunday adventures for the following day, and just get our bearings for our early morning start.

Once we had located the Marina that we had to meet at, we were then happy to go and see if we could find parking for the car for the day.  Once that was all sorted we headed back into town to find a chemist so that we could purchase some Qwell seasickness tablets.   The weather forecast was for choppy seas with 25knot winds and I just knew with chop like that I would be proned to seasickness. 

Once we purchased the tablets, we had a walk down the main street of Airlie Beach, checking out some of the clothing stores, Steve found Woolies and collected some lime milk.  He has been craving it for a week or more now.  We finished off at Macca’s where we had a chocolate sundae each.  

By now it was after 5pm, so before heading home we decided to take a drive out to Shute Harbour.  Last time we were here (over 20 years ago), Shute Harbour was a thriving spot from which all the cruise and tourist boats departed from.  There is nothing there at the moment.  All the old buildings have been bulldozed and you can see that they are in the stages of construction for a new marina complex there.

 

The harbour is beautiful, a natural deep harbour with lots of scenic little islands.  There are some very expensive homes out there now with commanding views over the islands or the harbour.  You would have to say the views are majestic and it would not be very hard to take such stunning views all day.  The only down side would be in the cyclonic season where you would really be exposed to high winds and driving rain.

By the time we had finished driving around out here it was time to head back to our caravan park and think about getting some dinner.

In the end we had a cold silverside and salad for dinner.  Light, easy and quick but it tasted amazing..

We spent a good part of the evening getting ready for our big adventure in the morning, packing togs, towels, changes of clothes, organising the charging of batteries for our cameras etc.

We were trying to have an early night as we needed to be up by 6am, but somehow it still seemed to be midnight before we finally got to bed.