Honeysuckle Lookout

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

BANG BANG BANG

Manager: Private

Sometimes it gives you a feeling of prestige, but sometimes there's no escape, for example, 5 am this morning.

With bleary eyes I eventually made my way to the door.

"We've got no door".
"What do you mean?

What the girl meant was she had locked herself out, could I come open the door. That's not really the sort of thing you want to hear that early in the morning. Conveniently it was just the room next door, so things weren't too difficult.

After a short attempt at getting back to sleep I decided my attempts would not be worthwhile. I thought it might be the only chance to see the sun rising from the sea on this trip. After walking past some very, very late night revellers and some early starting triathletes, I realised today was not the day for that either and headed inland, navigating my way through the backstreets of Airlie (all three of them) toward the top of the hill. The Great Whitsunday Walk is 28km of trek, taking you to Cedar Creek Falls. I didn't want to do that, but my track, to Honeysuckle Lookout would take me through the last section of that track. The track is barely signposted, which after walking parts of it, I think is so that every backpacker and his dog would try and make the Great Walk after a pint or two too many.

There is actually no mention of the Great Walk up until the turnoff to Honeysuckle Lookout, where it informs you to travel further you need to have a permit. I was surprised by the almost complete lack of signage about the walk, even compared to Mt Rooper which I visited a few weeks ago.

The walk basically switches from time to time between open woodland into rainforest, very similar to where we walked in Paluma, which is between Townsville and Ingham, a little while inland. Here is a photo from Paluma, I didn't take any photos today.


I'm glad I wasn't walking all the way up their to get some sort of panormaic Whitsunday spread, as the view from the lookout was completely shrouded in fog. I could only just slightly make out Abel Point marina, if I looked hard. A sign midway along the track told me I would have a splendid view of the islands, but apparently not today.

I saw two cane toads today. One was right in the middle of path, like a sentry blocking the way. It looked like a rock and I didn't even realise until I was right near it. Cane toads are a terrible pest in the north of Queensland, this was actually the first time I've seen one up close. Soon after one jumped right over my foot. Unfortunately I don't have any cool stories about doing a double-round-the-world with it, then giving it a big boot into the boosh, I simply continued along my way, and hoped I wouldn't see anymore.

Early on I encountered a brush turkey. These animals are around a fair bit in the area, they also look incredibly stupid. I began my day at a running pace, I didn't think the lookout was quite so far, I'd just seen a vague map, and thought it would be a nice run. After a while, the path was getting too slippery and I knew I still had a long way to go, so I slowed to a walk. Before this, I came through a bit of a curvy section, where I first met the turkey. At first it was like he was trying to run out of my way, but then it would stop, then I would almost catch up, it would take off again, almost like it was leading me along some kind of path. I started thinking it was really strange before the turkey veered off down the hill.

On coming back from the walk I had a quick footbag session. Training under fatigue is something that people do to train in a lot of sports, and I was fairly fatigued. Too fatigued it seemed, I had a few runs, with some fun tricks, then just tried to hit a fun sick 3 link-> phoenix>blur>paradon. I hit it on my second try.

On arriving back at the hostel, I went straight into the pool. I achieved another goal I have been reaching for in recent times, swimming 3 laps of the pool underwater. The pool would be less than ten metres long, but it's just a little something I've been aiming for, and now I've done it so I'm pleased with myself.

The photo at the top is from my first couple of days in Airlie Beach, the view from along the track in the woodland sections is quite similar to that, in parts looking further down the coast, then in the other direction at Abel Point and Canonvale. The day I took this photo I got a bit lost looking for the track, I was well off the mark in my search location, but in the early hours of this morning I was right in the money.

Just a few days left before I begin an actual holiday, tomorrow I have the day off work, I'm heading out on a kayak tour, should be awesome. I've been able to do some pretty incredible stuff up here.

Hook Island resort or "Dude, where's my boat"

So over the weekend we went out to Hook Island, the second largest island out of the 74 Whitsunday Islands. We stayed at the Hook Island Resort. As an agent we got to go free of charge, which was pretty sweet.

Now I had heard from a few people that the place is looking a bit worse for wear, and they were definitely on the money. It is really relaxed though, it's a pretty sweet experience to wake up , walk out the door and be on the beach.

Now that view was not quite so pleasant for one fellow earlier that morning, who would have walked out to the beach and said "I swear I parked my boat there, straight out in front". Unfortunately for this guy during the night, some heavy seas had tipped up his boat, and now it was under the sea. Apparently he didn't have insurance, which is something I can't comprehend the stupidity of..."hey, honey check out my boat...no need for insurance, it's unsinkable".



What is meant for us is that when we went snorkelling (all the equipment was provided with the rooms) was that we could snorkel over a brand new shipwreck. The boat was re-floated the next day ($4000 bill heading the owners way) so we got ourselves the only day you will see that boat at the bottom of the sea- for the moment anyway.

Hook Island is a major stopover for a lot of the boats making their way through the islands, so we were lucky to go out at a time when there was noone else around. We went out twice within a short period, the sea was not so calm in the Hook Passage, the second time round the visibility was incredibly low, we could actually only just make out the boat. The coral is quite impressive in that spot, once you swim out through the reeds and mud closer to shore, there is quite an array of fish around, both of us saw quite a big blue fish out there (sorry my tropical fish knowledge is incredibly limited).

Here is a picture of us being incredibly good looking in the stinger suits. It is important to wear these so that box jellyfish don't give you a potentially lethal sting. Unfortunately they don't cover your arms, feet or face and apparently numbers are on the rise.

As it is the wet season at the moment, most of the time we were there the rain was absolutely belting down. This was unfortunate, as it meant we could only get out for short trips around the island. We went around the other side of the hill to Pebble Beach, I saw a small wave breaking, I think it crazy storms this could pick up a proper wave. The Great Barrier Reef blocks most of the swell coming into the Whitsunday region, but there must be some surf around somewhere.

In the evening we played pool against a couple of guys that worked there, and had a fish dinner. I don't normally eat much seafood, but this was freshly caught and cooked by the guy that runs the show on the watersports side of things, I thought I should give it a go, it was quite tasty.

We were in a 6 bed dorm room, but there was no one else in there. As a matter of fact there was barely anyone in the whole place. In the afternoon I had a nap and slept like a baby, even though the mattresses were super thin, this probably affected my evening's sleep as I had a lot of trouble sleeping.

Due to the big swells we weren't able to go back on the resort's own boat, so we had to go on Voyager, and do the entire tour. It was kinda cool because we didn't have to pay to go on the tour, but I had a lot of work to get down and would have preferred a more direct route.

We went to Whitehaven Beach "would you look at this, 98% silica sand, isn't it beautiful"- that's what the tour guides say everyday. We were there for an hour and a half, just chilling on the boat. Lunch was provided before stepping off the boat, it was quite a good spread, cold meats and salads. I'm fairly certain all the boats have almost the exact same lunches, as it was quite similar to the lunch we had on Ocean Rafting.

Speaking of them, we saw our driver from when we went on Ocean Rafting and had a good chat with him. He was a really nice guy. They had one of those soft balls for the beach with them and I did a couple of tricks, not very well, and he was mightily impressed. That is definitely the trip I most recommend, such a fun day out.

The Voyager trip is probably not so much for me. Being up in the big boat felt pretty similar to being in a bus, you're quite a long way up from the water. After passing by Hamilton Island and Long Island we had one more stop at Daydream Island. Now I know my daydreams don't involve screaming children and horrendously fat people waddling around a pool, but that's what's there. We ended up playing chess on one of those giant chessboards. I was on the attack, ready for victory, but made a stupid error and that was check, mate. I would have to say Daydream Island is a nightmare of a place and I hope never to go there again.

Getting to Airlie Beach was quite a relief, it was nice to have the bus take us directly back to the hostel. I was sunburnt, quite tired, and I decided that big pile of paperwork could wait until the next day.

I haven't made a post in a while. Christmas has been and gone. I was up early Christmas morning, not as most children were, opening up gifts, but opening up the doors here at the hostel. Dominos provided my Christmas lunch. I had a call from my parents in the morning, this was the first Christmas I've spent away from the family.

Sarah arrived for the afternoon shift, leftovers of here Christmas lunch on a plate. Her Christmas lunch was eaten in the car on the way to work. It was definitely a whole different vibe for Christmas this year.

That paints a pretty grim Christmas Carol, but things definitely improved when Francisca arrived in the evening. We went over to Sarah's place, they had a gathering there of a bunch of people, many who were a long way from home.

On Sunday we went Ocean Rafting again. Once again we were greeted with perfect weather and a humorous commentary on the way out. The view from the Hill Inlet lookout was looking even better this time. We snorkelled in two spots, in Wrass Bay- this was different from my previous visit. We also returned to Mantaray Bay, but the visibility was not as good as my previous visit.

I have booked a stay at the Hook Island resort for the week after next, I am keen to check out some more spots around the island. We are also going to head up a bit further north while Francisca is still around.

I got some good news today, a permanent manager has been found for the hostel here. This means there will be something still around once I'm gone. It also means that hopefully I won't be logging any more 94 hour fortnights. It's going to mean a lot less stress for me, which is something I am definitely excited about.