On March 2nd, exactly one week after our return home from New Zealand, I drove three hours south of Townsville to the Proserpine airport to pick up my sister Meg, who was five days into her three and a half week tour of Australia. It was another half hour drive to our hotel in Airlie Beach, the mainland base for exploring the Whitsunday Islands. While we didn't do any real sightseeing that evening, I did get to introduce Meg to a few things I love about Australia: Tasty cheese and Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc (okay, technically Villa Maria is from New Zealand, but still....). So Tasty cheese, you may not know, is a real type of cheese here. Not a brand, not an adjective to describe the taste, but a legitimate type of cheese. It's like ordering cheddar, Swiss, feta, or Gouda. Well, while Matt and I both found the idea of a type of cheese being named "Tasty" immensely hilarious, we also found the cheese to be really good. So eventually we had to stop making fun of it.
Back at our hotel Meg and I relaxed with our Villa Maria and cheese and caught up on life, and eventually pried ourselves off the couch to go to dinner in town. We both must have been completely exhausted since we fell asleep at 10.
The next morning Meg and I hopped on the Manta Ray for our day cruise around the Whitsundays. It was sweltering, but before long we were at our first stop for a bit of swimming and snorkeling. The reef we stopped at wasn't so great (pretty brown if you ask me), but at the time Meg hadn't seen the reefs up near Cairns and Port Douglas, so she was still relatively impressed.
We had a good couple of hours out at the reef stop and a nice lunch on board the boat before heading to Whitehaven Beach, my favorite spot of the Whitsundays. The gorgeous views, pure white sand, and aqua blue water make it hard for anyone to dislike Whitehaven. Meg loved it, and I was so happy to have another chance to see it again. By the time we got off the cruise back at Airlie Beach, Meg and I were so worn out from the heat and the sun we spent the evening like the last one: relaxing, finishing up the Villa Maria and Tasty cheese, and hitting the hay early.
Our second day in the Whitsundays was spent on a jet ski tour of the most northern of the Whitsunday Islands, Gloucester Island. Both of us had really been looking forward to this part of the trip, since it is supposed to be a great way to see the marine wildlife without the big crowds. It was fun cruising around on the jet ski, but we saw absolutely no animals - not even a turtle, which are supposedly extremely abundant in that area. I'd by lying if I said we weren't both really disappointed. When we got back to our car from the jet ski tour we had just enough time to drive up to Townsville in the remaining daylight. As we pulled into the city the sun began to set and Meg got a great view of the Townsville skyline.
Friday morning Meg and I climbed Castle Hill with Matt before he headed to work. The rest of the day we spent exploring the area around the Strand and the Strand's water park. That night we made cookies and homemade pizzas and later relaxed out on our apartment's porch.
We couldn't let Meg visit Townsville without taking her to Magnetic Island, so Saturday we got up early, caught the ferry to Nelly Bay, and picked up a moke. Matt randomly decided to take a turn down a small road that led to the island's other ferry terminal and there in the rocks were about ten small rock wallabies. Clearly they were used to being fed by tourists, because they weren't the least bit afraid of us as we approached.
We spent about a half hour enamored by them and then took off for the hiking trail, where we managed to spot a wild koala. For lunch we took Meg to Noodie's in Horseshoe Bay, and the rest of the afternoon was spent reading and napping under the palm trees at Horseshoe Bay Beach and Alma Beach. I think Meg was really enjoying all the much needed (and much deserved) relaxation time. That evening we met a few of our friends for dinner and afterwords found the cheapest food item in all of Australia: 50 cent ice creams at Macca's (AKA McDonald's). Arguably, there is nothing cheaper one can buy outside of a grocery store. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that we discovered this so late into our stay here in Townsville.
On Sunday we took Meg up to Paluma with a few of our other friends, Chris, Sara, and Anders. The first part of the day was spent at Little Crystal Creek, the second part at the rock slides nearby.
At 4:30 we raced out of the park to make a mad dash to Frosty Mango, the beloved road side ice cream stand, before it closed. Despite making a wrong turn and having to backtrack, we made it before closing time. Yum! Sunday night Chris, Sara, Anders, and Carina all came over and barbecued with us here at our place. I loved that Meg got to meet our wonderful friends here, since it's such a big part of why we love Townsville so much.
Monday was Meg's last full day in Townsville and I had decided to take her to the Billabong Sanctuary. Anders joined us to surprise his girlfriend Carina, one of the rangers, who happened to be working that day. It was so great to see Carina doing the wildlife shows, including the crocodile show - Carina sure has guts! We also had the opportunity to see a handful of behind the scene things like the baby alligators and the ring tailed possums. But Tuesday came too soon, as that morning I had to say goodbye to Meg as she headed off to Cairns.
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