Hamburger Monkey Pants: I Travel Occasionally : The Heart of the Reef & Paradise Cove

My mom texted me the other day and said, "I didn't know you were going to the Great Barrier Reef." I replied to her saying that the GBR was close, but I was technically at a different reef. In my brief preparation for my stay in the Whitsundays I read a quick blurb on the internet about how I was near Hardy Reef, not the GBR, and then I moved on. Here's something to know about me - I hate planning. I hate doing research. I don't want to learn about where I'm going. All I want to know before hand is what I need to do to be safe. Other than that, I just want to go there and learn from locals. I'd rather talk to someone than sit in my apartment reading the Internet or a travel book. I feel like some of the magic of the unveiling of this new-to-me location is minimized if I know about it and have already seen a lot of pictures. The flip side to preserving this magic is that, frankly, I can be quite ignorant about where I am and I can miss out on amazing opportunities. Several years ago when I went to South America with Melissa I was quite thankful she was more of a researcher and planner because there were several experiences that would have been unavailable to us because they required reservations far in advance, like our hike up and down Huayna Picchu (you can check out her go pro video here where at times you can hear me repeating the mantra "people do this every day, people do this every day, people do this every day...").

So... yesterday my plan was to lay by the lagoon and not do much of anything else. It was supposed to rain a little bit in the morning, but then clear up. It did just that, but then it started raining again in the early afternoon - down pouring, in fact. I decided to eat some lunch and get my nails done while it rained. In a small beach town there isn't much else to do while it rains. No complaints, though - I'm happy for Australia to get rain! Plus, my feelings about rain are quite different now because I'm not on vacation and hyper aware that I only get "x" more days of sunshine. Had I done research I might have also learned that I am visiting the Whitsundays in the rainy season. Who knew? To be fair, I did check the weather trends for this area before I booked my trip and even thought it's the rainy season it is warm and sunny most of the time. Anyway, I'm a little off track here. While I was getting my nails done I was speaking with the the two lovely ladies working in the shop and they looked at me like I was mad crazy when I said something about missing the GBR. They were astounded that I didn't know that Airlie Beach is called the Heart of the Reef. This is because there's a massive coral reef in the shape of the heart in the area, not necessarily because it's the central or middle part of the reef. You can read a little more about it here if you'd like. I have not seen the heart myself because you have to access it by helicopter or seaplane. After more than 30 hours of travel a week ago I have very little desire to get back into a plane right now. I'm also 99% sure a helicopter ride would make me yack. As if I needed another reason, the stories of the helicopter crashes in Hawaii don't exactly get me interested.

Most people who are interested in going to the GBR do it by going up to Cairns, a town about a 7.5 hour drive north of here. I think that if you access it from Cairns there are more opportunities to see more vibrant coral and possibly more diverse marine life. Let's be real - I haven't researched it so I only know a tiny bit of information from the snippets I've heard from other travelers. I feel pretty stupid for not putting two and two together and realizing that the GBR is practically right outside my window, but the more I think about it the more I realized that there have been a lot of advertisements for opportunities to see "the reef" and marine life, but very little referring to it as the GRB here. And then add in the fact that there are sections of the reef named different things... I won't belabor the point any further. What is pretty cool is that I actually did see part of the GBR on a snorkeling trip I booked the other day.

The Whitsundays is a beautiful region and also totally not what I expected. I mentioned in my last post that there is very little beach access despite it being a beach town. It's more of a hub to the destinations than the actual destination itself. If you get in the water here you have to make a decision of whether you're going to risk getting stung by a jelly fish or wear a stinger suit. This is why I end up at the lagoon most days. I don't really want to have to buy or rent a stinger suit and I'm not too keen on getting stung, so I might as well just swim in the man-made lagoon and look out into the ocean. I'm a liiiiiittle disappointed that I'm not actually in the ocean every day, but it's not the end of the world. Because it's the hub to the popular destinations I decided to book one excursion while I am here and then also a trip to a sanctuary to see some crocodiles, kangaroos, koalas, and wombat.

I went into a shop for Red Cat Adventures to book a day trip that involved snorkeling, lunch, and a trip to Whitehaven beach. If you were to do a Google image search for the Whitsundays the bulk of the pictures would be from Whitehaven beach. Again, if I did a little research I would have learned that Airlie Beach, the main beach town where I'm staying, does not look like Whitehaven beach. I thought the entire area looked like that before my arrival. It was a little disappointing to find out that I had a totally false image in my head, but that's absolutely my fault for not doing better research. So, anyway, I went in to book the trip and was presented with the opportunity to do an overnight trip to Paradise Cove that included the snorkeling and trip to Whitehaven, but also included an overnight stay at this amazing resort - all for the same price. I hesitated for a moment, then the saleswoman told me that they were looking to fill the trip because there were too many people who were requesting the day trip and not enough interested in going on the overnight trip. It seemed to me that they wanted to provide people with the day trip components, but they also need people to go online and do TripAdvisor and Facebook reviews of the overnight experience to drive more business. I accepted the offer for the next day.

It was a lovely experience! First off, I met some great people. I've been surprised how many Irish people I have met. Two of the four couples I spent most of my time with on this excursion were Irish, as was one of the women who did my nails yesterday and a man I met in a pub a few afternoons ago. The other couples were British and American. They were all lovely. It always amazes me how easy it can be to make new friends while traveling. We all set off around 1:30 PM for about a 45-minute boat ride to our snorkeling location. We left about an hour late because the gear box on the boat apparently broke right as they were last bringing the boat into the marina. My thought was, "Take all the time you need, gents." I didn't particularly care about leaving late, as long as our boat was in proper working condition. After it was fixed, we were off!

We snorkeled for about 30-45 minutes. Generally speaking, I like to snorkel, but after about 10 minutes I become a bit bored with it. This was a positive experience for me in that I didn't tap out until right about when our guide was asking everyone to get back in the boat. I got to see several different kinds of fish, some the size of sardines and some as big as my entire torso, if not larger. I have no clue what any of them were called, but there were a lot and they were swimming all around us. We also saw a jellyfish right before we got in the water, but none of them bothered us. Our guide took a few pictures, including some under water, but didn't tell any of us how to get those pictures later. If I'm able to get them later I will make sure to post them. Here are a few of me in my stinger suit and jumping off the front of the boat.

After we finished snorkeling we took about an hour boat ride to the resort.

The resort was located on the main land, but it's tucked into a cove that makes you feel like you're on a private island. The story was a bit unclear, but it seems that a millionaire, who maybe owned a telecommunications company at some point, built the resort for himself and put it in his wife's name before declaring bankruptcy. I guess she still owns the resort and the tourism companies rent it out from him. He reserves the right to book out time on the calendar for his own use, but it's often host to guests. A similar version of this story was told over and over, depending on who we asked. No one seemed to have the exact version of the story.

When we arrived there were all sorts of snacks laid out of us, which we devoured.

The view from the main house was absolutely amazing.

I didn't take any good video or pictures of our bunk house, but it's safe to describe it as "glamping". I stayed in a shared room with three sets of bunk beds, a private toilet, a sink, and air conditioning. The air conditioning was pretty amazing for me because my Airbnb in Jubilee Pocket does not have it. The cabins have broad beautiful porches, but I didn't spend much time there because we were warned that our cabin was in a "high snake" area. I wasn't took keen on looking for any or giving myself the opportunity to come into contact with them by chance.

We saw a bunch of other wild life like turtles, a bird that looked like some sort of wild turkey or peacock, and what many of us believed to be a dingo. One of the American guys who lived in Australia for a while said that many people refer to any feral dog as a dingo, so I don't know if we actually saw one, but that's what people were calling it.

After getting situated I went swimming in the pool for a little while, screwed around in the outdoor shower that had lovely hot water, and then took a real shower in the outdoor showers by our rooms (looking out for snakes the entire time). After that, we ate dinner - a lovely chicken curry and rice prepared by our skipper. We all hung out for a bit and then hit the hay for the night.

The next morning we all packed up and headed to Whitehaven beach. The boat ride took about an hour and then we had around two hours on the beach. The beach is full of beautiful white sand that doesn't get hot and most of the water is quite shallow. There's no doubt that it was gorgeous, but I have to say that I was a little underwhelmed. I feel like a snob saying that, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if it were a beach I could waste the day on, as opposed to a beach I had that experience within a specific time frame. I have been spoiled by all of the amazing beaches I've been able to experience in Turks & Caicos, Vietnam, etc.