Frantic Trip

Sammy and Phil have vanished to warmer climes in Noosa, and Sharon had previously agreed we would meet them at the end of their holiday for a 4 day trip further North. This was utilising the Melbourne Cup public holiday to give us a 4 day weekend.

5am Saturday morning we're up, off to Melbourne airport, get on a 2 hour flight to Brisbane, meet Phil and Sam at the aiport, get on a 1.5 hour flight to Mackay, get the hire car and drive 2 hours North to Airlie Beach. Phew!! We were there by about 2pm. Phil was still coming to terms with the scale of this country and originally looking at the map thought he would drive from Noosa to Airlie - but that was 1,000km!

Airlie itself was a little like Cairns and clearly was a bit of a backpacker town. We were taken a little aback by this as we thought as the gateway to the Whitsundays it would be a little more upmarket.

We found the hotel, had a good run at the hill and booked in. The hill comment comes from the fact that the hotel is very new, and has been built into a steep hillside behind Airlie, looking over the bay. I'd swear the car was going to tilt over backwards as we climbed a couple of hills. Although the road continues on up the hill above the hotel, the development has stopped. It turned out no firetrucks could make it up the hill and planning permission was pulled.

The hotel suite was great and normally more than we could afford. However we got a discount as it was a new build, presumably to cover any snagging problems. The only problems we had were the crane, and half built hotel and marina down the by the beach.

We went into Airlie and planned the manic next 3 days.