Agnes Water/1770 & Rainbow Beach

After our trip to the Whitsunday Islands we caught the 11:45pm Greyhound south for ten hours to Agnes Water/1770. Agnes Water and Seventeen Seventy are two very small towns that have become a spot for tourists to break up the long distance between Fraser Island and the Whitsundays. Seventeen Seventy is a such a small town that it has sixty permanent residents and no shops, although Agnes Water just down the road has a couple of thousand residents, a couple of shops and cafes and one pub.

Apparently the reason Seveteen Seventy is called that is because it was the year that James Cook discovered the area. Up until only nine years ago post was sent by the locals pinning their letters to a mango tree and to which the post man would pin their post back. It won't ever expand to more than its 60 residents as it is totally surrounded by national park.

There was very little to do in the town so a day here would have sufficed. The main attraction is a trip called 'Scooteroo' where a group of you ride small chopper style bikes around the area, although the tour didn't take place either day because of the rain!

Yesterday morning we got the 6:30am Greyhound south to Rainbow Beach, which is one of the main areas to access Fraser Island, along with Hervey Bay. The trips to Fraser Island have been really busy so we will have to wait an extra day before we can go.

We met a guy called Peter on the Greyhound from Airlie to Agnes Water and have travelled further south to Rainbow Beach with him. It turns out he was even staying in the same hostel as us in Cairns - we just didn't know it. He's been pretty good at organising the trip to Fraser that we left him to it and we're now all going together. It's nice to meet someone that I have so much in common with, he works for Mercedes Benz... I don't think it will be long before Izzy gets bored with all the car talk.

This afternoon we borrowed some body boards from our hostel and went in the sea. The waves and the current were crazy, it was literally 2 steps forward 3 steps back when trying to make your way out deeper. Anyway we had a good time, caught some good waves and had quite a work out at the same time. Izzy braved the wind and spray to take some photos of us too...

Rainbow Beach

Whitsunday Islands

Yesterday we had an early start to the day... getting packed, checked out of our hotel, store our luggage and then be collected for our tour of the Whitsunday Islands, all before 8am. We took the Whitehaven Xpress boat, which I had been on when I visted Airlie 3 or 4 years ago. I knew the day wouldn't consist of purely snorkelling, and would give us the opportunity to see Whitehaven beach. They started by taking us to Whitehaven Beach to chill out for a few hours on the beach before cooking us a 'traditional barbee' of steaks, chilli burgers and sausages (Whitehaven Xpress is the only tour company that are authorised to cook a BBQ on the beach!). The boat moored about 75 metres off the beach, and we could either hop on a smaller boat to be taken ashore, or we could hire stinger suits (to protect you from deadly jellyfish in the area) and swim. Izzy kindly took my bag in the boat, and I went on the roof of the boat to jump in and swim to shore. It was quite tiring work in a saggy stinger suit with no flippers!

Whitehaven Beach has pure white sand which is made up of 95% silica. It is so fine it is almost impossible to get off your body like normal beach sand, and it squeaks as you walk across it. Unfortunately the beach had a lot of natural debris on it that had been left from cyclone Yasi, but it was still very beautiful.

Next stop, the Hill Inlet Lookout. The boat moored up 75 metres or so off the beach again to take us to shore on the dinghy, where we could take a short walk through some rainforest to an amazing lookout over the clear waters.

Finally, we carried on further north to Rass Bay (named after the many Maori Rass that are seen in this bay). Back on with the stinger suits and back in the water, this time with flippers and a snorkel mask. Annoyingly on this trip, every time I go snorkelling my mask lets water in! Having a hairy upper lip stops the mask from creating a proper seal. It makes snorkelling quite difficult, especially while trying to take photos because I have to try and hold my mask tight to my face with one hand, hold my camera with the other and then I'm starting to run out of limbs to balance. The simple answer would have been to either have a shave, or as I found out after snorkelling put vaseline on my face to help create the seal.

It's just my luck that because I was worried about jellyfish I would see several! I jumped off the back of the boat and started swimming towards the reef, as I got closer I looked down at my hand to see what looked like lots of saliva on my palm. I paused for a few seconds to figure out what it was because I didn't think I had spit in the water. When I had stopped moving it started to swim and that's when I realised it was a jellyfish! Apparently it was harmless but still, I didn't like being anywhere near it!

Last night we took the 11:45pm Greyhound down to Agnes Water, which took 10 hours! It was pretty uncomfortable, as the chairs hardly reclined, the only saving grace was that some seats were free so you could lay across two of them. Agnes Water and 1770 are two very small towns (1770 only has 60 permenant inhabitants), but it's a good stopping point for a break between Airlie Beach and Fraser Island.