Whitehaven Beach

Early start this morning so had to be organised to fit in breakfast before we had to meet our tour down at the marina by 7:45.

For those of you who have followed my blog from the start, you may recall a deflating moment for me when we were on a bus in Santorini and a young woman insisted I take her seat because she was young, so therefore I must be old. Well...guess who got offered seat by a young woman today? No, not me...Terry! I sat there smiling to myself as he refused to take it wondering how funny it was when it happened to him. I'd like to point out I was far more gracious than him because I did not laugh at him for the next two hours. Well it pays to be patient because now I can have my revenge and share it all with you instead.

Enough teasing this is meant to be about Whitehaven Beach. We met Rylan at the Marina, picked up a cup of coffee and we were on our way. The trip out there was quite rough and at times it felt a bit like being on a roller coaster.  Luckily none of us are affected by sea sickness. The trip took about 45 minutes as we took the most direct route to the beach.

Arrival at the beach did not disappoint. The beach is spectacular and even whiter than you expect.  As you step onto the dry sand it is warm and soft and feels lovely under your feet. We decided to go for a walk down the beach away from the crowd.  We would have loved to be able to go to Hill Inlet lookout but we didn't have time. We walked about halfway along the beach to find our spot for the morning.

As we walked along the beach we came across the teepees. Must have taken the builders a fair bit of time to build them. They look quite out of place along ghe pristine shoreline. The bush behind is protected forest and you are asked not to in and disturb the natural habitat.  Not sure these people took notice of that. 

The bush is quite thick and I don't think I would want to go in there anyway. Who know what delights you would come across. Rylan told us during his induction they were told to watch out for snakes and huge bird eating spiders. I figure if they are on one island, they'll be on all the islands.  I did go to the edge and peek in though.

It was lovely sitting on the beach in the warm soft watching boats come and go and the odd seaplane come in for landing. You would think that the planes would disturb the serenity of the place but for me it just added interest. Terry went in for a swim but it was nowhere near warm enough for me.

Rylan and I reverted to our childhood and decided to make a sandcastle. With limited resources we had to improvise and used the plastic packaging of Rylan's new camera. As you can see we favoured a minimalist design. Simple and undertstated.

Rylan decided to revert further into his childhood and kicked them down. Boys!

Everywhere you look up or down the beach is beautiful and it was surprisingly easy to spend the morning there just relaxing on the beach. 

After a few hours it was time to head back but this time we took the long way via Daydream island. Again the views were spectalular. It was suprising how many boats there were sailing around islands. The smaller ones would have a hard time in the choppy conditions.

Our trip back was eventful. As we passed this island we headed for more open water and the waves started toss us around again. We were advised to sit away from the side and back of the boat. I decided to move to the isle seat three rows back from the cabin and thought this would be far enough in. It was for most of the time because you could see the spray coming and lean away from it, but occasionally I couldn't lean far enough. I was offerred another seat but was more worried about losing my balance while I was changing seats than I was about getting wet. The bonus of staying up on the upper deck is that we got a glimps of a whale. It was a fair distance from us but pretty exciting to see it. I thought I spotted another one a few minute later but only saw it very briefly so maybe it as my imagination. 

We had a jetski tour planned for the afternoon but due the choppy conditions it was cancelled. The operator told us that if we went out in those conditions we wouldn't be able to walk the next day as all our muscles would be so sore. It worked out well as we were all pretty tired and happy to go back to our room for a rest before we went to dinner.

Rylan booked a table for us at Romanos (the restaurant where he works). We met lots of the staff Rylan works with and they were so friendly they made us feel like we had known them forever. The food was beautiful and the service was fantastic. Jess, who served us and is one of Rylan's good mates, was brilliant despite the constant banter she recieved from the table. When they brought the dessert out they had decorated the serving plate with a birthday message for Rylan a sang him "Happy Birthday" much to his embarrassment. We had a great night and it was lovely to get to know the friends Rylan has made. I can see why he likes them.