Airlie Beach

Having friends come and visit was really exciting for Leah and me.  We are making friends here, but familiar faces are always nice to see.  We booked a trip for the four of us so Dave and Sarah could get to see a bit more of Australia than just Brisbane.

Airlie Beach is about an hour and a half by jet north of Brisbane.  It's the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and from there the Great Barrier Reef.

Hey awkward family photo...

Actually we're looking right at the plane while they unload our bags.  Proserpine airport is the smallest airport I've landed at in a very long time.

The first day was kind of cloudy...

So we found something to occupy our time!

Dave was pretty enthusiastic about trying as many local foods as possible and he put on a bit of an exhibition, that night we found a seafood restaurant and tucked into a big plate of Kilpatrick Oysters, prawns, fish and chips and lots of beer.

Is this picture blurry? or was it just us?

We spent our first night there in a really nice backpacker's hostel thingo.  And by really nice, I mean and absolute dump, not bad for college age students who don't mind sleeping on a plastic covered mattress and can abide the occasional bed bug bite.  We did manage to find a really ratty copy of trivial pursuit with Australian questions.  None of us being native, we passed on a lot of questions.

Check out the fancy digs, is that a bottle of Beam and a box o'wine? Stay classy kids!

Sarah got a little wild with the die rolling.

It was a relatively tame night, and we were all excited to get on the boat in the morning.  We had booked a three day and two night cruise on a catamaran that would take us out to the Whitsunday Islands, about 15 miles off the coast from Airlie Beach.