There's so much to report from our vacation last week that I'm just going to post about one day at a time to keep it simple. So, last Sunday we set out for our long-awaited trip to Airlie Beach. For those that don't know, Airlie Beach is a small beach town that serves primarily as a port for trips to the surrounding Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. 

Here's a map I pulled from Google images. The Whitsunday Islands are between the mainland and the Great Barrier Reef.

Source

It wasn't too hard to leave Melbourne behind on Sunday morning, as it was really grey and rainy, a theme around here lately.

Perks of flying Tiger: walking ten thousand (not always covered) miles to the plane. 

The flight was uneventful and we landed in 85 degree weather three hours later. We flew into Mackay, a city about 2 hours south of Airlie Beach. There are closer airports, but we got a really good deal on the Tiger flights and in an effort to be the least convenient airline in history, they only fly into Mackay. So, we hopped on the transfer bus for a relatively painless two hour trip up to Airlie Beach. 

We checked into the Airlie Beach Hotel around mid-afternoon and were pleasantly surprised with our room, aside from the pea green carpet and curtains. We got a good deal-beggars can't be choosers, right? 

We were pretty starving at this point, so we hit the main drag for some fish and chips. The city of Airlie Beach is tiny and consists primarily of hotels and restaurants. Like I mentioned, people just eat and sleep on the mainland and spend the bulk of their days island hopping.

Cute little block of restaurants just outside our hotel across from the beach.

We walked around the town for a bit, picked up some groceries for our room, and then headed down to check out the beach. 

Peter waded in and spotted a few crabs and a stingray! 

Paradise! 

We fit in a quick nap before venturing out for dinner at one of the restaurants connected to our hotel.  

There were tons of these cute little guys all over! 

Stay tuned for a recap of our Monday activity: an epic jet ski tour to Daydream Island complete with a video of me threatening to kill Peter if I fell off while he was driving. Good times.