Oli Reveals: XV (15)
Another instllment of Oli’s round-the-world emails:
Hi friends & family, number 15….hope it’s good reading….
If you lot ever read much into Oz, or even heard tales from other people,
you’ll no doubt be aware of the Whitesunday islands found in the Great
Barrier Reef National Park. It should conjure up images of blissfully
desolate islands, crystal-clear aquamarine waters, blistering sunshine and
basically the essential ingredients of those postcards you see. Well, you
can scatch those images, I boarded a Catamaran “Pacific Star” knowing full
well that we were gonna sail straight into an offshore thunderstorm, how
pleasant. Wrenched my guts up as soon as we hit the open sea and received
some mercy in the form of sleep (although I can imagine a phone booth having
more space than my cabin…sardines anyone?). Basically spent 3 full days
cruising the islands, swimming in the turqoise waters of Whitehaven beach
(also seeing rays!), walking through a rainforest just wearing a pair of
boardshorts, scuba diving & snorkelling on some island reefs and enjoying
the limited bursts of sunshine being on the upper deck of our vessel
munching great food and more tea. The highlights of the cruise were a)
snorkelling for 2-3 hours straight on an offshore reef, duck diving with 5
sea turtles and trying to hold on to them as they powered through the water
column. They were so cute and sedate, they hardly reacted to my touch!! b)
Scuba diving at night and seeing a fully-grown white-tip reef shark plough
right through the middle of our dive group out of the darkess. Saw some
cool-coloured shrimps and cuttlefish too- one of them inked me!!!After 3 nights on my watery home, I headed further up the coast and caught a
ferry to the small volcanic “Magnetic Island”. Only 8km long, this place
was so quiet compared with the rest of Ozzy’s east coast, a nice retreat
from the crowds!! Met up with my Brazilian friends and hired another 4×4
(not pink though), and explored the whole road network of the island,
unsealed and sealed, blessed with much-needed sunshine. Found some great
desolate beaches/ coves to walk and snorkel, as well as feeding Wallabies.
The water was so warm here and on the Whitesunday’s…29oC!! Saw some nice
reef fish here too, but the visability was quite poor, due to all of the
rain the region had received. After Magnetic, I headed back to the mainland
and spent a night in the port of Townsville before moving north to the small
but nice “Mission Beach”- expansive palm tree-backed beach :) Found a great
backpacker place there, with a swimming pool and BBQ, so put both to use to
cap off my east coast run. My final night in Australia was spent in the
humid tourist-riddled town of Cairns. Didn’t do any more scuba diving here,
as I screwed my budget big time, so just explored the town.Now in the sqeaky clean and efficient city of Singapore, staying with my
uncle and his family. Explored the colonial distict today, echoing the
distinct British influence over the city and even managing a coffee in the
world-famous Raffles Hotel. It’s really humid here, but I sadly wasn’t
expecting anything less…I just hope I can aclimatise asap.Hope that a few of you guys and girls received one of the many letters that
I’ve been writing so far, email with you address if you haven’t!! My
writing is crap, so those that haven’t had any air mail through the post
aren’t missing much!!Let’s see what happens next…..
Cheers & miss you all!
Oli