Our GO-MAD Oz Adventure: Day 199

14 August 2013

Alarm goes off at 5.30 and I am up and excited! Joel is not so enthusiastic but he will come around in time...probably when the sun comes up!

Run around all morning getting ready for our tour! Pick up and drop off from your accommodation is included in the tour price so thought we may as well take advantage and also Shute Harbour charges you to park in their carpark so take the bus if you can.

Dropped off at the Harbour, get our tickets for the boat and head on down. There was approx 60 people on the tour with us which wasn't too bad and heaps of room to spread out on the boat. Bottom level is comfy seats, tables and lounges and top level is plastic chairs but a great view and fresh air. We went from the top to bottom and back again all day to get the full experience. Haha

First stop was Whitehaven Beach which was about an hour from Shute Harbour. Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea is provided so we had a spot of morning tea on the way to our first stop. Saw a whale cruising around the islands and started to slow at a beautiful white beach set up with umbrellas and volleyball court....I thought wow look they have set up all of this for us...turns out it was some other tour but still a great spot! The boat can't pull up at the beach so the little tenders take 10 at a time to the beach from the boat. The water colour was amazing! And the sand was very white reminded me of Esperance, how lucky we are to have this on our doorstep!

They give you an hour and a half to frolick on the beach, they provide sports equipment etc to use and one of the crew takes you on a walk to a lookout if you want to do that. We decided just to soak up the beach...went for a quick swim...it could have been a little bit warmer but we couldn't complain about the surroundings! Threw the frisby round a bit and drowned our camera in the water (won't turn on, hence no photos for last couple of days, lucky we have 2)!

Lunch on the way and next stop Hook Island, here was our snorkelling stop. There is a resort on hook island but apparently it was up for sale for years and no one bought it so its abandoned now and they are going to knock it down. Tour provides snorkels and flippers if you don't have them. Tenders take you across to the beach again and you are then free to snorkel from the beach at your leisure. It was fantastic, took me right back to the Ningaloo Reef, but better I think, probably just saying that cuz I'm a Qlder! Haha but fantastic colour, fish, different types of coral etc. Again the water was a little on the cold side but we still had a good time. The crew feed fish just off the beach so you can snorkel with masses of fish swimming around you, pretty cool. From this spot they also do a semi submersible boat tour for people who don't want to get wet and snorkel but we decided to check this out too! Was very cool and they took us to a place called coral garden and it was really amazing, all the types and colours again were just incredible! Unfortunately the photos show nothing of what you actually see.

Last stop - Daydream Island! This place is so great! Just like a little city on an island! They just drop you off here and you can choose what you want to do. The choices range from...paddle boarding, kayaking, waterskiiing, mini golf, tennis, day spa, pools, spa, bars, shops and restaurants! We really just walked around to both ends of the island and ran into a few gems... Reef island is such a great idea, through the middle of the island is a man made reef with sharks, stingrays, fish, starfish and coral. I could watch these animals for hours, so cool.