Epic Round The World Trip Adventures! Stunning Photos & Articles - A fascinating gap year travel journal covering every stop of their journey.

Airlie Beach - East Australia
Round The World Trip Journal

(15th - 20th April) Airlie Beach - Around Town
Once the sun had come out at Bowen we were lucky in that it stayed out for the whole of our stay at Airlie which is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. It’s a bit of a culture shock to start with cause it’s backpacker central and we hadn’t seen this since Cairns. But everything is open all the time and there are good eateries all over the place – including great tender steaks at the Hogs Breath Café (thanks for the recommendation Shaun and Jo!). We both remembered little about the town from our previous visits but they have obviously done so much work to the place in the last 10 years and improved the place big time. We both remembered the place as solely backpacker based but now Airlie has a lot more upmarket accommodation and is attracting the money people with big boats too! They have a lovely foreshore area with palm fringed beaches and a big lagoon area for safe stinger (jellyfish) free swimming. The photo with the big chrome triangles and the person shade-baking under a palm tree show the lagoon area. The best thing about Australia compared to the UK is that all these public areas are provided free of charge and they are beautifully maintained. Airlie is all about the sea and there are two access points to the Whitsundays - you can see the Marina at Able Point in the photo here – and the other is Shute Harbour. We spent a lovely day just chilling out around Airlie and had a long leisurely Barramundi and chips lunch overlooking the beach with a glass of wine – how decadent! We were the only ones in there and the service was great – even a free photo by the waitress so you can see just how much weight we’re putting on as a result of all this good living!