Along the main road of Airlie Beach — a quiet, coastal town in Queensland, Australia — the Internet cafés were buzzing as day turned to night with that peculiarly quick sunset you get in the tropics.
I was no newcomer. I’d been in Airlie Beach a decade before as a young backpacker, travelling by bus from Sydney to Cairns. In the early 1990s it was a distinctly e-mail-free zone. Ten years later I was back, but rather than staying in a backpacker hostel, I was at the Coral Sea Resort; instead of sharing a dorm room, I could look out from my balcony (complete with jacuzzi) in the direction of the Whitsunday Islands — the reason so many people come here in the first place.
The Whitsundays are a kind of beach of the Alex Garland (author of The Beach) variety for backpackers passing up the east coast of Australia, an almost mythical utopia where the young and the young-at-heart come together. Airlie Beach, the main jumping-off point for the islands, welcomes these nomadic youngsters with open arms, calculating that they bring in about AU$100-million a year to the local economy.
More than half of the visitors to the area are under 34, and the town has a fun, up-for-it atmosphere. Busy and vibrant at night (“we’re a drinking town with a sailing problem,” I was told by one local), decidedly quiet and hungover before midday.
In the hinterland, fields of sugar cane ripple in the breeze — but my gaze was outwards to the Pacific. There are 74 islands in the Whitsundays. Captain James Cook named them as he sailed along the coast in June 1770.
For the most part they’re rather inhospitable — with low-lying hills covered in thorny foliage and scrub — but the turquoise waters that surround them, and their long, squeaky, white beaches compensate for that. Most are uninhabited but on some, such as Hayman, there are luxurious, upmarket retreats, while Hamilton is large enough for its own marina and an airport with direct flights to Sydney.
What makes the islands stand out from the Caribbean, though, is the chance to sail round them at an affordable price; the opportunity to moor overnight in a small bay with no one else around, dolphins and turtles popping up a few metres away; to be able to dive into clear, warm waters before eating fresh pineapple on deck and letting the juice drip down your chin — and it just doesn’t matter because the last time you wore a shirt was last week, anyway.
In winter you share the sea with humpback whales cruising down the coast; at any time of the year, the Great Barrier Reef shelters the Whitsundays from the full force of the Pacific and provides a kaleidoscope of fish to look at. If you’re a competent sailor, you can hire your own yacht. However, for not much more money, you can have a crew to navigate and cook for you, either on a small, luxury vessel or a larger, more youth-orientated “party” boat.
I started off on a crewed boat; a two-night trip out of Airlie Beach on an elegant, 17m craft called White Swan. In charge was the young, amiable crew: Sonia, a New Zealander; and Muffy, an Australian, who, between them, did everything while we guests slipped into a progressively deeper catatonic state with every passing hour.
Below decks, space was limited but not cramped. There was a central dining area, a small galley, sleeping quarters and a small loo-cum-shower. We sailed along gently, stopping to snorkel here and there, landing on a sand spit near Hayman before tying up in a bay to enjoy dinner as the sun went down. At night there was some chatter under the stars, reading below decks and then, early to bed.
Midweek I swapped over to the 26m carbon-fibre racing yacht, Matador, for another couple of nights’ cruising. Sleeker and much more basic than White Swan, she was kitted out for competition and speed, not luxury. On board were four crew members and 19 young, mostly British backpackers up for a good time. While I had been quite content to let Sonia and Muffy do all the hard work on the other boat, helping out was part of the experience on Matador. And grinding away on the winches every so often as the sails billowed above at least made me feel less guilty about all the beers being consumed.
We covered much of the same ground as before, going for another walk to look out over Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island, which must surely be the God’s gift to the Australian postcard industry. We played volleyball, chatted, sang, drank and ate, and slept on deck looking up at the Southern Cross. On day three we slipped back into port on the mainland. I grabbed a few hours’ rest before partying hard that night in Airlie Beach with the others.
Queensland was the last port of call before heading back to Britain — to grey skies, credit-card bills and nine-to-five jobs. It may have been December but diving into the Pacific from the side of your own 26m yacht certainly made home feel a hell of a long way away. — Â