25th February 2010
This small coastal town is basically the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. It is full of backpackers tripping into town to embark on the mandatory Whitsunday cruise.
We sat for a while enjoying the view before the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos came down to the balcony, obviously expecting some food. Since they didn’t get any they set about destroying the small table on the balcony instead.
There is only really one main street and a foreshore which we wandered along. One of the main features was a glorious artificial lagoon so that people don’t need to swim in the sea with the jellyfish!
Since we couldn’t do our planned tour we spent the day planning our Asia trip in the web cafe and generally wandering around Airlie until we were ready to go back to the hotel to catch the shuttle bus to Proserpine Airport.
We thought we had seen the smallest airport when we flew out of the Cook Islands, but Proserpine was even smaller with just 4 check in desks, 2 gates and a waiting courtyard outside and no baggage carousel.
Tina met us as we came off the plane, she’d kindly come to pick us up as we’re staying at theirs for the weekend.