Airlie Beach was great. Friends we met on a cruise in 2018 live there and made us feel very welcome. On their large suburban block at Cannonvale, a “suburb” of Airlie Beach, they have a nice house which they rent out permanently, a large shed for their vehicles and a huge open shed for their 5th wheeler, with room for our van as well. With that arrangement they and their dog can be in Airlie Beach anytime they want or travel anytime they want. It’s a good life.

We did lots of sightseeing, eating, drinking and talking. Vanessa cooked wonderful meals and snacks (she must have thought we needed fattening) and Jim helped with a few caravan maintenance jobs.

About 80 km north, Bowen sits on a prominent headland that juts out into the smooth waters of the Whitsunday Islands. Although only 11,000 people live in Bowen the town covers quite a large area because of rocky outcrops, mangrove swamps and several remaining cane, fruit and vegetable farms.

There is one beach about 4 km long and four much smaller beaches. Apparently crocodiles, although present in swamps, creeks and inlets, are not a problems on open beaches so we swam yesterday at one of the prettiest beaches we’ve seen, Horseshoe Bay. It’s only a couple of hundred metres wide, with clean sand, clear water, and large rocks at both ends of the bay that are home to quite a few corals and fish. With air temperature of 24 degrees and water temp of 23 degrees, it was an opportunity not to be missed – so snorkelling on a couple of days was good fun.

Tomorrow it’s time to head off again; not sure where but looking forward to it.

We are pleased to hear that Victorians now have reduced Covid-19 restrictions than when we posted out previous update but now New South Wales is in trouble. Obviously we need to keep pushing on with the vaccination program – we had our first one before leaving home and are due for the follow-up in July.

As always we hope everyone keeps healthy and safe.

Ted and Jo