We decided to take a day trip to Whitehaven Beach. I had images of a nice sedate cruise on the catamaran yacht with food from a five star Airlie Beach restaurant and alcohol.  Instead the girls chose the highspeed jetboat/inflatable thing. That was how I found myself surrounding by twenty-something backpackers, the girls in gorgeous bikinis and the boys with their boardies half-way down their hips. Seriously if you are ever asked to invest in an underwear company Bonds is the way to go, that’s what everyone is wearing, trust me, I know.

Let us remember folks I don’t like rollercoasters and when I did that “how long will you live quiz” I got A VERY LONG TIME because I DIDN’T DO ANY ADVENTUROUS ACTIVITIES.

Anyway, it’s all about keeping the kids happy. So we took the Whitehaven Day trip aboard Ocean Rafting.

The first stop was snorkeling.

The Then we took a walk to the Hill Inlet Lookout. Yes people I WALKED. The views were spectacular.

Whitehaven is known for its white sands. They are 98 per cent pure silica which creates the bright white colour.

Our final stop was on the island itself where we had lunch (salads and cold meats). There was a little touch of Hitchcock about the marauding seagulls which were very energetic at nicking food. Princess Child lost her ham and salami in one deft swoop, but hey vegetarianism is hip nowadays. I even unveiled the new swimsuit and took a swim.

The nice chaps in charge of our boat got us home to Daydream safely and it was a great day.

The next day we bid farewell to our island and made the trek home.

One caught the last rays of sun. The other the last zzzz’s.

It was a lovely holiday, even though grief doesn’t do holidays, we managed to enjoy a new environment for a little while and start to create some new memories. Memories which included a three-hour stopover in Sydney where Princess Child convinced herself she had jetlag because she had a headache (I did try and explain you don’t get jetlag from a two-hour flight in the same time zone but she wasn’t buying it). While Hippie Child debated how difficult life was without access to her technological devices. I also queried why we have only one flight a day to and from Brisbane from Port Macquarie which meant doubling up our travelling by having to go via Sydney.  Oh well.