Today was an exploring day with Conway Beach as Base Camp.
First stop was Airlie Beach which was about 40 kilometres away. We had considered staying at Airlie Beach but had decided to stay somewhere quiet and out of the way like Conway Beach. We were very glad of our decision once we actually arrived at Airlie Beach.
First impression of Airlie Beach was chaos with major roadworks at the round-about entrance to the main street with detours in place and traffic at a standstill. Not a great way to welcome visitors and we simply couldn’t imagine trying to tow a caravan through the mess. It wasn’t only roadworks; there were other building and development works underway as well. There was no part of the beach front that wasn’t disrupted one way or another. To us it seemed ridiculous having all this work going on during peak season and disrupting holiday makers with road chaos, dust and noise.
Nearly at Airlie Beach
Chaos arriving at Airlie Beach
Construction work at Airlie Beach
Construction work at Airlie Beach
Nice boardwalk at Airlie Beach
Nice views at Airlie Beach
Some of the accommodation at Airlie Beach
Whitsunday Airport
Once we had made our way around the detours and found a car park, we went for a great walk along the beach. We have to say that there are plenty of paths and boardwalks for pedestrian traffic around town. We found a nice café and had a delicious lunch on the promenade with chaos left and right but we had a great view of the water.
Overall, Airlie Beach probably isn’t our ideal holiday destination, but we’re glad that we’ve been there. It seems to be all apartments, bars, touristy shops and basically a base for tours to the Whitsunday Islands, fisherman with boats, and generally a younger crowd.
From Airlie Beach we drove about 10 kilometres to Shute Harbour as it was on our must see list. It wasn’t at all what we expected and was basically a transit point for Island tourists and basically a large boat ramp for pleasure boats and fishermen. We didn’t even see a coffee shop although there was a multi-storey car-park!
View at Shute Harbour
View at Shute Harbour
Proserpine was our next stop, and we quite liked it as a destination. It wasn’t just a tourist trap but a place where people live and work, and that is generally attractive to us as a place to stay. There were some very interesting shops including an amazing place called Colour Me Crazy which really had to be seen to be believed. We enjoyed a really good afternoon coffee with date scones at Cafe 22, and it too had some very unusual artwork displayed on the walls.
Colour Me Crazy at Proserpine
Then it was back home to the caravan at Conway Beach for a cool drink in the shade of this lush tropical garden.
Still living the dream!
Shorty's RV Adventures 