Airlie Beach & Home Hill

Carmen Friend
May 24, 2018
2 min read

We arrived into the Whitsunday gateway of Airlie Beach to pouring rain and grey sky. We were here for 3 days in to hope we could get out to Hamilton Island for a day trip. Unfortunately for us, it pretty much rained off and on for the 3 days!

We did manage a driving tour to some gorgeous beaches - Dingo, Hideaway and Conway. Dingo Beach is a Sanctuary for Dugongs and they also get turtles here during the season plus of course the friendly Mr Crocodile apparently makes appearances at all these beaches!!

Airlie has much to offer when the weather gods are playing nicely - Whitsunday Islands, the reef and White Haven Beach is a stunner plus Hamilton and Day Dream Island are only a short ferry trip away.

Leaving Airlie we headed to Home Hill. Home Hill has many war relics of which we visited Charles Hill - a gunners post and bunker. We also took in the view from Inkerman Lookout - a very steep road to the top but the view across the sugar can fields was magic. Whilst driving to Home Hill we passed the 'Big Mango' - famous in Queensland due to the large amount of mango farms!

Sugar Cane in Australia is a massive industry. They turn it into ethanol and also obviously sugar that we use in cooking and in our coffee or tea! Every where we look there are cane fields, some currently in flower. It takes up to 18 months for the can to grow and be ready for harvest which occurs during June and December. The cane is generally set alight before being harvested. There are many cane trains seen along the countryside during the harvest period.