Ok… disclaimer upfront… I am not actually sure we can claim that we visited the Whitsundays on this trip.

After leaving Townsville, we stopped in at Bowen for a couple of nights. Bowen is the northern end of the Whitsundays Region and such an awesome little spot. With the reputation at this time of the year as ‘Blowen Bowen’, it seemed like the perfect destination for a kite surfing family. Clearly a tourist town, there are four caravan parks in the town and heap more in the surrounding area to chose from. We picked the smallest one we could find, turning up on the day, and scored a beautiful beachfront site. I am sure many people wouldn’t appreciate the wind but we were quite content to watch the turtles poking their heads up infront of our camp and see kite surfers in the distance at the river mouth.

Bowen was a super fun place to spend a few days. Lovely little coastal town with a great waterfront for the kids (water splash park/ skate park etc). We took a walk along the jetty and spotted some huge turtles. After looking for several minutes, eagle eye Fin spotted something which didn’t quite look like a turtle but equally wasn’t a shark or a dolphin. After watching closely for another ten minutes or so, and some Google check to make sure we were in the right habitat area, we landed on dugongs! We stayed and watched for quite a while and sure enough, two dugongs were cruising around in the sea grass meadows near the town jetty – awesome spot.

After a couple of fun days at Bowen, we kept moving south and hit the town of Airlie Beach – home of the Whitsundays. We left the campsite selection to the kids and they opted for the BIG4 just outside of town with 13 waterslides and mini golf!

This is where I have to say I don’t really think we went to see the Whitsundays (islands) as once the kids saw the campsite, it was pretty much impossible to get them to leave 🤣

Embracing the BIG4 lifestyle, we enjoyed the open air night time movie night and even put Kiera in kids craft club for a couple of hours – first kids only activity in 10 months of travel! We enjoyed the ‘treats’ of being in a tourist town (sushi and boost juice for the kids) and swim at the open air lagoon but perhaps we will save our Whitsunday island experience for a future visit.

We did manage to drag the kids away from the pool for long enough to visit the nearby town of Proserpine and go for another horse riding lesson. The Proserpine Region is only a short drive from Airlie Beach, and you quickly find yourself back in sugar cane country.

Great opportunity to get the kids back on some horses and this time they were set free, without the guide ropes. They had a fantastic lesson (and we got to sit and enjoy time with the two resident dogs for the hour of their lesson!)

It may not have been the ‘classic’ Whitsunday adventure most people think of, but everyone came away smiling. I am sure we will return to this region for some sailing and island adventures but for this trip we were quite content to let the kids dictate this stop!