{"id":19859,"date":"2014-06-24T09:49:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T09:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/melbourne-couple-celebrate-milestone-visit-to-the-great-barrier-reef\/"},"modified":"2014-06-24T09:49:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T09:49:00","slug":"melbourne-couple-celebrate-milestone-visit-to-the-great-barrier-reef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2014\/06\/melbourne-couple-celebrate-milestone-visit-to-the-great-barrier-reef\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne couple celebrate milestone visit to the Great Barrier Reef"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"background-color: white; color: #606060; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Possibly some of the Great Barrier Reef\u2019s biggest fans, Melbourne couple Jackie and Peter Mihalec celebrated their 45th visit to Hardy Reef last week.<\/span><\/span><br \/><span style=\"background-color: white; color: #606060; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The couple, who drive the 3,000km to the Whitsundays at least once per year, also celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary earlier this year making the milestone that bit more special.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Cruise Whitsundays hosted the couple who first visited Hardy Reef 23 years ago and got hooked.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><span style=\"color: #606060;\"><br \/><\/span><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"unnamed (14)\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-487312\" data-mce-src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/unnamed-1415-300x199.jpg\" height=\"194\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/unnamed-1415-300x199.jpg\" style=\"float: right;\" width=\"292\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cEvery time we visit it is awesome and different,\u201d said Mrs Mihalec.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cIf there is a current, I love to drift snokel; if it\u2019s high tide I love snorkelling over the top of the reef; if it\u2019s low tide I like watching the fish hug the reef wall; if it\u2019s raining or rough you get a roller coaster ride at the same time \u2013 so much fun; I just love it in any condition!,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cI\u2019m 64 and love life, and the main reason I keep coming back to Hardy Reef is that it makes me feel very safe \u2013 there is a snorkel rope you can use and the staff are amazing, constantly on snorkel watch and ensuring everyone is looked after,\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cI am usually the first person in the water and stay there until the last call for lunch,\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cMany times my husband picks up my lunch and I eat it on the way home!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Cruise Whitsundays Business Tourism Executive Steve Neale said he had met the Mihalecs on many occasions over the years.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cOne of the great things about working in the tourism industry is happy customers and it\u2019s been wonderful to see the Mihalecs come back year after year and see them enjoy the reef so much,\u201d Mr Neale said.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span data-mce-style=\"color: #606060;\" style=\"color: #606060;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cAnd it\u2019s nice for them to see so many old faces still around the reef operations and catch up with them each time they visit,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Possibly some of the Great Barrier Reef\u2019s biggest fans, Melbourne couple Jackie and Peter Mihalec celebrated their 45th visit to Hardy Reef last week. The couple, who drive the 3,000km to the Whitsundays at least once per year, also celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary earlier this year making the milestone that bit more special. Cruise [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}