Howdy, so where did I get to, ah yes, Airlie beach - the gate way to the Whitsunday Islands.

We went on a 3 day boat trip round the Islands with an absolute cracker of a group (38 in total, so I won't go into detail!). I was looking forward to soaking up the glorious sunshine, unfortunately we weren't that lucky! We picked the 3 days when the heaven's opened and decided to piss it down.

After some sailing round the Islands, we parked up at one Island (Molle Island I think!) and set up camp. We then got the guitar out and the Irish amused us with Irish folk songs, as well as the classics! When we headed off (at 6.30 the next morning!!) none of us quite had our witts about us (that might have something to do with the many litres of goon drunk the night before) so we forgot to zip up all the doors on the tent. One group didn't even put the waterproof layer on! I'll get to that later!

So then we went to head towards Whitehaven Beach, a beautiful pure white beach with clear blue sea, except I wouldn't know, coz we never made it!!! The wind and driving rain ruined that plan, so we just floated around a bit trying not to be sick!! We did manage to fit in some snorkling on the reef in our lovely stinger safe suits: Me feeling like a ninja, so deciding to have a fight with becky on the beach, only to be dump tackled and have sand thrown at me, talk about beating someone when they're down!!

So that night we headed back to the base camp. The ship moored out to sea, and we travelled to shore on a little dingy. Climbing from the boat to the dingy isn't normally too complicated a proceedure, but when you've had a couple of glasses of goon, and you want to save your flip flops, it can prove problematic, as becky found out, when she went flying from the side of the dingy and completely under the water with her bag & all!! None of us knew whether to laugh or jump in after her, until she popped up again in histerics shouting "man over board!!!" Luckily she had dry clothes on the Island!

Not everyone did though!! Sleeping bags and clothes were soaked, and tents were completely blown away (I like to think it was the strong winds, rather than our shoddy camping skilss, ooops!!!) Our tent was pretty bashed, but we managed to rescue it and dry it out a enough to sleep in. Once you've had enough goon, you don't really care anymore!!

Puja, myself and becky wearing the Irish boys hurling shirts. (becky also managed to rescue her hat when she went night swimming!)

After Airlie we headed on to Hervey bay to go on another 3 day trip, this time on a 4x4 round the Island, which I got to drive, whoop whoop! I felt like James Bond (I don't think JB ever drove a 4x4, but I felt cool anyway!).

The first day we went for a stroll in the rainforest, and ended up at a beautiful Lake (we spent a lot of time on the Island swimming in beautiful lakes, so I'll try not to bore u!)

Then we drove along the beach, which was pretty sweet, and went to a little village, where we stocked up on beautiful bow (strongbow, for those not in the know!). We then drove to another beautiful lake for another swim, and headed back through the rough back to set up camp!

This is our group, they were awesome crack! Especially the two welsh guys (Ricky the fox) -the one who looks like Ricky Gervais 2nd in on left, and Scott, the guy kneeling. These guys kept me amused with drinking games, bow, and the best of all beach cricket and beach Golf with a spade:

The next day we went and floated down a freshwater creek, into the sea:

Then drove up the beach (that was awesome fun! managed to get the beauty up to 100km/h, till the back street drivers started noticing!)

We stopped off at an old wreck on the beach:

Then did some lunging practice up at Indian Head:

I also managed to convince the fox to do a Ricky Gervais Impression

and went for a quick swim in the Champagne pools. I was hoping for a pool where they offered you glasses of champagne, but alas it was rock pools where the foamy sea water flowed over like champagne overflowing, a pretty good substitue!

Our last day we went to Lake Mckenzie, which was absolutely beautiful! Much better than Whitehaven Beach in my opinion!!

Then, unfortunately, I had to give my Car back! And after a reunion that evening with our group, back on the bow, we headed on to the next stop on our whistlestop tour...Brisbane....

Ok, so travelling down the east coast and drinking heavily doesn't leave much time for blog writing, but I will try and briefly catch you up....

We flew from Darwin to Cairns, having had no sleep as our flight was at 6am, so we decided to go clubbing all night and just sleep on the plane! Went to a great club called Discovery, well I say great, it was a bigger H20's!!!




In Cairns we stayed in a really nice hostel, even though it was slightly out of the city, but the atmosphere was awesome, and all the guys were great fun. We went out the first night to Gilligans, and ended up dancing on the tables in the Woolshed, I love that place!

Then Hannah joined the travelling crew, and altho she was completely jet-lagged, we dragged her out! We hired a banged up old commadore (who we named Debra after Debra Winger, mayo didn't quite suit her!) and drove up to Cape Tribulation to see the sights.

We walked through the rainforest, went up to cape trib point to look at the view:

Then we drove back through cape trib, and stopped off at Daintree National Park (this is bout mine and becks 5th national park in aus, we're doing pretty well!!) and went for a swim in Mossman Gorge, which was cold, but well worth it:


Then we drove back past Port Douglas, and stopped in for a quick pint hoping to bump into Matthew McConnahey (not sure how u spell that and can't be arsed to look it up!), who is meant to be filming there at the moment. Unfortunately we missed out on some texas loving.

The next day we decided to go diving on the reef, so we booked a day on the boat. We went to the outer reef, and I saw some really beautiful coral, in suprisingly good health, which made me happy! Not that much to see really tho, Mexico and the Maldives are much better diving locations, but hey, when in Rome!!

After almost a week in Cairns we hopped aboard ye olde Greyhound to Mission beach, which is just a beach, which smells! But Hannah went for a sky dive, while I amused myself by wearing a stupid hat! I did manage to fit in a spaghetti fight (fighting with foam sticks on a log over a pool, cept i lost badly! Bloody girls!)

Our next location was Magnetic Island, where we managed to get absolutely hammered on goon, and go skinny dipping in the sea with some random aussies.

don't ask me why they insisted on walking around in just their pants??!! (Aussie men are very strange!!)

The next day (hungover like a dog!) we hired the cutest little barbie car and drove round the sights of the Island, they're aren't many, it's very small. We did go for a great all day brekkie tho!!

(I was loving the thelma and louise posing!)

Then it was on to Airlie beach.....