Sailing on the Whitsundaaays!!

Well this is the trip we have been waiting for... The Whitsunday Island trip!

Soo we got up early and took at walk down to the pier with the Swedish girl we met at the hostel. We had a box of 30 beers and a bottle of wine...too much for 2 days...we don't think so lol! As we arrived at the port we had to wait for our boat...We got given our wetsuits and had to sign disclaimer forms to say if we dies scuba diving it wasnt the boat company fault..aww gr8! After being given our wetsuits and ben laughing cos i was the only person on the boat to get an 'Extra Short Suit' we walked down to the boat. Our's was a yellow green and white Maxi Yatch called the Apollo. It was really cool and we went down to our rooms under the deck! In our room their was us to 2 German girls, 1 Dutch 1 Russian girls, and 2 Welsh lads...who would turn out to be the funniest people on the boat! They had bought 28 litres of Goon!!! Now Goon.....is a disgusting form of wine..made from FISH and EGGS don't ask me how or why but it is! it is sold in boxes of 4 liters and tastes like absolute crap! One box of it and your bladderd....they had bought 7 boxes for 2 people for 2 days haha!!!!! No one could believe it...they said they were going to try and set a world record haha!!! So we got sailing along the sea and it was amazing, me and Ben helped to sail the boat which was a really cool experience as we didn't realise so much effort had to go into sailing a yacht!When we got to our first stop the deck hand on the boat..who was a typical Aussie...long blonde curly hair, tanned skin, shark tattoo on his belly and always says...."Duuuddee' haha i told him he sounded like the turtles from Finding Nemo and he thought it was hilarious but it actually true! He asked who would like to be the first to go Scuba Diving, me n Ben said we would go first! It was amazing, such a great experience we learned how to equalize and use the mask and everything and we went into the deep blue sea to see what we could find! We saw some amazing fish and Coral and it went so fast before we knew it we were heading back up to the surface again! Afterwards we had tea on the boat and the drinking started...Everyone was drunk before tea was even served..2 Asian people where bladdered and in bed by 6:30pm!! We all stayed up untill about 12:30AM drinking and playing cards and drinking games, the Welsh lads had 2 boxes of goon, spewed up and were in bed by 8pm haha! We spent the night talking to Vince and Julian 2 French guys who were really funny and Julian was the SPIT absolute image of Captain Jack Sparrow!!!

Next day we got up a few people really rough and red faced and we sailed to another island called pearl island and we went snorkeling, we saw some amzing fish and coral once again! We basically spent the whole of the second day in the sea snorkeling, in the afternoon we went to Whitehaven beach! One of the most beautiful beaches on the world! It really was beautiful but unfortunately the weather was bad and we couldnt get any good pics! We spent a few hours running around on the beach ion our wetsuits and we saw, Sharks and Sting Rays swimming past our feet argh!!! In the afternoon we got back on the boat with the weather being miserable everyone wanted to stay below deck but we thought it was better to stay on deck even if it meant getting wet as we wanted to see everything and not miss out! The Captain of the boat was laughing at us and said he thought we were crazy but great lol! It payed off for us siiting up on the deck though because to our surprise we got to see a WHALE, DOLPHINS and TURTLES!!! it was amazing and we couldn't believe how lucky we were! The Captain let Ben drive the Boat and he went inside and just left us to it! Afterwards he asked Ben to fish from the side of the boat and if he caught anything we could have it for tea, unlucky for us we didn't catch anything but it was still fun trying! That night we had our tea and had another party on the boat Welsh lads were still trying to drink thier goon but they had admitted defeat there was no way they could drink it all before they got off the boat haha! After another night drinking playing card and drinking games we all went to sleep knackered and cold but happy! That night the baot was rocking crazily and everyone struggles to sleep. At 6am in the morning the boat crew put Metallica on full blast to wake us all up arrgghh haha what a way to start ya day lol! One of the crew was really funny and kept screaming in an Aussie accent 'Sailing on the Whitsundays' about once everyone half an hour! We went snorkiing ina place called turtle bay which was lovely! We got given a speed boat ride back to the Yacht and had our last lunch together! We were all gutted to be getting off the boat after such a fun few days!

We spent the morning watching dolphins jumping outta the water and drinking beer and listening to Johnny Cash whilst 'Sailing in the Whistsundays!' Amazing!!!!!!! Couldn't have asked for a better three days! After getting off the boat we made our way back to the hostel and got changed and ready for the after party! All 30 of us from the boat met us and had a meal together in a bar and then went out to say goodbyee! After a great laugh we all headed home cos we were soo tired from the past 3 days!

View from our Hostel!

Airlie Beach!

After leaving Magnetic Island and getting a bus, ferry and coach to Airlie Beach we were shattered! We cooked up some of our special fried rice and met our room mates in our dorm. 2 of the guys were from Canada and were telling us funny stories about how one of them had a fight with an Australian girl with the result being getting slapped in the face with a steaming hot steak and kidney pie! The other was a Swedish girl who we were about to get on the Apollo boat with and sail on the Whitsunday islands. We had an early night and got our drink supplies from the local bottle-o and packed our bags ready for our 3 day - 2 night sailing trip!

Magnetic Island Sunset

Magnetic Island!

After a beautiful boat ride over from Cairns we arrived at the beautiful Magnetic Island! It was a beautiful day and it was like something from paradise! We got the local bus sround the island and arrived at our hostel Base (party hostel lol.)  We decided to have a wander around the island so we stepped out of or hostel and onto the beach where there was a 5km stretch of golden sand...Bliss! We spent the afternoon strolling along the beach and talking to a few Aussies who advised us where to go what  to do ect. That night we went to our hostel and treated ourselves to a meal at the restaurant it was delicious!! We had some cocktails and watched the sun setting on the beach it was a beautiful way to end the night!

Next day we got up early to see the sun rising unfortunately it was too cloudy, so we had brekkie and set off for today's walk up a mountain! We decided we would do this as there uis a chance to see wild Koala's and there is a lot of history from ww2 on the mountain! 1 litre of water 2 peanut butter sandwiches later we made it to the top woohoo!! The view was great as we could see the whole of the island! on the way up we got to see the ammunition houses for the guns of ww2 and the gun stands where the Aussies used to shoot as the Japanese ships trying to invade. It was all really interesting and we made our way down the mountain unfortunately we didn't see any wild Koala's! That night we packed up all our stuff and got ready to leave for our boat early in the morning. We stayed up swapping stories and laughing with the 8 people in our dorm and then went to sleep night night!

Cairns Esplanade -The place for a BBQ!

Arriving in OZ - First stop Cairns!

The flight from NZ was easy enough and a free shuttle transfer to our hostel was just what we needed - no worries mate! We stayed in our own room in cairns which was a nice change and we sampled the night life on arrival...as usual! We ended up going out with a guy from Newcastle and his girlfriend from London. From what we can remember it was a good night and apparently one of the best places to 'party' in Australia! We realized pretty early on that we would be staying in Cairns for a while because the weather was so good so we had a look around for some work for accommodation! With a bit of luck Gem got a job the same day we started looking which was basically an hour of cleaning a kitchen followed by mopping two floors. Our accommodation was now half price and Gem didn't mind doing the graft while I done my master chef thing and cooked up our meals! We spent the next week or so saving up and sunning ourselves on the beaches. We had a couple of BBQ's on the nights and booked our trip with the local tour agents. We would be heading into the rainforest just north of Cairns called Cape Tribulation. The day of the tour came and we were up and out early, taken to a number of walks through the rainforest watching dingo's (small kangaroos), a hidden beach and a Aboriginal show in the jungle also. We had dinner in cape tribulation were we ate Coral fish and chips which were delicious! It was a long day so cooking wasn't on the menu that night and we went to the local Irish Pub for the meal deals - Guinness Pie, chips and Steak!. The next day we were off again to visit a place called Magnetic Island which Captain Cook sailed past and named due to his compass reading strange directions!