Toscana Village Resort Airlie Beach

... the after party like we did but he said you attract a different kind of client then. As I say it was a nice part of the world but comes nowhere close to topping our time on Fraser Island or anything from Thailand. I'll try and find a fast internet cafe to upload all the pictures we've got as the one at this hostel is a bit slow.

Gaz & LJ

ps forgot to mention we saw Turtles on both Sunday and Monday but only from the boat, not while snorkeling.

... to hangovers etc! I should've gone in as it was the best snorkelling place apparently... even from the boat we could see these massive fish and turtles....
Then it was time to sail back to mainland which took a few hours so we got back about lunchtime....

Absolutely amazing trip.... cool being on a boat, good snorkelling, amazing beaches, fab food, great company and can't belive we got through 20 litres of wine between us in 2 nights!! (I think i drank less than ...

G'day,

As hard as it was to leave the tranquillity of Etty Bay, we did wake early on our last morning to get going south towards Townsville again. This time we were just passing through and so stayed just north of town at a free camp by a creek at Bluewaters. There’s nothing to tell you about here, and the next morning we packed up early again and kept heading south.

We stopped for lunch at Bowen where the locals have renamed their town ...

... Ragamuffin!! We initially thought to ourselves, OMG what have been booked ourselves on to?? Those thoughts were short lived, we done some further info seeking and discovered it was a very famous sailing boat, which had won many prestigious races during its day. We were anxious to see how fast it could go, but we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into.

We had a lot of fun on board, there were chances to help out with the ...

... together and then went up on deck for some sunset pictures, over the side of the boat I saw a huge turtle about a metre in length flip over in the water! The sun went down pretty quickly and we got to see the stars and the Milky Way shining really brightly in the sky. We had a bit too much to drink that night and went to bed quite late.

We were allowed a little lie in this morning, 6.15am but felt a bit ropey after drinking so much goon so it was a ...

... as they moved the pontoon closer to the reef. Then we tried snorkelling. I found it difficult to steer myself around, being used to breast stroke, and now having flippers on. Hughie managed better, but still scratched his leg We were told to keep at least a metre from the coral, to avoid damaging it and scratching ourselves. One girl swam on to the top of it and had to be rescued by the staff.

After an hour, we were ...

Today was a fairly chilled out day, I checked out of Magnums and by chance met up with Raphael, Nadia, Lucia and Jenny, who said they were on the same ship as me, the Habibi (aboriginal for 'My Darling'). We spent the morning in Airlie Beach with me hunting for cheap clothes with Rafa. We arrived at the port slightly early and had to hang around for a while but when the crew arrived to pick us up we were quickly onto the Habibi ready to explore the Whitsundays islands!!! We cruised around ...

... or not to he*d to the reef th*t d*y *s it w*s * 3 hour trip to get there *nd the we*ther w*s r*ther b*d with wind which me*nt it would be * VERY bumpy ride to get there. Eventu*lly he decided we would go for it. Luckily i w*s lined with tr*vel sick pills just in c*se the whole time which p*id off bec*use i would h*ve been violently sick the se* w*s so b*d. B*z even commented s*ying he h*d not h*d we*ther like this for *round 5 months but he h*d seen much worse so nothing to ...

... that day.
We had booked a boat trip around the Whitsundays for two nights. We checked in for the trip by midday as required and then went off to get some lunch and supplies for the trip. We had to be at the docks for 3.45 to board the boat which was due to leave at 4pm. At this stage my hangover was finally subsiding and Al and I got chatting to the other people who were also waiting. Soon we boarded the Pegasus along with 21 other passengers and 4 crew members ...

... Clint's original offer of having us come along for free soon changed and he started to ask for money we couldn't afford. We still got a couple of days sailing though and it was good fun helping with the sails and ropes and learning about life at sea. After leaving Brisbane we spent a few days hopping on and off the bus at little coastal towns, Maloolaba, Noosa, Rainbow beach and then Hervey bay. We had some beautiful days and some very very ...