After we finally escaped Macay we drove up to Arlie beach, where we went cruising out to the Whitsunday islands for a day. Once past the seasickness it was great, swimming on the reef and chilling on the white beaches. The 'bush walk' of the day involved thirty of us tramping up a hill behind one of the crew, who informed us there were giant monitor lizards, and if we kept quiet we might see them. Well for those who've ever been on a package holiday, you'll know that we saw no lizards that day.

Next stop was Townsville, a large-ish city with everything a ten year old (or two 22yr olds) could possibly want. The whole beachfront was a mass of waterparks, rides, slides and entertaining animal sculptures. The best bit was the giant bucket, which slowly fills up over a 5 minute period, and suddenly tips up causing a torrent of water to fall over screaming children.... strangely mesmerising! So we hung out for a few days, surrounded by elderly folk wearing leather (mainly due to a motorbike convention, rather than anything more sinister) and took in the tropical delights.

After a serious lack of exercise during the last few weeks, we vowed to take a day trip over to Magnetic Island and hire bikes for the day to see the scenery. Upon getting there, we discovered that no one else was as environmentaly or health conscious as we pretended to be, and the only things we could hire were minature Barbie cars (as in small for human size, not for Barbie, that would just be strange, ahem). After walking a really long way in the searing heat down the road, we gave up and jumped on the bus. Still, at least we tried.