Hey there. I'm sending you this from Magnetic Island, a little island about half an hour off the coast of Townsville. Emma and I are staying in a little hut in a hostel by a koala sanctuary. The weather has been amazing.

Scuba diving on Wednesday was so amazing. We arrived at the dock at 8.30 to check in for our trip only to be told we had been upgraded to thier 5* boat as the one we had booked onto was full! It meant that we were on a lovely boat with 24 other passengers, whereas the other boat was packed with 90 people! The journey out to the reef was a bit choppy to say the least. They said the wind was blowing at between 25 and 30 knots - I don't know what that means but take it from me, it was windy. There were quite a few people out on the back deck being sick but luckily Emma and I had stocked up on travel sickness and ginger tablets so we were absolutley fine. After we arrived at the reef we went snorkelling for about 40 minutes which was so amazing. After that we got back on the boat, kitted up, and off we went into the big sea! There were two other divers in the group with us and a guide. We must have seen about a million fish and even saw a shark (aaarrgh! - it was only a white tip reef shark though) and a turtle! After that dive we went in for lunch then moved to another part of the reef and went for another dive. The second dive site was so much more amazing than the first - we swam along a massive wall of reef with the most amazing different types of coral and so many cute little fish! We also saw another turtle which was huge and just paddling about over a rock. The guides that took us were really nice and made it all really fun. I thought I would have been a bit nervous diving in the ocean for the first time but found that it wasn't half as scary as I'd expected. I spent half the time trying to convince myself I really was at the Great Barrier Reef!

Emma and I are off to explore the island tomorrow in this cute little jeep that looks like a cross between a golf cart and a barbie-mobile (perfect for Emma!). There are loads of little bays to explore around the island which is so exciting. You can't really go in the water though because of the stingers, so we're going to rent some stinger suits so that we can do a bit of snorkelling as there is some reef around some of the bays. This morning Emma and I went for a tour at the koala sanctuary where we saw some crocodiles and Emma held one of the young ones. I was too scared to hold it but later on we managed to get some pictures holding one of the koalas! It was so cute. He had really sharp claws though. We also went on a bush walk where we saw a wild koala in a gum tree with a little joey (thats a baby one) on its back. It was so adorable.

On Monday Emma and I are heading down the coast to Airlie Beach where we will stay for a night before embarking on a 3 day / 2 night boat trip around the Whitsunday Islands. Its all such a big adventure and I've never stayed on a sailing boat for 3 days before so it will definitely be an experience!

I hope you're all well. Thank you for all your emails - its so nice to hear how everythings going at home. It feels like I've been over here for so much longer than a week and a half!

Take care, miss you all,
Charlotte x