hi friends,

it's me again ;) i'm now in airlie beach, but leave today in the evening to fraser island ...

so, back to leaving Cairns and going to magnetic island ... i arrived on Good Friday on magnetic island ... a real wonderful place to stay there ... unfortunately i only had booked for 2 days/nights ... before i will go on, some notes to some real strange things in australia

e.g. BYO = buy/bring your own, means you are allowed to bring your own alcohol into the restaurant, as the licenses for selling alcohol are very expensive here in australia and so not every rest./hostel etc. has a full license ... then smoking (ok, i don't smoke): in no restaurant you are allowed to smoke, in no public building either ... there are some restaurants who offers a smoking area, but this area is really very small ... and outside! but even if a restaurant as a open air area, most of them do not allow to smoke there ... then here in airlie beach at my hostel you are not allowed to eat in the smoking area ... nobody can explain why, but it is so ... as would eating disturb someone while smoking ;)))) and last but not least: Good Friday (Karfreitag): nearly everything is closed, very few public transport ... i'm sure there are some more strange things, but i'm only for about 10 days here, so i will explore the others the next weeks ;)

so, when i arrived on Good Friday at magnetic islands in my hostel, the first thing i noticed (because there were everywhere leaflets hanging around) was, that the bar will close due to Good Friday at 8:30 pm ... and as my hostel is a fully licensed area, you are not allowed to buy alcohol in a bottle shop (you don't get any alc in a supermarket) ... if you have some, you must give it the manager of the hostel, because the police will patrol on this night very often ... and that was true: the police was 2-3 times in the hostel looking around ... i mean, before 8:30 you were allowed to get really drunk, but if you want a beer after 8:30 it's forbidden ... and moreover, because of Good Friday, you must buy a meal to get a beer ... no meal, no beer! real strange, guys ... really nobody understands this law ... and the best thing was, when we were at about 10 in our bungalow, the bar's manager came to see us, if we don't have and drink any alcohol ... like on a skiing course with school ;))))

but anyway, magnetic island is definitely worth to visit it ... for more than 2 days as i did ... i only had one full day (Good Saturday) ... i visited the koala village on the island, was really interesting, holding a baby croco, a python and a koala (for a surcharge of 14 bucks - for me too much) and seeing a lot of bats and birds ...

in the evening i stayed again at my hostel and this time everything was normal, at 9 pm a dj started to play partymusic, the bar was open till late ... not to compare to the day before ;)

on sunday i travelled by ferry and bus to airlie beach ... a small town with about 7000 people staying there ... but about 5000 of them are backpackers, no joke! ... i stayed at a hostel in bungalow no. 84, every bungolow has at least 8 beds (the cheaper ones has 10 beds) ... so there are nearly 1000 guys in my hostel ;) every night pary, they have their own night club (believe it or not: i didn't visit it any time)

monday i did nothing special, as it rained a lot, i stayed most of the time at my hostel, talking to other guys ... i only changed my plans for tuesday, as i cancelled a boat and booked an other one ... the new one offers diving, the old one didn't ;)

so tuesday morning i left at 8:15 airlie beach with a speed boat to the whitsunday islands ... our first stop was after 90 mins at Cateran Bay (border Island) for diving ;))) we were only 3 certified divers on the boat ... so in total we were 4 (incl. the dive master) ... although the visibilty was not real good (because of the heavy rains the last days ... it's wet season here) i enjoyed it again a lot ... we dived through "reef-tunnels" and saw many fish ... the dive was about 40 mins ... after the dive (the other guys on the boat could do snorkeling or an intro-dive) we went to a national park on the islands ... had to go there through the bush to get to an awesome viewing point ... i felt like in a dreamland, never thaught that there are beaches like in our catalogues ;) ... and after lunch we arrived at one of these beaches ... whiteheaven beach on whitsunday islands ... is very famous for its fine and white sand there, but also for the stingers, so you shouldn't swim there without your stinger suit ... spent there about one hour and then we went back to arrive at about 5 pm in airlie beach again ... was a real tough day, got real tired ... and i had the sand everywhere ;)))

today, i went the first time to the lagoon in airlie beach (it's a free pool, as you cannot swim in the sea) ... it's a nice area there, there is even an artificial sand beach ;) at 5.pm i will leave airlie beach to go with an overnight bus to hervey bay (Fraser Island) ... Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world, i will do there a 3-days self drive safari ... i'm fu**ing excited ;))) they put 10 guys in one jeep (with a tent and all other safari things, and of course the backpacks ... and then we are alone on the island .. ok, not alone, as there are many jeeps with 10 guys on the way ;)

so that's all for today, cu soon, christoph