Magnetic Island (from Townsville)- Leaving Cairns at half past midnight, and arriving into Townsville at 5:30am was a challenge itself, but we then had to pretend to be awake enough to blag our way to Magnetic Island! So we managed to get ourselves across, to find our hostel hadn't opened as yet! Do they know how long I'd been awake for?! Best not to ask! Once checked in, Dip and I took the very short walk into town, and decided to spend the rest of the day as productively as possible: We sat down in a cafe, had gorgeous milkshakes and lunch, and then played on the swings! Was a fab day! Next mornig, having found that one of the bowls we'd been given was chipped (almost more off the bowl than remaining!), I pulled the short straw and ate my Cocoa Pops out of two mugs... everybody say 'ahhhh'!!

Whitsundays (from Airlie Beach) - We managed to get up early enough to get ourselves on the day tour to the Whitsunday Islands, thanks to Dip who was always in charge of getting me up! As we approached the boarding platform, my usual questionning started about how choppy the water was, and how big the vessell we were travelling on was, as i tragically suffer from sea sickness! Hmmm.... the man at the desk assured me I would be okay, as we'd be moving too fast for to have time to feel seasick! Thankfully for him, my group and the sea life, he was right! The journey was speedy, and actually loads of fun!!!! We had to hold on for dear life occassionally, as the two skippers of the two jet boats played around! We had the opportunity to see some ancient Aboriginal rock art, (and be chased away by huge flies!), and then had lunch on a beautiful secluded beach, where we snorkelled, played ball in the sea and fed fish!

Town of 1770 (from Agnes Water) - Here we stayed at Cool Bananas, a cute chilled out hostel where the chef cooked up gorgeous dinners at fab backpacker rates! We began our stay here with a free tour of the area, with the Harley instructor showing us all the local hot spots and filling us in on the tours and activities we could do. En route, we saw the '$1 000 000 toilet with $1 000 000 views', overlooking the town and coastline below! Dip and I spent the rest of the day chilling, until it was time for our Harley Davidson ride.... I had already decided today was not my day (!), we had been travelling all night on the Greyhound (from midnght to 10am) and I was SCARED! (Been ages since I've even ridden a bike!) But Dip was feeling braver, and while she had a go, I sat on the back of the Harley instructor dude's bike! Hmm... chicken I may be, but while everyone was struggling to reach 80km/hr, 120km/hr was trying to catch up with us! At one stage, we were speeding down a hill, and i all i can remember was holding on for dear life, and various facial parts swopping places, with my cheeks doing a 'Harold Bishop'!! Had to check everything was still there, and in the right place when we stopped! So much fun! At a calmer pace, we even got to see some kangaroos and wallabies bouncing around! Lastly, we had a surfing lesson, one of our 'must do's' while in Australia! This was great, and although we started off with a smaller board than everyone else (earier on a bigger board), we made an improvement by the end of the two hour session! Fun Fun Fun!