LOADS to catch up on so I'll try to remember- I'm about a month behind. That's not so good. Nothing like a late bus and a boring city to make you want to sit and update a very outdated blog.

So On the 8th of November, we attempted to leave Cairnes for Mission Beach- I say attempted, as we got a good insight into the ways of the Greyhound bus on our first meeting. We arrived nice and early for the bus, in the pouring rain- I think it was something silly like 7am. The bus driver was a bit grumpy and spent about half an hour mumbling about not being able to leave early as people hadnt turned up before the leaving time (strange that, as mostly people ignore a time it says to get somewhere and just arrive the hour before, surely? hmm...). So he waited until we were due to leave and people were there, before checking the bus and realising it was a flat tyre. His solution? Lie in a puddle and attempt to jack the bus up on his own, by hand, from under the bus. Needless to say, this didn't work out too well for him. He had a few issues with that and decided to at least get out the spare. Which was stuck. Apparently a common Greyhound Bus problem? Helpful! So, 2 mechanics, 2 hours, a lot of tugging to free the spare tyre (and a weeny nap on the bench from me)later and we were ready to go. Until the driver realised he'd locked the keys in the bus... Cue the wet and muddy bus driver running down the road after the mechanic to get help to break into the bus. Fun times! Mission Beach itself had not a lot going on and I managed to get myself a nice bit of heatstroke so spent my evening in bed feeling like my brain was melting. I even skipped dinner- yes it was that bad!

From Mission Beach, we went over to Magnetic Island to stay in a really cute little hostel called Bungalow Bay, where the dorms were in little huts and there was a koala/ animal santuary on the hostel grounds. We met the resident parrots- beautiful colourful things which they feed everyday with soggy bread so that the guests can come and be pooed on by them basically. I tried to grab some food from the pot to enable my transformation into bird lady, but wussed out a bit when I saw the parrots attacking each other to get into the food bowl and having seen the scratches on peoples arms. Still, that was quite entertaining. That night our bathroom flooded into the room to create a sort of lake in the bathroom and halfway through our dorm, soaking all bags on that side of the room and generally making walking around a little hazardous. BUT, if my A-levels taught me anything, it was how to complain enough to get a freebie, so I had a little chat with the staff and got us our money back for one night's accomodation woop woop! We made the most of being on site of the animal place and paid our money to go and hold various creatures- snakes, crocodiles, lizzards etc; feed cockatoos from our mouths; and cuddle koalas. They are very cute- its like a furry baby/ breathing, warm cuddly toy- very strange. I definately want one! Apparently they can be quite dangerous- they bite and scratch a lot, but they are cute so everyone wants to hold them. We soaked up the sun for pretty much the first time in over a month by sitting by the pool and bumped into Steph and Katherine which was really nice. They convinced us to go for a walk to hunt for wild koalas, which seemed like a very good idea until we realised that the 20 minutes of trekking up steep hills was just to get to the beginning of the walk and that it would be dark before we made it back if we actually did it. Needless to say, we went home but Steph and Katherine powered on, on their mission and did see some koalas. Instead, we spent our evening doing coconut bowling! Anyone who has ever been unlucky enough to endanger themselves by being nearby me when I attempt to bowl, knows this may have been a little bit of a strange activity for me to choose to do. I was convinced to join in by the crazy lady who worked there, who told me when it goes the wrong way, it's because you're throwing a coconut and it's not round so you can blame that... oh and the promise of a free drink for knocking over the free drink pin or a free jug for a strike may have helped just a little. She picked people at random and I wished more and more that I hadn't signed up as I watched lots of people do really well (one girl won 2 jugs in the first round alone) and a few humiliate themselves by throwing it basically at the spectators rather than the pins- I figured that would soon be me. We were all allowed 2 turns, but pity was taken on the people who failed twice and they were allowed another try. I was called up. I missed. Standard. I missed again. Standard, but a little annoying. I got my pity turn, and actually managed to get a strike! All good! Aileen also got a strike, as did another girl we'd met, so we spent a nice chilled out evening with a free jug of cider each for company and the knowledge that we were coconut bowling champions :) .

Next we spent a night in Ailie Beach, which is a small but nice little town with a lovely man made 'lagoon' pool thing and basically one street with pubs, bars and shops on- really easy to get to know and enjoy for a little while. I went out for a drink with Steph and Katherine and we found a nice little pub with a live band which was pretty cool. From there we trekked a ridiculously long way to catch out boat to the Whitsundays- very exciting! We lugged a whole lot of goon (cheap boxes of wine) and a few changed of clothes etc in our green supermarket bags, as instructed (apparently they dont like bags with zips as bed bugs lay eggs in the zips and they would end up on the boat or something? Nice!).

We had a really lovely 3 days on the boat with quite a small but friendly bunch of people- it quickly split into 2 main groups as most of the non- English speakers preferred not to speak English and so not to speak to us. I like to think we had much more fun! The first day I did my second scuba dive (which I was not sure about but figured I shouldn't pass up a freebie)- the instructor didnt let out enough air on my vest and had told us not to touch them in case we shot back to the surface or something a bit special like that. This resulted in me having a massive issue with going downwards- he kept pointing down, I kept struggling to just stay at the depth I was. Luckily, the lovely Dave decided it was hilarious to watch and took lots of photos of me failing to simply swim down. Thanks haha! Didnt see anything much that was too different that before and I came up once again thinking I probably wouldnt do it again. I had a little snorkle in the hope that I'd see a turtle, gave up after a while and swam to the beach just as other people in our group came accross a turtle in pretty much the spot I'd been swimming. Bad times! This happened A LOT. It became my mission to see a turlte and stop being in the wrong place at the right time!We sailed to our little island home and had a fairly low key evening and an early night (after a short time having screaching competitions with some crazy birds that I think are probably called 'Screach so loud and stick their neck out they might explode' birds. Probably.) We got back on our little (and very very ancient) boat again early the next morning for breakfast and set off for the amazing Whitehaven Beach, famous for its crazily white sand that is made of silicon so never gets hot. I had fun kicking the sand and making it squeek, like a proper grown up! We broke the 'suggested' rules and sat in the shallows of the sea, risking life itself as stinger season had started. It was a good risk. Really really beautiful beach and a nice chilled out sunbathing sort of a day, but still no turtles. Well, I didnt personally see any, though other people did. Again.

The next day we went to (Something) Spit, which was basically a long stretch of sand in the middle of the ocean, with no actual island. Pretty cool. We took our snorkling bits and went on yet another turtle hunt. We'd been swimming around for a while, watching fish, when Laura stuck her head up and shouted 'Sarah, turtle!' I managed to swim almost the whole length of the spit in a record breaking time and got to swim alongside a turtle int he shallows for a while- very very happy about that! Our second night started very early, as we were told we wouldnt bring alcohol onto the island at night, so had to drink on the boat if we wanted a drink at all, but we'd be dropped off at about 6pm. So, it was decided that drinking games from 4pm was the way to go. A speedy game of ring of fire commenced and we were all a little merry before the sun even went down. Back on the island, Laura and Dave pushed each other into the pool (I'm not sure who started it, but it was pretty funny) which had a sign saying 'no swimming after 8am'... strange! Laura then went to shower, ending up in the men's block and stealing some french guy's shower gel or something like that. Funny.

Back in Airlie Beach, we enjoyed a few relaxed days of not having to pack our bags every single day and basically just sat by the lagoon in the sun, topping up our ever improving tans and eating reduced sushi. Aileen and I went out one evening and met Anthony, a very sweet and funny American who had the don't-take-yourself-too-seriously thing down to a tee. The next few days he was pretty much attached to Aileen and they have been in touch a lot ever since (although he's gone home) aaaaaaah. On our last day, we had to pick up our bags from the luggage storage and kill a few hours before the dreaded 10 and a half hour night bus, which Laura and I partly killed with a small and very public nap on the sofas on the hostel entrance. After they closed up shop, we lugged all our worldly possessions to the bus station and set waiting for a very long time, only to sit still on a bus for longer. I think it's fair to say that the next day in 1770 was a right off, as we were all trying hard to catch up on sleep that we didn't get on the bus. We had a fairly early night, binning off the suggested 'anything but clothes' party at the hostel. When I attempted to go to bed, I realised for probably the first time, that this was the first hostel that had not considered it strange to have the only toilet and shower block shared by the hostel guests and the people at the public bar. I ended up brushing my teeth at the sink next to 2 girls who were redoing their make-up and staggering about. Their minds were apparently totally blown by my doing this- one girls said to me how weird but cool it was that I'd thought to bring my toothbrush with me on a night out and really couldn't understand that I was just going to bed and my room was next door! After telling her close to 10 times that I did not want to finish her drink or leave my toothbrush there to join them at the bar, I went off to bed... to listen to the music which seemed louder in our room than the bar itself. Helpful!

The next day was fairly packed- Aileen wanted to go surfing and take advantage of their cheap surf lesson, so I went to play photographer (a job a did particularly badly) and sat on the beach while she surfed away merrily. I went back to the hostel a bit earlier than she did to make sure I could eat a proper lunch before Skooteroo in the afternoon- We arrived and were kitted up with leather jackets and helmets complete with flames; and genuine biker tattoos (cough cough) which we stuck to our faces, as all good bikers should :) We were taught how to ride our mini harley davidsons and went for a little cruise through 1770 and Agnes Water. At one point, Laura lost control of her bike and somehow managed to steer it accroos to the other side of the road and nearly into a bush, much to the amazement of the staff. She was banished to the back so they could keep an eye on her. Pretty funny, but I was happy to be near the back too as my need for speed is maybe not as great as some other peoples'! A little later on, a girl in front of me skidded and wobbled on the road just as we were turning a corner, meaning I skidded and wobbled too to make sure I avoided crashing into her. Aside from that, it was really really good fun and we rode to get potato wedges and watch the sun start to set through fields of wild kangaroos, making it back in time for dinner. It was amazing fun and another thing I wouldn't normally do, but totally loved! I know, I'm hard core!

We moved on again pretty swiftly to a strangely large but empty town called Hervey Bay, the base for our Fraiser Island trip. We sorted ourselves into groups to go in each car and ended up with me, Aileen, Laura, Nicole, Louisa (who had been our hostie from the Whitsunday boat) and a strange swiss guy whose name I've forgotten... woops... in the car with the guide. Our whole group was generally really friendly and we had a really good time with them, though it was a bit of a shame they'd made it so segregated, as we slept, vcooked, ate and drove with our car groups so it left less time to get to know the others. On the first day, we drove to Lake McKenzie, which I hadn't expected much of, as in my head, when someone says lake, I see Maiden Erlegh Lake... grotty and just well, lakey. Well it turns out Lake McKenzie has a gorgeous white beach and sand so fine that they have problems with girls coming and stealing it to use as exfoliator by the bottle load- I don't blame them- we spent a while smothering it all over our skin and felt amazing afterwards! We decided to attempt the obligatory jumping photo on the sand- easy enough with 2 people (though I appeared to always look like I was about to fall over backwards. I may avoid the high jump at the next olympics), but VERY much harder with 6 people, each wanting the perfect photo on their own camera. It entertained us for a long time, while poor Daniel (that was his name) played camera tree and put up with us being totally unable to jump on the count of 3. Quite entertaining! When we got to camp, we found that our group's tent was so badly ripped that we probably would be eaten by snaked and dingos in the night, so we were upgraded to the 'bunkhouse' which we were thrilled about as it meant actual beds! Woop woop! That is, until we saw the bunkhouse... it was home to what can only be described as the biggest spider in the world- it was at least as big as my hand if not bigger; as well as 2 bats and a rather large rat or 2. I should point out that the spiders and even rats didnt bother me that much once I'd put my bag at the end of my bed, but the top bunks were littered with gifts from the bats which I didnt fancy having left on my in the night. Everytime they made a noise, I tried to spot them, but they wouldn't even show themselves- selfish! That night, our car was visited by probably a hungry drunk thief who stol my (and only my) snacks from the car. NOT IMPRESSED- you would not like me when I'm hungry! Anyway, I survived- phew! Next we went to a lake called Garawongera which lots of people refused to get into as it looked dirty and brown, due to the tea tree oil in the water- I did have a little swim and again had lovely skin afterwards. Its like a free spa! We also visited an old shipwreck which was pretty cool and looked like part of a film set, as well as climbing up to Indian Head (a cliff overlooking the sea) to watch families of turtles, mantarays, dolphins and even a shark. Pretty cool I thought! On the way back to camp we stopped for petrol and met a man who proudly took us to see his wild 'pet' snake, Gus. He showed us to where he liked to sit, but he was quite covered in flies, which the man said was fine and pretty normal, Gus didnt care. Someone then joked that maybe the snake had died. The man tried to pick it up, and found it all crispy and stuck in its position... it had actually died. Slightly awkward as this snake had lived on this guy's land for about 8 years or something... eek!We also climbed inside the 'fairy tree' which was an old tree that had been suffocated and covered by webs of strangle figs and the tree had eventually died from the middle, leaving a hollow mesh tube of vines.

At night (after a few drinks, an incident with a flaming marshmallow and a Harry Potter style burn, a death adder and some wild dingos), we were taken to the beach to go and see the stars- really really amazing on a clear night in a place with basically no lights- we could clearly see Jupiter and 2 galaxies- totally incredible! I think the more amazing thing though was that there was something in the sand- maybe phosphorus? That lit up when you rubbed it, a bit like striking a match- so we moonwalked along the beach and made stars in the sand- they glowed blue and mirrored the sky, except you could pick them up. Being the total grown up that I am, I set about trying to make constellations on Aileen's face. Standard. Really incredible thing, I think it was my Fraiser highlight!

On the last day, we were stopped by the dept. of transport on the beach as we left Eli creek- I'm not really sure what the point was, but it seemed to be a free MOT type thing that they had to do. Strange! Eli creek was cool and we floated/ walked along the creek towards the beach, taking photos and sunbathing on the sand. The final lake was Lake Wabby, famed for its huge sand dune (not, unfortunately, for the hour long trek you have to take to get to it!) which was nice (this time green) and very much needed after the walk. All in all, Fraiser Island was a good fun trip and we met some really lovely people. I'm still baffled by the sand stars!

Thne it was back to Hervey Bay and on to Rainbow Beach with its slightly dissapointing 'rainbow sands' and rubbish maps directing us to them. Nice beach though! OK enough for now, on to the next place. x