Hey there guys

It's been ages since I last wrote a blog and as I'm leaving Oz in the morning I thought I should get up to date!

So Airlie Beach…. We initially stayed at a hostel called Beaches, which was lovely! We had a TV in the room and so it was such a treat watching friends at 6pm every night!! Our roommates were also lovely, 2 Danish guys! One of which Lucy and I could not stop grinning at when we first met him,we were somewhat overwhelmed by his beauty!!!

I thought Airlie beach was a really nice place, one of my favourite desinations along the East Coast. We spent the days at the Lagoon sunbathing and the nightlife was fab.Kim, Becki and Natalie were also there the same time as us so us girls spent one night watching Bridget Jones on the TV whilst drinking goon in our room before hitting the town!! It was a brilliant night and our first experience of c*** sucking cowboy's which is a shot that is wonderfully delicious and gets you hammered! I'm addicted to them!!!In addition to the lovely danes we also had two English blonde room mates who considered themselves to be studs! They'd have different girls back most nights and walk around like they were god's gift to women!! They sooooo were not!!!

Our time at Airlie beach was great, it was when we moved to another hostel called Koalas, things started to go wrong!! Firstly we had a very weird male room mate, who was from Sweden and had extremely swollen legs. All he did all day was lay on his bed and we'd always catch him looking at us, especially Nadine when she'd be climbing onto the top bunk in her hotpants!One night I hardly slept, I was convinced he was going to kill us and chop us all up into tiny pieces. (Nadine took a photo of him which I have shared with you all, its not pretty so be sure not to be eating your breakfast whilst viewing!!)

Not only that but 3 other girl Swedish room mates stole my shower gel and conditioner from the bathroom.And to top it off I developed a load of giant bites all up my arm which we're convinced were bed bugs.To all those people who are going to come to Australia backpacking, do not stay at a Koala's resort!!

Our initial Whitsunday trip had been scheduled for the Monday but as we got stuck at the cattle station due to the bad weather it had to be postponed until the following Saturday.As you know, the boys decided to move their trip forward as they were on a tighter timescale than us and we decided to leave ours as the Saturday and chill at the Lagoon for a few days as the weather had finally improved!!

Only when we went to check in for our boat trip the day before, we were told our names weren't down for the Saturday boat and we would have to wait until the Monday. Windsor (Lucy,we call each other by our surnames!) went ballistic at hearing this news and as a result got us upgraded to a proper sailing boat called the Card which left on the Sunday.Our original boat wascatamaran which holds 80 people and you stay at a resort rather than on the boat so we were quite happy with our new boat which only held 25 and had cabins!

The boat trip itself was absolutely amazing.The 74 Whitsunday islands are located within 100 nautical square miles and are extremely beautiful.Defintely my highlight of the East Coast and guess what…we were blessed with good weather!! Well it was about time!!! We spent the first day sunbathing on the boat, getting to know everyone and visited the legendary Whitehaven Beach which was absolutely spectacular. We also saw dolphins and turtles which was amazing. Once back on the boat we got on the booze! I promised myself I had to drink 1.5 litres of water before I commenced the day time drinking (see told you I'm being sensible Mum!) I was however passed out on the top deck by 10.30!! But we had a brilliant evening listening to tunes on the boat and getting to know each other.

The next day we awoke to the stench of the onboard toilets, OMG! It was horrific! We quickly got dressed and made our way up onto the top deck!! Another day of snorkeling and sunbathing and as the wind had picked up we also did some sailing!!! We all had to sit in a row on the high side of the boat and the guys did some grinding to get the sails up!! When the boat tipped I was screaming my head off but I did eventually get used to it!! We jumped off the boat at South Mole Island and chilled in the pool before getting ready for a big party with all the other boats in a bar which is basically a giant shed!!

The Irish guys from our boat, had been quite tame the previous night but my god they were in the party spirit that night!! One of them was showing us his pole dancing skills and then they decided to pick up every girl from our boat carry them to the pole and spin them round it by holding us up and running round the pole!!I thought I had got away with it but they hunted my down andgot me up there ! I was soooo embarrassed!! They celotaped another girl to the pole!! The drinking games were quite crazy but the hosts had a problem trying to control the guys who got up on the tables and sang 'let's go fu*king mental, let's go Fu*king mental, la la la la, la la, la la!' Ok so we were joining in but I quickly sobered up when one of the topless Irish guys ( who was very very sweaty from all the dancing) rubbed up against me so that I too was covered in his sweat!! Talk about sobering up in seconds !!I felt physically sick!! Although poor Windsor had one of them rubbing his sweaty crotch area on her back so I think I got off lightly !!

I jumped on the early ferry back to the boat with Mark, Helen and Maria and we drank tea and ate nachos awaiting the arrival of the anilalated Irish guys!! Sure enough they were absolutely wasted! The wind had picked up again and the skipper decided that only the soberish people could sleep up on the top deck, It was sooo cool sleeping under the stars!!

The next day we slowly sailed back to Airlie, and chilled out in preparation for our early departure the next day to Magnetic Island.

Now, Magnetic Island apparently gets over 320 days of sunshine a year….it rained from the moment we checked in until the morning we checked out!!! The ferry ride over was so rough!! We were giggling away whilst holding our tummies that felt very dodgy!! The weather being bad was a real shame, because the hostel overlooked the ocean and if the sun had been out the scenery would have been amazing.We spent the first night at the bar doing a pub quiz and we were bloody awful! Did you know giraffes have blue tongues!?! What were the chances too of the Swedish Shower gel thiefs being in our room!?! We were too scared to confront them (wish we had now) so instead we gave them evils as if to say 'we know what you did!!!'

The second day we hired a moke, a small jeepish looking thing with no doors! Had the sun been out we would have had a brilliant time however after three hours we were soaked through and our skin was so shrivelled it looked like we'd been in the bath for hours!!! We stopped in a café for a hot chocolate before taking it back!!We did laugh a lot though, and I'll always smile when I think of us zooming round the island in that thing!!

As you know I drive an automatic at home and after my experience of driving at Fraser Island I wasn't feeling too confident! I stalled three times before we'd even left the carpark! BUT after ten minutes or so of driving round the block I got back into the swing of the gears and we were away! Switching from second to third was a big problem though and at one point when I was too busy looking at the gear stick we came off the road for a second or two !!! We were crying with laughter!! Not only was the gear changing a problem but we soon realized the handbrake wasn't up to much! I stalled whilst we were going up a massive hill! There were cars behind and I was trying to find the biting point as the car was slowly rolling back wards down the hill!!! I eventually got there but by this point the car smelt like it was going to explode!!!

Windsor's driving was very impressive ! however she took us through an enormous puddleand the car came to an abrupt halt!! We sat there for ten minutes letting the engine cool off whilst discovering that we were on an unsealed road which warrants a $300 fine! Luckily for us the car started again and we quickly returned to the main land! Next it was Davies's go, now Nadine hasn't passed her test yet although she assured me she does lots of driving with her mum accompanying her back in Wales!! Well, I sat clinging to the car seat in the back whilstpraying we would survive!!!! Like myself Nadine had a tendency to look at the gears instead of the road ahead, which is scary enough but she also likes to change the gears at a very frequent rate meaning there isn't much of looking at where we're going!Anyway, it was a great few hours!! After showering and putting fresh cloths on we munched out on chips and dip and spent the rest of the day chilling in our hut listening to the pouring rain!!

We left Magnetic Island the following day and began our 7 hour drive to Carins which I'll tell you all about next time.

Missing you guys, take care of yourself and each other.Lots of love from me xxxxx