Well, the Royals visited, and i think that they must have thought we were hungry, because during any spare moment we just ate and ate and ate! The sailing trip was brilliant. We had a nice boat with only 7 others on and 2 crew, and the hutchens party definately ruled the decks! JB got straight in there and before we knew it he was at the helm driving the boat and then swinging around like a monkey pulling the sails up! We all had a go at it and got right involved. It was really cool especailly when the wind got into the sails and the boat tipped on its side and you had to sit on one side of the boat so you didnt fall off. The weather was definatley a factor, it was pretty windy for the duration but the sun was out for 2 of the 3 days, the one day when it rained was a small problem as the 1905 wood leaked and we were rudely awoken at 6am by dripping on me forehead! The wind was a problem sleeping aswell as you were getting rocked a little bit more than a baby in a tree top! But like true seamen, and with a constant supply of food to keep us going we made it! We were definatley the drunken pirates aswell as we bought more booze than the rest of the boat put together and my mother made a good job of polishing it all off! Infact i was so proud of the Royals as they made the boat for everyone else. They were going around talking to everyone on the boat and cracking jokes. In fact my parents have gone so much into the backpacker scene that the day we arrived back on the boat we were all down a rather seedy backpackers pub with our sailing buddies and my mum was tucking into the $9 jugs of sangria like there was no tomorrow! Back to the boat though.....we did a fair bit of sailing, saw the famous whitehaven beach where there is perfectly blue seas and white sands, we went snorkeling in our lovely lycra "stinger suits" which protected us from the deadly jellyfish, of which we saw none! But we all looked good! Sailing along with huge turtles passing by was real cool aswell. We also visited an aboriginal cave with paintings which was cool, and oh, did i mention we ate loads!!! It was defintately a highlight of the trip and was certainly nice to see mr and mrs H!

We left Airlie beach and the folks and made the 1400km trip to brisbane to try and sort out our tax stuff and things and then from there we went straight to byron bay Again to meet up with mark and aurelie one last time, we got here last night and had some ok waves and better beers and then were rudely awoken at 6.30am by someone banging on our vans, we well pooed oursleves and hoped he would go away...he did but left a little present on the windscreen, it was an envelope to pay a fine in, but there was no fine in it, so we think it was a warning rather than he was stupid, but you never know we might be fugitives soon!

Theres a big swell heading in tonight so i think we are fleeing the byron bay council and the crowds and heading south towards angourie hoping to score some good waves. One more month of solid surfing in australia to work off that "boating jelly belly" and then over to NZ! Hope alls good at home.