As I turned another year older this week, it got me thinking about what I have been doing and have had an annual review. My 23rd year commenced with me going skiing for the first time, working hard-ish for a major savings plan, suffering my first major bout of sea sickness in Portugal while chilling with my Leeds girls, a little more work, followed by experiencing a multitude of cultures, having a Singapore sling at the Raffles hotel, seeing iconic landmarks and ...

What have i been up to this last few days in Mission beach? Just the usual, relaxing, walking, sky diving out of a plane at 14,000 feet!! When we arrived to our very nice hostel, Absolute backpackers, we were third time lucky in getting upgraded to a four bed air conditioned room. It is nice to have a room to ourselves for a few nights, although it seems to mean we just have more space to spread our belongings around. Ruth had finally decided she was going to do...

The length of this blogpost represents the amount there is to do in Townsville on a Sunday! We took the ferry from Magnetic island over to Townsville and found our hostel, the Civic Guesthouse. Once again we were upgraded from a 6 bed dormitory to a 5 bed with air con! We really are going up in the world, we just need our flights home upgrading and we'll be truly happy! The hostel is nice and clean with free Internet wifi which is rare for hostels in Australia...

Our last night in Airlie beach was spent in the hotel bar with the friends we made on our sailing trip and from the other boats that were out at the same time. We got free jugs of beer and free food, so we made the most of the situation. Unfortunately, our boat skipper joined us too. One girl told him exactly what she thought of him, only to be met by more abuse. As people started to drift to bed, Kyle from our boat, Sally and I ended up sat with our skipper and ...

Our overnight bus to Airlie beach was exhausting but uneventful. We arrived just before 7am and set off to find our boat office to check-in for our boat trip around the Whitsunday islands. These consist of 74 islands set in the great barrier reef. We asked one of the hostel bus workers who was waiting by the bus stop for directions to the office. He told us to walk two kilometres to the harbour, so we set off. About half the way there we had a feeling we weren't ...