Its been a while since we last blogged but due to expensive internet cafes and lack of time we havent had the opportunity to until now.

Our overnight stop between Hervey Bay and Airlie Beach (gateway to the Whitsunday islands) was the Kroombit cattle station. We arrived at the ranch after a couple of hours on the coach and headed straight out to the fields/pens where we all got the chance to do some clay pigeon shooting, goat herding and horse riding. The evenings entertainment came in the form of mechanical bull riding and whip cracking along side a huge roast beef feast with a few drinking games thrown in as well. We were up early the next day for our 11 hour trip to Airlie stopping in the afternoon for an hours worth of bare foot lawn bowls. Very random but good fun anyhow.

Arriving in Airlie we almost immediately bumped into some of the fraser crew, whom we went out with that night for dinner for some kangaroo and croc, it was amazing, such a good meal and the kangaroo was so good. After a day relaxing in airlie we finally boarded our whitsundays sailing boat, called Summertime, knowing the next 3 days we going to be full of good food, relaxing and awesome weather. After a brief introduction of the crew and the other 14 people that we were going to be sailing with for the next 3 days we found ourselves signing up to do 3 scuba dives with pretty much everyone else on the boat. The weather itself on the first day was awful with high winds and driving rain but everyone donned rain coats and got on with it. With the weather not brilliant the visability on our scuba dive as you can imagine was not great but as the pics show fish and coral could still be seen. In the evening we all gathered downstairs for the slideshow of the pics which the crew had been taking all day. As you can imagine there were a few people feeling the full effects of sea sickness when we all settled down to sleep what with the rough seas rocking the boat all night.

The second and third days were a total contrast weather wise with blue skies and warm weather. During that time we dived another two times, sea kayaked and genrally sunbathed/chilled out on deck.

The warm weather continued as we left airlie beach and picked up the coach that was taking us further up the coast to the ferry terminal at Townsville (gateway to Magnetic Island)

Magnetic Island is small island 8km off the coast of townsville and the mainland. its only got 3000 permanent residents on it and before we got there everwhere we read stated that it could be called paradise with its 320 days a year sunshine it receives and we werent dissappointed.

Arriving at midday in glorious sunshine our hostel was awesome, right on its own private beach/bar it was so laid back. Our so called dorm rooms were cool bungalow huts on board walks.

We had planned to stay there for 6 days for some more relaxing and sunbathing time but on the second day we hired out a topless buggy as they called them over there to explore the island with some people we had meet on our whitsundays boat. As the pictures show us lads choose the coolest colour going at the hire centre!! During one of the walks in the hunt for native wild koalas we discovered a old fort, bats and amazing views of the island! In the evening we made use of the free public bbq's that they have over here in oz for an amazing feast.

The next few days the weather turned cloudy/wet (not that uncommon for the tropics in winter apparently) but the last day it sparked into life again so we decided to have another bbq in the harbour area which was a massive success again. One of the main attractions of that bbq was the bbq'd bananas with choc in the middle. MMMM. Oh, the previous evening we decided to go for a curry which turned out to be one of the worst that the four of us have ever tasted so if anyone is planning on going for a curry on magnetic island stay away from the 'possom curry cafe in Nelly Bay'!!

We left the island yesterday and now we at Mission Beach. Its a small town only 150km away from Cairns. There is nothing for us to do here apart from the beach to sit on across the road but the four of us have booked white water rafting on the famous Tully river for saturday which should be awesome. Apart from that the weather is very tropical, humid but very rainy so not alot else going on.

Hopefully pictures will be up soon so enjoy them!!

** (15th june) having problems uploading the pictures currently but promise to put loads and loads up asap so stay tuned**