So, from Cairns we headed South to the town of Airlie Beach, ready to do our trip to the Whitsunday Islands the next day. Airlie Beach is a nice town, full of backpackers either waiting to go on a boat trip or just returning from one. We bumped into a couple of Irish guys we'd met on the Uncle Brian's tour and went for drinks with them as they'd just finished their boat trip.

Next day we headed to the marina, and boarded Powerplay, our home for the next two nights. There were only 17 passengers which was good, better than the hundreds they pack on some! We got on really well with everyone and the crew were really good. Our first afternoon we decided to try some scuba diving, though after doing the skills under water I did not like it at all and decided not to carry on! Ben did it though and enjoyed it so much he did three dives over the trip. The food on the boat was fantastic, it felt like we were always being fed. We stayed overnight at Tongue Bay, and were up really early the next morning to watch the turtles coming up for their first breath of the day and to head over to Whitehaven beach, the most famous part of the Whitsundays. It certainly lived up to the hype, a gorgeous white, sandy beach with hardly anyone else around and really cool swirling sands due to some scientific type reason that I can't remember. That afternoon whilst Ben went diving I did lots of snorkelling and we had a great bbq in the evening followed by lots of card games and a slide show of all the photos the crew had taken of us. On the last day we got up early to go for one last dive/snorkel. Ben decided to come snorkelling but not many others could be bothered (it was like 7am) so it ended up just us. Being so early there were loads of fish around, and I saw a massive fish swim under me and was trying to get Ben to look. Luckily he saw it too, and we both suddenly realised it was a shark! It was so cool, obviously it was a harmless reef shark but a shark nonetheless. Definitely made the early start worth it. The whole trip was great and a real highlight of the East Coast.

We were back on dry land by lunchtime and spent the day relaxing by the laguna. We went out with our boat friends in the evening and then set off for the overnight bus to our next stop.