Whitsundays

I arrived in Airlie Beach about midnight and had to go and find a bouncer in a bar to let me into the hostel resort and give me a bed for the night! The town was full of drunk people and trying to dodge them whilst carrying over half my body weight on my book was not so fun! This bouncer was the fattest man I've ever seen and really not helpful. He also charged me $25 for the room which is the most I've paid for a room in Aus!

Anyway next morning I checked out of this hostel, tottered down the road and checked into the other one I'd booked. I've never seen such chaos in a hostel reception in my life! It was like Piccadilly Circus! Luckily I bumped into Chris, which saved me the job of trying to locate him and Hannah. Airlie is a really small town, full of backpackers and basically a stop off point for anyone going to the Whitsundays. It has one main street and not a lot else going on! We went for a nice brunch and then went and chilled by the lagoon at Airlie Beach. This lagoon is man-made and is basically like a large outdoor swimming pool made to look like the beach. You can't swim in the sea at Airlie during Summer because of all the stingrays, jelly fish etc so they created this as a safe swimming spot. In the evening we had dinner at one restaurant, followed by chips for Chris at another restaurant, followed by a burger for Chris at McDonals. Hungry lad!

We were up bright and early and on the boat by 0830. The boat is a little sailing boat, 52ft long and pretty modern looking. The 2 crew members were pretty chirpy and once all 12 of us had jumped aboard we were off. We drove out the harbour for about 20mins before the sails went up and we almost flew along! It was pretty nippy despite the sun being out, but the views were already pretty good. We stopped for a yummy lunch of roast chicken and potato salad (a far cry from my previous meals of burger/fruit/bread) and then got a dingy out to Whitehaven beach - truly a picture postcard view. I've never seen a beach so white or the sea so blue in all my life! We spent a couple of hours on the beach (whilst yet more sodding sand flies had lunch on me) before getting back on the boat and heading over to Dunbell island for a snorkel. The fish were pretty cool here but to be honest it was nothing on the reef I saw diving in Vanuatu. Chris also cut his foot open on some of the coral, which has subsequently involved a trip to a GP and he's now drugged up on antibiotics. We sailed on a bit further to Turtle Bay, where we had dinner and the beers started flowing once again. There were 5 English people who were working out here, an Englishman and his 2 sons and a French guy on board. Unfortunately, this spot was rather choppy, so we had to cruise further round the coast later that night in an attempt to find somewhere a bit smoother. The place we ended up anchoring for the night wasn't much smoother and boy did the boat rock ALL night! We called it a night at 10pm but I didn't feel any less tired at 7am when we got up again!

Tuesday (day 2 of the sailing trip), I kicked off the morning with another spot of snorkelling. Again not the most beautiful reef or fish but some of the coral was good to look at - one bit looked like a tree/staghorn with blue tips on the end. I definitely need to invest in an underwater camera so I can show you all what I'm on about. When I got back out the water, one of the crew told me that just before I got up he'd seen a small tiger shark in the bay, but figured he wouldn't tell the snorkellers until they got back on board. Sharks are something I never ever consider normally, but I guess that's what you get for living in Oz. If I'd have known about the shark sighting earlier, I definitely wouldn't have gone for a dip. We then headed off to another beautiful beach that forms at low tide in the middle of the sea. There's a private resort 5mins away in a boat, that charges about £70+ for a trip over to this beach! Ridiculous! Anyway, we had a little picnic on the beach and then set sail one more time back to Airlie beach.

The sailing trip was really picturesque (especially Whitehaven beach) and I loved the sailing, but I think in future I'll try and stick to sleeping on dry land!

Travel to Hervey Bay

An overnight (12hr; freezing cold) bus took us from Airlie beach to Hervey Bay, where we quickly realised there are a lot of incompetent people that seem to work in Hervey Bay (the taxi company had no idea where the big transit centre is and the hostel were supposed to pick us 3 up and collected 2 randomers and then naffed off). Once checked in we decided to stock up on salad, veg and more nutritious food and then I headed for a walk about to see the sea. The coast isn't particularly exciting at Hervey Bay. Yes there's sand and a nice walk alongside the beach but the cafes are pretty naff and there aint a great deal going on. I did talk a walk along the pier (868m) which used to have a trainline along it, collecting wood from Fraser Island and taking it inland. The fact I've remembered this fact tells you how dull the rest of the town was. Jill and Jo (2 other medics) arrived late wednesday night, bursting with excitement and stories from their elective. Sadly the rest of us were too tired to talk and we were all asleep by half 9!

Fraser Island

Unique Fraser who organised our tour has the rudest receptionist I've ever met and their safety briefing is definitely very brief! I guess most of it is common sense, but there's no point making us all be at a certain place, at a certain time, if you're going to show about 2mins of a 20min video and tell us we're all adults so should know what to pack! Anyway sleeping bag hired (£9), vans loaded (complete with a bottle of sparkling wine for me (£5.50!!) we were off in our 4x4! There were the 5 of us in our car (ie 4 x medics, Chris' girlfriend Hannah and a girl from Bristol) and we definitely got the better of the 2 cars. We hopped on a short ferry ride (35mins) and landed on Fraser Island - the biggest sand filled island in the world. All the roads on this island are sand tracks or the beach. The tracks are basically like dirt tracks but covered in sand (some soft, some harder), with a speed limit of 30km/h and a definite requirement of a 4x4 as I was going to find out for myself. The beach is actually a public highway with a speed limit of 80km/h. You're restricted as to what times you're allowed on the beach because of the tides and there are also sometimes police and their speed cameras on the beach.

We first stopped at Central Station for a quick chat about the dangers of the island (dingoes, sting rays, snakes, spiders etc) and the agenda for the next 2 days. I then took over the driving and we drove across the island and onto the "highway" (beach). For a start, the axis didn't line up with the steering wheel and you were constantly sliding about. I definitely noticed the difference between my little peugeot and tarmac and this monster and sand tracks! Our first stop was a 45min walk to Lake Wabby. This is a fresh water lake located next to some massive sand dunes. I did have a quick dip in the lake but it was freezing, so jumped back out pretty sharpish. We then walked back for lunch, prepared by Mick our driver. Now Mick is an interesting character. Most people probably hate him and he definitely hates the Germans! He's very outspoken, swears a lot and a bit arrogant. Once we got to know him over the weekend, we learnt that deep down there's a good person in there wanting us to have fun but be safe, he just has a very unusual way of showing it!!

After lunch, we headed to see a shipwreck on the beach (Maheno Wreck - something about a ship that was being towed, got caught in a cyclone and washed up on the beach on Fraser Island). We also had a quick stop at the "Pinnacles" which is a rock formation with yellow and grey stripes across it. Next was a bit of hair-raising driving over some deep, soft sand and onto Champagne Pools. These are the only salt water pools you can swim in at Fraser because of all the bad creatures that live in the sea. I realised here that I have been massively spoilt on my trip. I expected to see some deep turquoise pools surrounded by some big rocks or white sand and I was a bit disappointed with what we got. The sand was white(ish), but the pools weren't that deep and I've seen a similar landscape and stretch of beach in Cornwall. Told you, I am becoming very spoilt!! I did brave a dip in one of the pools, which was quite pleasant. We then headed onto a lookout from the north of the island (Indian Heads - sacred to Aboriginals). From here not only could you see a lot of the island, the beaches and the cliff face, but we also spotted a giant stingray and a whale! Woohooo!!

I got back behind the wheel after this and immediately had to make use of the 4 wheel drive to get us out of our parking space. I think at this point something clicked inside me which said, "we aren't going to get stuck like that again" and with my foot right down we almost flew over that deep, soft sand we'd driven over an hour before. When Mick and Chris said "you have to floor it," I don't think either of them thought a girl would take them that literally! Anyway, I loved every second of it and the adrenaline certainly was pumping! I think the others loved it too, but not so much when we realised in the height of the action, Chris' suncream had exploded ALL over the boot and onto everyone's bags! Error...

We then headed back to the campsite we'd pitched earlier and had a delicious dinner of steak, potatoes, mushroom sauce and salad! Another group came over including some cool lads from Glasgow, who'd happened to sit next to me on the bus to Hervey Bay and we had toasted marshmallows by the fire, before a select few headed down to the beach for a party. This party turned into various races and games and a dingo even strolled over to see what was going on. We also had our car down there with my ipod pumping out some tunes. Several hours (and bruises) later, about 9 of us piled into our car with Mick driving to "test the wheels". Although spinning round in circles on the sand was fun at the time and there weren't any other people about, I don't think Mick was completely sober and the car certainly was not made for 9 people!! Mick stayed up with me and some of the other group as I was the last one to bed (yet again) and I eventually called it a night about half midnight (and several glasses of goon later - cheap aus wine donated to me by my new friends).

7am came and the camp stirred again. Despite my late night, I was suprisingly bright eyed and bushy tailed. Mick cooked up another trooper meal of pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, cereal etc (no I didn't eat all this!) and then we decamped and headed to a "bonus" spot. This other place was Lake Allom, filled with turtles! There were loads of them and we kindly shared our remainding bread with them. Some picked them up out the water, but unfortunately Hannah got a bit scared and dropped one on it's back. She will never, ever live that down. Poor turtle. We then sped along the beach to Eli Creek - basically a river leading down to the beach which we could walk in. As the tide was coming in pretty fast, we then charged along the beach to the turn off for Lake McKenzie. All the driving so far on day 2 had been pretty scary and hard work and the drive to Lake McKenzie was no exception. It's a good job I didn't feel bad after the night before, because this drive would certainly sort the men from the boys. Lake McKenzie is another absolute picture postcard place. White, white sand and a MASSIVE blue lake, surrounded by lovely trees and greenery. The water was again pretty cool but really refreshing. Eventually though it was time to head back to the ferry and I was in the driving seat. I did manage to get us stuck on a flat bit (badly timed my gear change) and on a little hill (not quite enough power), but I maintain that it was the softest and therefore most difficult track we'd been on! Anyway it was here I came up with my knew theory for life - if in doubt, floor it.

We arrived back on the mainland about 4pm and bid our goodbyes to Mick and all went for a much needed shower. Now keep in mind, what a hectic 2 days I'd just had and you can imagine my disappointment when I opened our hostel room to see a really fat man fast asleep in there, snoring his head off. I have never in all my life heard someone snore so loudly and so continuously in all my life! It was RIDICULOUS. If I hadn't have had to leave so early the next morning, I would have definitely had him moved. I accept that if you sleep in a dorm, you will get the odd snorer but this guy was just in a league of his own when it came to the Snoring Championships.

So there you all are. One hell of a week! I'm now in Noosa writing this to chill out (after an 8ish mile walk and a run this afternoon) before hitting Sydney and Melbourne next week!

Much love xxx