First things first....Jo's finally here!! Whey!! Took delayed and cancelled flights to get her here but she arrived eventually  Secondly....I've broken my MP3 player ..stupid me dropped it on the tiled floor as we were leaving Cairns so I'm musicless for the next four months..but as long as Greyhound keep supplying the quality movies (Ice Princess being a prime example hehe) I think I can cope  

 Ok so on with the actual updating...so Len and I finally managed to drag ourselves away from Cairns lagoon on Sunday (was a very emotional time :S) and made our way down to Mission Beach where we stayed in this giant treehouse in the rainforest...twas very very cool...felt a little bit like a hippy commune complete with chill out area in the garden of the hostel..absolutely nothing to do..it is a treehouse in the rainforest after all..so spent the time reading or sleeping but we were only there for 24 hours..couldn't have stayed much longer but it was nice for a short while at least... they had the cutest dog who wandered around all day looking for cuddles, enough to entertain us for the night at least

Monday saw us heading to Townsville to prepare for Jo's arrival...now we've heard good and bad things about Townsville...mainly that there's nothing to do there and its a bit of a dump but it actually wasn't all that bad really..I mean nothing to do but as towns go it's all right and the hostel was nice..even if it was right next to a building site!! Spent the day exploring and got a little too excited when we found a jacket potato place (no places around Oz seem to sell them and we've been having severe withdrawal symptoms!) Evening was spent catching up on Australian Idol of all things..hehe..you have no idea how bad Aussie TV is! Add to that the fact that you only have 3 channels and your left with the choice of Idol or something called Mythbusters...so idol it was! Got rudely awaken arund 6.30 by..get this...builders actually working..there were drills and everything!! at 6.30!! Go figure...anyway the day of Jo's arrival dawned..everything had gone alright so far...plane from Heathrow was delayed by 2 hours but she made her Singapore flight so all was good....however..on arrival at Cairns her flight to Townsville was cancelled and she had to wait for another 5 sleep deprived hours on standby until she could get another flight...anyway after much drama she arrived and we wisked her off to Maggie Island.

Maggie Island is absolutlely gorgeous...a bit like Rottnest what with the secluded bays and beaches and amazing blue water just more built up. Our hostel was in the rainforest and about 2 minutes walk from Horseshoe Bay. All the dorms were in little individual huts under the palm trees which meant we were more or less sleeping with the animals but twas ok....did mean we got woken up about 3 in the morning by possums climbing on the roof, geckos in the room and psycho birds in the trees...seriously you have no idea how loud these birds were it was insane! And they went on for ages! We've never heard anything like it..and this went on for 3 nights! Hehe..oh well made us laugh anyway. By far the best thing about Maggie was the fact that we hired a pink topless Moke..more or less a glorified golf cart..or Barbies convertible as we liked to call it...so we got to run around this little tropical island in a pink car (complete with pink seats..oh yes) for 24 hours finding all the bays and trying to look as if we knew what we were doing  having the best time...definately a good introduction to Australia for Jo. Unfortunately we had to leave Maggie eventually and so headed back to Townsville on Friday so we could sort getting to Airlie on Saturday for our boat trip.

So here we are in Airlie Beach..ended up getting the later coach so we arrived here at night..maybe not the best idea we've ever had we're rapidly thinking..Airlie's alright...just doesn't have as good a vibe as some of the other places we've been..probably look different in the morning once we've got ourselves settled..we're staying at Koalas (Bellviews idea...thinking this was Geoff and Evan's revenge hehe) which seems ok..a little run down and not the best looked after but ok...but we were put in this room with quite possibly THE weirdest man in the world!! Sample conversation...'Do you read books'...I mean really?!?!?! He then proceeded to sit and stare at us whilst we tried to sort our stuff so we quickly ran back to reception and asked to swap rooms and have now ended up in this room with these 3 italian blokes..one who seems to like lounging around in his underwear....so funny...anyway we're booked on our 2 day 2 night boat tour of the Whitsundays on Monday morning so only two nights at Koalas and then quite possibly booking into another hostel for Wednesday night when we get back! Hehe. Think thats about it..nothing much else to report...so will prob update again when we get back from the boat tour....fingers crossed for no travel sickness!!! Hope everyones ok at home and the rains not getting too much!?!?! :P Love you all. Em xxx