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I've not been able to update until now with me being really busy and the Internet being really bad. I got to Airlie Beach on Thursday 16th April and my Whitsundays trip was on the Saturday. The only reason people really come to Airlie Beach is for the Whitsundays and I was no different.
We arrived at about 5ish and the driver of the bus had organised free food and drink in the bar of the hostel I was staying at for later on that evening. We all met up and ate spring rolls and drank free wine then, armed with our free drink vouchers from Peter Pans the travel agent, we went to Mama Africas and had a bit of a dance before hunting down some tinned spaghetti and going to bed.
The next morning, the majority of people were going on their Whitsundays trips so I went for a walk with two Aussie girls who were in my hostel room, trying to seek out a viewpoint. We ended up walking up to a spa resort but the view was really nice with all the boats in the marina. After that I went and checked in for my trip which wasn't until the next day, then we all went and chilled out by the lagoon. The Aussie girls were getting their flight back to Brisbane and the rest of us in the room just stayed in and went to bed pretty early.
I wasn't getting picked up to go to the marina until 6:30pm but two of the girls in the dorm were staying an extra night so I just left all my stuff in there instead of having to lug it around with me all day. I went to put my bags in the bag storage and ran into Zeinab who I met in Cairns so I wandered round with her and her friend for a bit before going back to the room for cup-a-soup and LOTS of bread and then finally it was time for me to go and get the bus. I was a bit worried at first as all I could hear, all around me was German, but when we actually got on the ship there were loads of English people so it was fine.
The boat I was on was called the Solway Lass. It was built in 1902 and used in both world wars and then as a cargo vessel before it was done up to do Whitsundays cruises. The cabins were TINY and there were only two showers which you could only use when the ship was anchored. The first night we just sat around chatting and eating sausage rolls, mini steak pies, garlic bread and pumpkin soup. There were loads of shooting stars as well! That first night I felt a bit sick because of the rocking of the boat but I slept through it and was up bright and early for raison toast in the morning. The first day we were fitted with out stinger suits which we had to wear when we were in the water because of the jellyfish. We then got shuttled over to Whitsunday Island, the biggest in the group, to go to a lookout then to Whitehaven Beach. The Beach was absolutely beautiful! It's made of 90% silica or something like that, which is why it looks so white. We went and played frisbee in the sea and I left my watch on the beach because it couldn't get wet. Obviously it wasn't there when we got back so I was pretty angry about that. Once we were back on the boat we spent the rest of the day swinging on the rope swing into the sea and sailing around and sunbathing. We sailed round to Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island, and went over to the beach to drink wine, eat nachos and watch the sunset. Many drinking games were played that night but I was doing a scuba dive the next day so I didn't really drink.
The next morning people went over to the beach to snorkel and the divers stayed behind to wait for the dive boat. We had to get our face masks from the ship then we got kitted out with flippers and oxygen etc, once we were on the boat. There were six introductory divers so we went out three at a time with the instructor. The oxygen tanks were so heavy I just fell down the ladder into the water so that was a good start. The instructor then spent about 2 minutes showing how to empty our masks and how to equalise our ear pressure before she took us down. Once under the water my mask was constantly filling with water. No sooner had I emptied it, it was filling back up. I was getting a bit panicky with it being my first time and just the sensation of breathing under water was hard to get used to and I had to remember to take a deep breath in to blow out through my nose to empty my mask. At one point, when I actually got deep enough to need to equalise, I was having to remember to breathe, empty my mask and sort my ears all at the same time and I kept just floating back to the surface and not taking any notice whatsoever of any fish or anything. My eyes were stinging really bad from the saltwater as well, so after about ten minutes I asked to go back to the boat. It was only afterwards when someone borrowed my mask to go snorkelling that the lens fell out and that was why it kept filling with water. At least I found out that I really don't like diving and I'm so glad I didn't waste my money on a dive course when I was in Ko Tao. Later on that day we went round to a different bay for more snorkelling and that was really good. Some bits of the coral looked like they were under UV light and the fish were amazing. It was a pretty quiet night. We had a massive roast which was amazing, then dessert and I went to bed early intending to be up at 5:30am to see the sunrise. That didn't happen, I wanted my sleep too much. We did a bit more snorkelling on the last morning. One guy managed to see a turtle but I didn't see any. The only thing I managed to do was drop my Aussie phone into the sea so that's not working anymore! The rest of the day was spent sailing back to the marina.
That night everyone from the ship met in Magnums bar for drinks. I had a bus to catch at 7am the next day so I was only there for a bit. I can't hack late nights and early mornings as the majority of people will know. The next day was spent on a bus. We had a stopover at Kroombit Cattle Station to break up the journey to Rainbow Beach, where I was going next. It was pretty good fun. We learnt how to crack a whip and went on a mechanical bull. As expected, I was awful and fell off after about one second!! I managed to fall over just climbing up to the bull, then it took me about ten minutes to get on it so it was obvious it wasn't going to end well! There was ANOTHER early morning the next day as we had to be checked out by 7am and on the bus to a different part of the Cattle Station for a mini rodeo. A few people did clay pigeon shooting first, then we had to split into teams of 3 for the rodeo. We had to catch a goat running round a pen, drag it over to this semi circle at one side, tip it, subdue it and "brand" it (the brand wasn't hot though). My team, the "Nanny Grabbers" came first because we were amazing and did it in 18 seconds! Not that we won anything though! After that some people paid extra for horse riding/quad biking but I was saving my money so I just sat around for a few hours before the bus set off again. It took another full day of driving to get to Rainbow Beach, the gateway to Fraser Island. That story is for another blog though.
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