JAMES

It is a good job we have this blog to write. Even if no-one is actually reading it, it has at least twice provided us with a means of killing a few hours when we have been stuck in dull-ar$ed towns waiting for transport out which doesn't go for several hours. Mackay was one such place. A smallish provincial town with a fairly deadbeat high street containing a motley collection of automotive and wholesale shops, a couple of grungy looking pubs, and no supermarket or convenience store. Not much going on at all, so without the blog we would either have been very bored or very drunk. Or both. A bit like having to spend 4 hours in Maidenhead on a Sunday afternoon really. Limited options.

Anyway, 6.25 finally came round and we hopped onto the Greyhound bus for the 2 hour run up to Airlie Beach, gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. As coaches go, it was pretty comfortable, and even had a film showing. For reasons best known to himself the burly Aussie driver stuck on some god awful chick flick starring Richard Gere and J-Lo, so I buried my head in my book. Sadly, having read all of my proper books, I had to resort to reading one of Katie's god awful girly trash novels, which much to my horror turned out to be a bit of a page turner, and before I knew it we were in Airlie Beach.

We had originally planned to do a 3 day / 2 night cruise out of Airlie, going round the islands and out to the Barrier Reef. However, by the time we got round to sorting it out there was nothing available that we fancied, so we decided to splash out on a nice hotel and just do a couple of day trips. The Airlie Beach Hotel had a room with a balcony and a sea view available for the four nights at $209 a night, so we snapped it up! After a few weeks of hostelling, it was nice to have the luxury of a nice big bed (no bugs in it either) and a plush en suite bathroom! Money well spent indeed.

Got up early the first day and headed down to Whitsunday Bookings to sort out our activities. Brief thoughts of doing a sky dive, but in the end we didn't have the time, which saved me the embarrassment of having to wuss out when it came to it! After a long drawn out discussion (things move slowly in Oz, especially when you're in a beach resort) we had resolved to do a sailing trip round Whitsunday Island the next day (Friday) and a trip to the reef on Saturday. Early starts for both though, the coach would pick us up at 7.20am both days. Who said travelling was relaxing??? All we needed to do was wander down the road to another tour office to buy 2 VIP cards each for $38 dollars apiece, which would save us about $60 each off the booking price. Money for nothing we thought, so off we went. We got the cards, and the girl who gave them to us was so intent on relaying some banal piece of gossip to her colleague that she clean forgot to ask us for any more, turned her back on us and continued chattering. So we scarpered, $76 to the good! Result...

Pleased with our mornings work we spent the day chilling by the lagoon. The beach is out of bands this time of year as it is stinger season, so you can't swim off the beaches without a wetsuit. Which is all a bit of a faff, so we chose the man made lagoon (a big outdoor swimming pool really).

In the evening we had dinner at Capers, one of the hotels 3 restaurants. The Bloody Mary cocktails kicked of the evening in great fashion, the best ones we have ever had. You would be surprised if I told you that, despite having Bloody Mary's in very posh hotels in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and many other places, the former reigning Bloody Mary champ was the Hand and Flowers, Maidenhead. Anyway, these were now the best. And the main course of seafood pasta was the best main course of this trip so far, just surpassing the steak I had in Miami on the first night. We then got carried away and went for pudding as well. Very nice, but we then both spent the next couple of hours moaning about how full we were and that we'd never be able to sleep! Oh well, gastronomy will always beat sleep!

Sadly it wasn't overly windy for our sailing trip on Friday so we had to motor round most of it. It was a shame, as our vessel was a Camira - an 85ft bright lilac catamaran billed as one of the world fastest sailing boats, capable of something like 40knots (about 50mph)! Sadly, when we were on it our top speed under sail was something like 5knots, and at one point we ground to a complete halt! Still, a pretty cool way to spend the day - chilling out on the boat soaking up the rays, drinking beer and eating lots of food, snorkelling on some coral and spending some time on Whitehaven Beach. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the Whitsundays themselves. Aussies rave about them, as one of their must-see destinations. They all want to take their holidays there. They were nice enough to sail round, but nothing that special. But Whitehaven Beach is just stunning. The sand there is 98% silica, so it is bright white, and it reflects so much heat that it never gets hot! Probably the best beach I have been to, better even than Bradenton Beach!

The next day we were back at Abel Point Marina to board Seaflight - another catamaran, but a proper motor one this time, with none of those useless sails getting in the way! - for our trip out to Cruise Whitsundays pontoon at Knuckle Reef, in the Barrier Reef proper. With a couple of pickups on the way it took us 3 hours to get there. As soon as we did Katie went off on her dive and I lay in the sun some more! There's loads of stuff to do on the pontoon, so once she was back we did some snorkelling, went on the semi-submersible boat, the glass bottom boat, had a looked in the underwater observatory and had many goes on the water slide. Sadly we didn't see Wally, the resident Maori Wrasse - a huge comedy looking fish with great big lips and a funny face. I'll try to Google an image and stick it on the blog. Again, a little bit disappointed with the reef. The visibility wasn't that good when snorkelling, and because the sun wasn't shining all the time, you couldn't see all the very bright colours that you see in the photos. There were quite a few fish, most brightly coloured, but not as many as I had expected. I guess that is the danger of having your expectations set by marketing photos that have been shot in optimal conditions and probably tarted up using Photoshop. And we didn't see a shark! One dive group did though! Still, a cool day, and it was good to see. The coral is really cool, so many different types, and so huge as well.

I am glad we did both the trips, but with the benefit of hindsight we definitely did the right thing splashing out on the nice hotel rather than the overnight cruises. It has been nice to have a base and be able to unpack the rucksacks. Not so nice to have to pack them up again in their entirety this morning, but you can't have it both ways I guess! Got a couple of days on the road now. We bus back to Mackay tonight, then fly early to Brisbane and then connect with a 7.5hr flight to Singapore. Land there at 7.30pm, overnight in a hostel, and then fly out to Kota Kinabalu at 2pm for our 9 days in Borneo! Will be sad to leave the Southern Hemisphere, it has been fantastic and we will definitely return soon, but equally, I am really looking forward to spending a couple of weeks in Asia again! I can't believe we only have two weeks left. It feels like we have been away forever, flying out to Miami on 6 October seems an eternity ago, but the time seems to be passing all too quickly now. I guess it always was going to at the end of a holiday. I keep telling myself that we still have 2 weeks, and that is a normal holiday, tacked on to the end of 9 weeks travelling! Most people would be overjoyed to have our final two weeks, let alone the preceding 9 weeks, so we mustn't seem ungrateful!!

KATIE

Cairns was ok for a night, but didn't look to be anything special and having arrived at Airlie Beach we were certainly pleased we'd opted to go for the Whitsunday's rather than basing ourselves in Cairns. We arrived in Mackay around lunchtime on Wednesday but had to wait until 6.25pm for a bus to take us to Airlie Beach. So we tried rather un-successfully to update the blog (site undergoing maintenance), checked mails etc, I got a hair cut (10 weeks is definitely too long for me without a cut!) and we had a couple of beers in an outside bar.

Arrived in Airlie beach just after 8pm having watched a very girly film, 'Shall we Dance' with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez on the journey through, I enjoyed it anyway and it certainly passed the time quickly! Decided to stay in the Airlie Beach Hotel as we would be here for 4 nights and we'd not stayed in a hotel since Hong Kong - the joys of an ensuite and nice big room to unpack your stuff in!! Wonderful!! Lovely sea view too, what a nice place!!

We'd spent a while on the phone the last few days trying to organise a cruise, but for some unusual reason which the travel agents didn't even understand this week was really booked up and there was pretty much nothing available in the time we were here. Only a boat that wouldn't guarantee a dive and that was no good for me! So we decided to do 2 one day cruises, one to sail round the islands and do a bit of snorkelling and the other to go to the reef and dive. Actually in hindsight I'm pleased we couldn't get on the 2 night cruises. For one thing, you're stuck for a lot longer with the people on the boat and can't go off and do your own thing, if the weather had turned bad it could have been miserable and the sleeping areas would have been really small. Plus they are quite expensive. Having moved around almost daily recently and stayed in hostels and a shared dorm at Ayers Rock the idea of having a base for 4 nights where we could actually unpack some stuff, and have an en-suite hotel room with sea view was very appealing! With the money we saved on doing the cruise it was still cheaper to have a nice hotel room, and the Airlie Beach is a lovely hotel, very friendly and relaxed, not posh, but they let you borrow beach towels, have biscuits and free toiletries in the room - not stuff we've been used to!

The first morning we went to see Tina at the highly recommended Whitsunday Bookings agency, very knowledgeable and totally independent. After what seemed like hours, we'd gone through every possible boat and discount / package options and found 2 that sounded great, one, the 'Camira', a sailboat to cruise round the islands and do some snorkelling - booked for Friday - and 'Seaflight', to take us out to the reef and do some diving, snorkelling etc - booked for Saturday. Tina advised getting VIP cards which would cost $38 each but would give us a bigger savings, so we trundled off to get them and were pleasantly surprised when the lady handed them over and didn't ask for any money. Rather confused we stood there for a couple of minutes before walking off at a quick pace - I guess they are free for students or something and she just didn't bother asking! Bargain!!

Spent the afternoon sunbathing by the man made lagoon, which is lovely, and looking out over the sea and little sail boats bobbing around. Gorgeous! It's stinger season here (jelly fish) so you can't swim in the sea, but the lagoon is a pretty good second. We went to one of the hotel restaurants, Capers, for dinner and had the best Bloody Mary's ever made - really spicy with lots of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco and great food to match. Needless to say we ate too much and vowed not to eat so much in the next few days and not to have pudding again!

Up again before 7am (we're certainly not wasting any time on this trip!) to get our lift to Abel Point marina to catch the Camira, a catamaran sailboat which would have been truly beautiful if she weren't painted a rather un-fetching purple.......

The day was great, although she's a sailboat, the wind isn't always strong enough so most of the early part of the day we were powered by the engine rather than the wind with only the central sail up (it was huge!) but it was still cool. We spent most of the morning lying on the 'trampolines' at the front of the boat (not for jumping on but very comfortable to lie on!), with free tea and coffee, water, biscuits and morning tea (cakes, scones etc). Arrived at a fringing reef where we got kitted up in stinger suits, masks / snorkels / fins etc and spent a while snorkelling round, pretty good coral and fish and a good chance to practise duck diving! After this the bar was opened and it was help yourself beer, wine and a huge array of soft drinks all day after that. Great value. A stop at Whitehaven beach was next, voted one of the world's most beautiful beaches apparently, and it was lovely. Very very fine sand (I think they said 98% quartz) and we had an hour there to chill out, swim, play beach games etc. James opted for the sunbathing and reading while I got dressed up in my flattering stinger suit again and went for a swim to see if I could find the sting rays and turtles we'd seen from the boat when we arrived. Managed to find the sting rays but no turtles unfortunately. Still had time to catch some rays before getting on the rib back to the boat for a really good buffet BBQ late lunch. Managed to get to other sails up in the afternoon a couple of times - I'm staggered just how large the sails are having never been on a sail boat before, and they really are a beautiful sight. It never lasted long though as the wind really wasn't strong enough at only 10/15 knots.

Arrived back about 5.30pm and after a desperate for, shower, enjoyed a nice cocktail at Capers - this time I opted for an Apple Pie - Gin, Vanilla Absolut Vodka, apple juice and topped with a bit of cinnamon and smattering of thin cream, very, very good! James' Bloody Mary wasn't a patch on the ones yesterday though! Had a few games of pool and true to our promise last night, shared a couple of starters and left it at that for food!

It was a bit like groundhog day in the morning, up again at the same time for the same pickup bus to take us to the same marina.......but this time to board a different boat. The Seaflight is a huge catamaran, thankfully white rather than a hideous purple, and infinitely larger. We were lucky yesterday that Camira wasn't anywhere near full, we had about 40 on board whereas it can seat 80, which is how many people piled onto it this morning - we silently thanked Tina at the travel agent for booking us on the quieter day as we watched them boarding, it was absolutely packed and wouldn't have been anywhere near so good.

It was a good 2.5 hour journey over to the reef once we'd made a few pickups on Hamilton and Hayman Islands, during which we had various bits of food, tea coffee and talks from marine biologists and I did all the usual medical forms for diving and got our dive briefing. Basically when you get to the reef - Knuckle Reef - there is a huge Pontoon, with sun decks, an underwater observatory, glass bottom boat trips and semi submersible boat trips, all free. I was diving first so got kitted up - the first time in 5 years so it was a little strange seeing the equipment again and re-acquainting myself with where the inflation tube is on the BCD and the such like!! As soon as I was in the water again though it felt great, and pleasing that it didn't seem as odd as I thought it might and that I only had to adjust my buoyancy once during the dive - I'd had visions of me flying up and down and spending ages getting it right!

Although it was great to be back under the water and the coral was beautiful, I have to say I was disappointed by the reef (a feeling thankfully shared by one of the other divers, as I wondered if it was just me). I had imagined very clear water, bright colours and lots of fish. Instead the water was quite cloudy (possibly due to too many divers and snorkelers) and the colours were quite muted. It was a bit cloudy so maybe on a brighter day it would have looked more as I imagined, but it was never that bright and colourful even when the sun came out. Having said that we did see sea cucumbers, star fish, bannerfish and other coloured fish and the coral was stunning, so it's not as if the dive wasn't good, just not the 'streets ahead of Greece' that I had expected. I was also disappointed that we didn't see the local Masse fish, Wally, who is absolutely huge and apparently very friendly, or any reef sharks, which were spotted by some of the intro divers that went out after us. I thoroughly enjoyed it none the less!

Found James and we went snorkelling before getting some of the buffet lunch, and then it was onto the semi submersible, the underwater observatory, and then the glass bottomed boat! Just about had time for a few trips down the water slide that was a lot faster than it looked and very addictive!! The trip back home was a lot more uneventful but enjoyable up on the sun deck, before arriving back abut 6pm. Definitely recommend the trips, and personally I'm glad we did the day trips.

It's now Sunday and we've had a look round a couple of shops, sunbathed by the lagoon and now spent the last 2 hours here doing emails and internet and I'm boiling! Catching the bus back to Mackay at 6pm before flying to Singapore tomorrow morning. I'm really looking forward to Malaysia but it's a shame we have to leave here! And I can see the days we have left ticking away and it's now going really quickly!!