Our first Greyhound bus was a good enough experience. We were treated to a film (albeit a girls film) between Cairns and Townsville, where we would catch the ferry to Magnetic Island, and the time passed quickly enough. On the bus we met three girls from Brighton who became friends that we saw a few times on the way down to Sydney.

The ferry from Townsville to Magnetic Island took 25 minutes and at the other end we caught a bus to take us half way around the island to a hostel called 'Geoff's Place', or at least tha tis what Jackie had written down in her diary. It seemed a shame to be in this hostel as all our other new found friends were staying in a hotel called Bas, which we had heard a lot of good stories about.

On arrival at Geoff's we were told that they had no record of our booking. We disputed this for a while with the guy across the counter and even used his PC to prove to him that he had taken a deposit and that we had email confirmation. On checking our email we had managed to screw up royally and in fact had booked into Base for the night - nice one Jac's!!!

We had to wait 30 minutes for teh bus to take us back tso ordered a beer from the bar. It was at this point that Steve turned his phone on only to receive a message from his sister that his new nephew had entered the world - the beer tasted so much sweeter knowing that Steve was an uncle again to a little Daniel Stephen Hundley... We toasted the birth and caught the bus down to join the others at Base.

Base was right on the sea front of this pretty little island and had a great pool and lively bar. This was two days of bliss spent reading books and sunbathing and occasionally getting in the pool to cool off from the tropical heat. It really was paradise. The only thing that ruined that was the kitchen in the hostel. It took teve nearly an hour to boil the water for teh pasta that we would eat and the kitchen was in need of a good clean. However that said, the evening was fantastic fun. The temperature as the sunset was a fantastic mix of heat with a cooling breeze, which compared to Carins was a dream come true. We had a few drinks with the girls from Brighton and a new friend called Mitch from Canada.

Despite the searing heat, Jackie decided that it was time that we went for a run, so we set off at 7am bottle in hand. God did we sweat and stuggle, even Jackie despite her usual fitness regime found it all too much. Once we had eventually cooled down, including a cold shower, we went back to relaxing around the pool until it was time to get the ferry back to the mainland and onto our next Greyhound journey to Airlie Beach for our Whitsunday adventure.