Well we left you in Noosa and so much has happened since then, where to begin? We headed on an overnight bus to Mackay where we met up with Sam, Evan's mate from Hit Entertainment days who is from there and after extensive travelling herself lives there again now. She did a fine job of showing us round and treating us to nice pub roasts and we drove out to the Eungella National Park where we spotted duck billed platypus ( platypuses? platypi... Mary any grammar clues?) which was really exciting. We had a very civilised picnic thanks to Sam's wicker picnic baskter and her contribution of a roast chicken from Red Rooster which is kind of like a drive through fast food place that do really nice roast chickens supsprisingly enough. I also did some forest flying, as you do, which involved hurtling over the rainforest canopy on a flying fox pulley thing which was tons of fun and rather marvellously run by Dave and Donna from Hull and Filey respectively. So imagine if you will, me flying through palm trees hoping not to spot any pythons asleep in the foliage, whilst Dave and Donna communicate via walk talkies in yorkshire accents " Dave to Donna, ready to go, over and out" " Donna to Dave, ready to catch backpacker should the rope break , over and out" ( ok they didn't really say that bit)

All very much fun and thanks Sam for showing us round!

Next step was Airlie Beach which I remember from years  ago and yes Oz 98 gang we stayed in Beaches again and no it's not had a refurb in 9 years and yes everyone gets absolutely hammered there. I also recall Laurie descirbing it as like Blackpool but when we were there it was very quiet and so not all that bad at all! Obbviously the only reason anyone goes there is to leap onto a yacht for some sailing - hooray!  We were booked on the Southern Cross for 3 days and on day 1 bright and early met our group and our crew .... what would they be like? Thank the lord above we had a wicked group and a fantastic time. To be brief our group consisted of the Irish Massive - 6 guys and girls working and travelling round Oz, all really lovely, Andrew and Audrey I immediately bonded with as they are also gluten free, so we swapped top cafe tips for round Oz. Next we have Mich, Michael and Henry, german, swiss and english, been on Fraser together, really funny, propensity for mooning other boats, but also good for chats about the world and everything via surfing and football. Then we have Maren, German girl, Sarah, English and a real sweetheart and Julia who arrived late in a blaze of expletives and filthy laughter and who did endless washing up, cleaned sick out of the loo and kept everyone entertained and full of goon ( boxed wine) all trip!  Our crew were Josh and Cat, Josh is like I kidn of yachty surf dude verson of alaric for those of you who know Alaric and Cat was like a similar verson of Uma Thurman.... are they dating? are they not dating? We think yes.... anyway, they were very chillled, took us to see the most amazing things and let us get on with puking, eating, drinking without tsking at all. Now the whitsunday cruises have a bit of a rep for being for sunbacking and drinking, but most of our gang were knackered from doing the same on Fraser Island so mostly everyone was asleep on the deck by 9pm and we did lots of cool actual saling, hauling up rigging, grinding ropes etc... I shall be predictable and say it was all VERY swallows and Amazons! However, we did manage one game of ring of fire on the first night  (and I don't remember the Swallows and Amazons ever playing drinking games unless they did that when the author wasn't there )when unfortunately Frances ( Irish Massive) had to drink rather a nasty potion and ended up talking to Ralph on the boat telephone. Luckily all the irish massive bar AND julia are nursess so lots of caring folk around. But what of the scenerey? The whitsunday islands are beautiful, google them, type in Whitehaven beach. On day one we did some snorkelling and saw lots of different brightly coloured fish, we also cavorted (very apt use of the word) on Whitehaven beach and ate lots of delicious food ( hooray for gluten free pasta salad, this country is SO far ahead of blighty in terms of Jen friendly fodder) Day 2 was a little rough weather wise, but we did more snorkelling and met Wally the Hump headed maori wrasse ( I think that is how you spell it ) who is about 1 metre long and bright blue with eyes like out of a disney film, and quite scary when swimming rightat you! We also troughed snacks on deserted islands and had an early nighth ( everyone scared off drinking by various puking incidients...) then on day 3 more snorkelling, more amazin beaches including a spit which gets narrowere with the tide which they ( they being rick people) use for weddings!  and then we racded another boat home! This was SO MUCH FUN, the boat completely went into the water on one side and we were all balanced on the side not in the water with various mooning going on to the other boat and we were travelling very fast about 13 knots ( 18 km per hour which feels very fast in a yacht!) The Southern  Cross was built for racing the Americas cup so it's a proper goer!

Once back on dry land everyone felt very drunk for at least a day, due to motion weirdness not through alcohol. But to speeed along the process, Sarah, Julia and us went on a bar crawl to use up various free drinks we'd earned ourseleves and had ourselves a fun night all for almost free - hooray - bad start when our frree beer at beaches did not materialises. I did my consumer champion polite assertiveness bit, and Julia hurled abuse and... between us we got beer :-)

Sad to say bye to everyone, but then Evan and I went to chill out on Magnetic Island. I was worried this would be very developed - ha! There is hardly anything there which is nice but 2 days is enough. We did a nice walk to see some WW2 forts and said hi to a koala, we also fed rock wallabies, saw a possum and Evan got attacked by some kookbura(s) who were after our bangers and mash. He will tell you about these birds, but Dad yuou would like the bird life here it's very varied, in WA I had gallahs ( as in " you flaming gallah") on my head!

And after that little diverions we are now in Cairns making the most of the free backpacker meals, eyeing up nice Jen friendly cakes and about to go see Pirates of the CArribean as it's cheap tuesday at the cinema where all tickets  are half price. And yes to everyone who was here in 98... the Woolshed is still here, I shall go to it tomorrow when we meet Sarah from our saling trip and tell you all about it next time.