Hi everyone. I am currently in Port Douglas, north of Cairns and have an hour to kill so I thought I would update you on my travels. The last time I wrote was just after we had sailed the Whitsundays, however I didn't get chance to write too much about what we did on the boat.

The day before we arrived in Airlie Beach we have a brief stop over in 1770/Angus Water. Walking down the beach there were a few old flip flops which didn't give us much encouragement when the tide started to come in! Luckily we made it back to Dutch Courage (our camper can) in one piece. I haven't mentioned the beds in the camper van yet - sleeping arrangements are made daily by playing cards. The person who wins gets the "Penthouse", which is the double bed above the drivers cabin. However any bed on the camper van can be considered luxurious compared to the ones on the sailing boat.

Our sailing boat was called the Condor and it has won every maxi race at least once until it was taken out of competitive action in about 2000. There were 29 passengers on the boat and 3 crew. Luckily I was one of the first on the boat so managed to get a single bed. Some people had to literally sleep on top of each other it was so cosy. On the first day we sailed past Whitehaven beach (the 3rd most beautiful beach in the world). I got to help out the crew which was good, taking the sail down etc. That evening we stopped close to an island and had some beers and food (the food was excellent; much better than I expected).

The following morning we went to Whitehaven Beach. Unfortunately it was raining and plenty of people took advantage of the bright yellow rain coats (I stupidly didn't). Everyone was drenched. But the beach still looked spectacular; I'll have to go back on a sunny day in the future! In the afternoon we snorkelled next to some coral and saw many fish with very tropical colours. We stopped for the evening near a small island where there were loads of eagles, which appreciated the fat that the crew had cut off from some steaks! The eagles were impressive and chased after a few seagulls that had attempted to steak their steak fat! More beers followed that evening and we made quite a few mates. Of course the sun came out on the way back to Airlie Beach - typical! We spent a couple of days in Airlie Beach, relaxing near the lagoon and having some great BBQs (the rump steak here is very cheap - we got 4 whoppers for under $12!).

On Wednesday (June 4) we headed to Ayr which was a strange little place - a bit like going back to the 1980s. Rob wanted to do a dive here so we just relaxed in the sun until we returned. I read a book called "Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs" which was pretty funny. We went to see the new Indiana Jones in the evening, which didn't live up to my expectations! On the 5th we travelled to Townsville and were originally planning to go to Magnetic Island however we heard there wasn't much there other than a beach so we gave it a miss.

On June 6th we went to Mission Beach. I was surprised at how small the place was. It also happened to have the most expensive campsite yet - $69 for one night. After paying it we crossed over the road to find a council site that was just $12.50 a night. The council site looked a bit shabby but we booked in there for the 2nd night. We booked to go "extreme" white water rafting on Saturday where 3 out of the 4 of us sustained injuries of some kind!

The rafting was down the Tully River and was Grade 4. We were greeted by our guide Deano in the raft who told us how to try and avoid being seriously injured / killed. He said that when you fall out make sure your feet go in front of you, "otherwise we'll be pulling your body out of the river". I only needed to be told once. Apparently his usual injuries are dislocations and broken legs. Before we had time to check our insurance policy we were heading towards are first Grade 4 rapid - "The Full Stop". It was downhill from there. Tom almost fell out of the boat on that rapid; on the second Deano landed knee first on Steve's head almost knocking him out and on the third I smacked my head on a paddle! And after that was over they said the "extreme" part was yet to come. They told us to get out of the raft, hold our breath and go down a set of rapids ourselves! I got clipped a few times from the rocks but it was good fun. Next up was a water fall we had to slide down (again not in the raft). The pressure from the waterfall would push us under the water for between 5 and 12 seconds. I was under 7 however Tom was under almost 13 - he looked pretty relieved to resurface! All in all a good day, but we definitely deserved a beer afterwards!

On the 8th we headed to Cairns and started to make enquiries about diving. One course we found had some places for the following day, so we put our names down. The course was for 5 days (Monday 9th - Friday 13th). It involved 2 days in Cairns in the classroom and swimming pool. If we passed we would head out to the Great Barrier Reef for 9 dives, one of which would be at night. If we completed the first 4 dives successfully and passed all the skills, we would be certified SSI divers for life. The 2 days in the classroom were relatively straightforward and we all did well with our skills in the pool. On the Tuesday we had an exam which we all passed, so we decided to go to "Reef Teach" on Tuesday evening. This was a 2 hour seminar put on my local Uni students informing divers about the coral, the fish and other wildlife we were likely to see. It was definitely worth it as we could actually name the fish and coral once we'd seen it.

On Wednesday we did 2 dives with our instructor Ronnie. Our boat was anchored near East Timoore reef and at about 10m we practised our skills (removing mask; emergency air supply; emergency ascent etc). At one point he just turned my air off to see how I coped which wasn't appreciated! Apparently our instructor was a perfectionist and this didn't happen to those people with normal instructors. On the Thursday we did 2 more dives with Ronnie (the first was at 6.30am!), after which we were certified. On one of the dives we were filmed for a DVD, which should be on the way back to Halifax as I speak. For the DVD they make you "show off" your skills by doing a James Bond roll into the water and pretending to drink beer at the bottom. It's a pretty funny DVD. In the other dives we were on our own but luckily didn't need to get rescued, unlike some other people on the boat! We swam with reef sharks, numerous tropical fish and coral, sting rays, eels and turtles. At one point I sat down next to a turtle on the bottom of the reef and scratched its back which was incredible.

Plenty of drinks flowed on the boat back. Someone on the boat showed us a trick she used to play on the ships which had everyone in awe. She placed 5 empty beer cans in a row, turned her back and asked us to choose one. Once we had chosen one she turned around, hovered her hands over them and picked the one we had chosen. Little did we know she had asked Steve to drink every time her hand fell over the can in question, allowing her to easily pick it. Maybe we'd had too much to drink at that point but nobody cottoned on, even after about 10 attempts!

On Sunday morning (15th) I got up at 4.30am for a hot air balloon over the farmland near Cairns. It was a great ride and the sunrise was incredible. You could even see kangaroos from the balloon. That was followed by a huge breakfast on a farm, where they had an eagle and small salt water croc (which I got to hold). From Cairns we headed to Port Douglas, which was very nice. There are lots of great bars and restaurants here and the beach is a stone's throw from the town centre. We sat out and had a few drinks listening to the live band when we arrived. The following day we headed north to Cape Tribulation. En route we had a walk around the Mossman Gauge and went on a boat ride down the Daintree River crocodile hunting (we didn't see much on the way up to Cape Tribulation, but the boat company said we could have a free ride on our way back down).

Cape Tribulation was in the middle of nowhere but was well worth the visit. The rain forest is right next to the beach, which meant the views were spectacular. We even saw a crocodile having a rest near to our campsite (only about 1.5 metres long). There were plenty of spiders too - visiting the amenities on the campsite was more like visiting a zoo! We travelled back from Cape Trib today, and took up the boat company's offer for another ride. And I'm glad we did. We saw about 5 crocs, one of which was massive. He was the male who dominated that area of the river. The locals have nicknamed him scarface as he's plenty of battle wounds. The female crocs were pretty big too. The boat driver also said the river has bull sharks and he showed us a python in the trees. So it's probably not the best river to have a quick dip in before tea! There were plenty of birds on the river, including several kingfishers.

Anyway I've waffled on for far too long. We are spending the next 2 days in Port Douglas before returning Dutch Courage in Cairns. We then fly to Brisbane on Friday and then to Fiji on Saturday! Hope everyone at home is well.