Arriving in Airlie Beach at 7am with only a few snatched hours of sleep I was somewhat dazed and confused. I walked from the coach station to the backpackers that my paperwork for my Whitundays tour specified that I should check in to. Once I reached the stated destination I was amazed to find that it had shut down! I called the quoted number to check that my tour was still going ahead and was overwhelmingly relieved to find it was. From here I walked along the street to find somewhere to stay for the night and settled on the YHA as it meant I could check straight in to the room to sleep, which is precisely what I did. The weather wasn't very good, it was cloudy and raining and so I didn't feel like I was missing a great deal. That night after a restful day I met up with Paul (from Sydney and then Noosa) with his boat after-party including Harriette (from Noosa) and then also Max who trained me for my job at The Blue Parrot and who has been in Airlie Beach for the past 10 weeks. We had drinks at Beaches bar, followed by The Phoenix and then I left the group at the Irish bar Paddy Shenanigans so that I could be fresh for my sailing trip the next day.

I made my way to Abel Point Marina for a 2pm departure aboard the Pride of Airlie. It turned out that there were only 8 of us in the group (two Irish guys Gareth and Martin, two English girls Grace and Laura, and three Swiss girls), that we were being upgraded to a different boat, that there was to be a full moon party on the island that we were staying on that night, and that we would be joined for the trip to the island by additional full-moon-party-goers. The trip over to the island took about 2 hours and we passed the time by having a few drinks and getting to know one another. We checked in to our rooms when we arrived and I went next door to play some drinking games with Gareth, Martin, Laura and Grace before heading for a pasta buffet dinner. Then it was on to the bar for more drinking games. As the full moon party got under way Grace and Laura stripped off in to their bathers, jumped in the pool and encouraged others to do the same until the staff decided to fence off the pool on the basis that apparently water and alcohol do not mix! As we had begun drinking so early, we were ready for bed pretty early too.

At 6.45am my alarm sounded, and myself and the three Swiss girls that I shared a room with got dressed and headed for breakfast. We boarded the boat with the addition of a group of lads who had been coaching rugby in Sydney. Our first stop was for a spot of snorkelling, where we donned our stinger suits - mine was bright blue and jumpsuit-esque and I felt a bit like 'Challenge Anneka'. Next we went on to Hill Inlet lookout, and then sailed round to the South end of Whitehaven beach for a spot of sunbathing. Then we were headed back to South Molle island where we were staying. We showered and had hamburger and chips for dinner, followed by a couple of drinks and another early night.

In the morning we packed up, checked out, had breakfast and the 8 of us boarded the boat ready for another day out at sea. We went to another snorkelling spot which proved to be much better. Mitch (the first mate) fed the fish bread so that we could see them all and we saw a huge trout swim by too. Then we jumped off the boat a few times for some snaps, before getting ready to cruise back to Airlie Beach - the soundtrack for this (and probably Australia as a whole) being the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. On the way back we managed to get up some good speed and thus were lucky enough to be joined by three dolphins playing in our waves.

This trip along with Fraser Island are definitely the highlights of my East Coast travels. We were also blessed with excellent weather and sailing conditions for our trip and my fears before-hand of sea sickness went unfounded as a result. And as such I had an excellent weekend with a really nice group of people. Grace and Laura in particular reminded me of two pairs of friends from home - Emily and Nikola and Ali and Hayley - which meant that I had great fun hanging out with them. And it turned out that I had spoken to them on the phone several weeks beforehand when I applied for a job in remote NSW which they had been doling prior to travelling North - a slightly spooky realisation.

Back at Airlie Beach I checked in to Beaches hostel, joined the two Irish guys (the only members of our groups staying for the night) for some drinks at Magnums and Phoenix and then headed back to the room where I pretty much passed out for the best nights sleep I have had in ages. The sun was shining once again for the following day and so I made the most of it by relaxing at the lagoon. In the evening I intended to stay in, but joined three of my roommates (two of whom from Canada and one from Ecaudor) in the bar below our hostel for food and a couple of drinks. They headed back to the room and I went in search of dessert only to bump in to Kat - a girl I met in Sydney during my first few days at The Blue Parrot. I joined her and her friend for a drink and bumped into Max agtain, whom she also knew from the Parrot - it really is a very small world.

Next stop…. Townsville and Magnetic Island