After our emotional goodbye in Airlie, Lorna headed to the airport for her flight to Brisbane and I was once again on my lonesome. I stayed an extra night in Airlie and had mad night with those left from the 'Clipper' crew, drinking games on our balcony and then heading to Beaches and Mama Afrika's. I really like that club, my type of music! Also it was crazy because I bumped into a friend Craig from Bournemouth. Its such a small world!!

The next morning I boarded the Greyhound bus for another mammoth journey, continuing south my next stop was Emu Park. I had never actually heard of it until Eve on the boat told me she had just stayed there Its a recent addition to the Greyhound route, in a bid to attract more visitors to this beautiful and untouched part of Queensland. The hostel was resort style with a pool, and only 3 bed dorms. Now I am near the end of my trip I am really just about the chilling and quiet time. I have made amazing friends throughout my trip and with only two weeks left in Australia my drive to make additional friends is kind of dying, so instead of my usual chatty self staying in the common area I was more than happy to retreat to my room in the evenings to listen to music and watch even more episodes of ENTOURAGE...I'm absolutely addicted to it!

I was booked on a trip to Great Keppel Island and was expecting to spend the day alone as I didn't think anyone else was booked for the same day, (except for a couple I had metat the hostel but I wasn't keen to intrude on their day) but to my luck I was met by a chatty Dutch girl, Joy, in the kitchen that morning and we were both going so we decided to hang out together. We had such a funny day, it was a full on adventure. Great Keppel Island is a beautiful national park basically with only 12 permanent residents occupying it. There was only about 10 people on the boat going across from Emu Park and with 17 beaches on the island we guessed we were going to have the place to ourselves.

This is OUR beach........

Unlike most of the bush walks I have done in Queensland, these paths were not maintained or even properly marked. In fact at times it seemed like nobody had ever walked these paths. We nearly got lost a couple of times. If only someone had filmed us hiking through this bushland. We took it in turns to lead the walk, armed with a bright pink flip flop we used to fight through the bushes and any potential spiderwebs!! It was so funny, if only we were filmed...at one point I walked full on into a massive web and i thought the spider landed on my face and I went insane, chucked my stuff everywhere, started screaming and running away and then Joy was scared and didnt know what was going on so started screaming and running too and we were both falling over ourselves in the bush...hilarious!

Once we finally reached the stunning, empty beach we dumped our stuff and ran towards the sea like mad women. It was OUR beach!!! It was such a mission to get there we didnt think anyone else would make it! We stayed in the sea for ages it was so clear! Only upon returning to my bag did I find the remains of the foil wrapper which had been in my bag. The pesky seagulls must have sniffed the crackers somehow through the sealed foil, inside another plastic bag, INSIDE my backpack (which I stupidly had left half unzipped). I could not believe my eyes. The bandits eaten the entire packet. It was my lunch!!!!Never steal from a poor backpacker I raged chasing the stupid birds off.

The snorkelling was meant to be amazing on the island, but it wasn't actually so great. Maybe we should have tried a few more spots but the wind picked up by the afternoon and the visibility just turned to s*** and you couldn't see a thing. We still had a great day, messing around with my underwater camera and doing cart wheels on the white sand. It was perfect weather, the sun wasn't scolding and there was a nice breeze. We got lucky as the day before was totally overcast and these islands don't look so great without the sun shining.

That night back at the hostel they put on a great BBQ! Then off to bed I went as I had a 5.15am wake up call for my next coach ride...to Agnes Water and Town of 1770 to chill out.