I just got back from a 5 day trip to the Whitsunday Islands. They are home to some of the mosts gorgeous white sand beaches in the world. I flew to the Whitsunday airport(which was nothing more than a tin shed, it was the smallest airport I have ever seen!) from Brisbane, after spending the day on the train from the Gold Coast to get there. When we arrived at the Whitsunday airport we took a taxi to our hostel in Airlie Beach(which is the mainland area of the Whitsundays). We checked in and meet our roommate, who was from Dublin. Then we went and got some food and walked along the beach. The next morning we got up and checked in with our sailing trip and then waited on the beach for our boat to leave. We finally got on our boat called the Tongarra, it was a catamaran. We then sailed out to the Nara Inlet and laid anchor. The Nara Inlet is a calm peace of harbor area next to one of the islands. We had a good dinner on the boat and then played some games with some of the other people on the boat, who were from England, Wales, France, and the Netherlands. It was pretty neat to get to know them all. Then we set up our sleeping bags on the deck of the boat and got to spend the night looking at the super clear sky with more stars than I have ever seen in my life! The next morning the crew got us up at 6 am; they decided it would be a good idea to wake us up with hard rock metal music! We then set sail for Whitehaven Beach(which is one of the most famous beaches in the area). We finally got there and the little boat took us to land. I have never felt sand so soft and white before, supposedly you could rub it on your gold jewelry and it would clean. The skipper said you could also rub it on your teeth and it would whiten them; I didn't try it! When we got on land we went for a bushwalk up this mountain to a lookout point and got some gorgeous pictures of the bay are and the beach. You could also see so many other islands from the lookout point. Then we walked around the beach for a couple of hours, it was the biggest beach I have seen on an island. The tide started to come in quickly and the beach area began to disappear and it was time to go. Apparently there are only certain times when you can be on Whithaven beach due to the tides. The little boat came back to get us but on my trip back the engine kept cutting out and then our boat began to take on water! It was so funny because then we all had to begin bailing and we had to take the rows out and row the rest of the way to the catamaran. Once we finally arrived safely on the sail boat, we took off for Tongue Bay. At Tongue Bay(which is part of the Great Barrier Reef) we got to go snorkeling. When I first jumped into the water this huge fish that was bigger than me swam up and kept bumping his head into me; I was freaked out. The crew just laughed and said that fish was like a puppy dog so I petted it and relaxed! Then I swam out farther into the reef and saw all sorts of fish; I even found Nemo(it took a while because it was hiding!) I was the last person to come in from snorkeling and then we set sail for Blue Pearl Bay, where we laid anchor for the night. That night we also got to look at the stars and play games. Also that night, however, the boats spotlight picked up a couple of sharks that were circling our boat. It was quite scary but also pretty cool! The next morning we got up even earlier because our crew wanted to get us out snorkeling before the other boats arrived. I was kind of afraid to go out after we had just seen the sharks but the crew said it was safe and that the snorkeling here was even better than it had been yesterday. So I put on my sting suit and swam to the reef. This time there were even bigger fish than I had seen the day before! I almost ran into a jellyfish and got a little freaked out. Then someone pointed out a sting ray and I felt it was time to get out of the water. So I went back to the catamaran; shortly after some of my friends came in and were complaining because they had been stung numerous times by the jellyfish; apparently I had gotten out of the water at just the right time! One of my friends even got stung on the lip; it was super swollen. After everyone returned to the boat we set sail for Airlie Beach. It took us most of the day to get back and when we did we were exhausted and happy to be on land. We went and checked back into our hostel and walked around the area for a bit. Then we showered and meet up with the crew of the boat and the others who had been on the boat with us at a local pub, where they had a "landing party" for us. It was nice to be clean and chatting with everyone one more time before we all left. We were exhausted so we went to bed pretty early that night. The next morning we got up and saw that one of our roommates(a girl from Wales we didn't know) had trashed the bathroom and broken the shower, so we decided to check out early. We then took a bus to Conway National Park, where we planned on going for a bushwalk or a hike. We started and it took forever to climb/hike this mountain thing and it was hot! I had basically drank all my water by the time we got to the top. Also we were scared because the sign at the beginning had said that there were crocodiles in the area and we were not very familiar with the local wildlife in the woods. Then we started back down the trail, which was even worse. On the way down the path was constantly blocked with fallen foilage and huge spider webs. We had to keep breaking the webs and hoping that the spiders weren't poisionous or not on us! At one point we thought we weren't going to make it out of the forest, especially since we hadn't seen a soul for the 3 hours we were there. But finally we made it back to the main path and basically ran back to the road! We were relieved and agreed that we had been idiots, since we were not familiar with the area and its wildlife and that our bushwalking days in Australia were over without a guide. Then we took the bus to Shute Harbour where we had lunch. When we got back to Airlie Beach we rinsed off quickly and got ready to go to the airport. We took a bus back to the Whitsunday Airport. When we arrived we had to wait in the waiting area(which was outside!) for quite a long time. This was after I had to be stopped by security to get an exlposives test done( of course this always happens to me, I can't leave an airport without being patted down or searched!) We finally got on the plane and began our long trip back to the Gold Coast, which we didn't arrive in until 11:30 pm! It was an amazing weekend and a trip I will never forget!