We arrived in Airlie Beach, and managed to book at cheap cruise around the Whitsundays at our hostel. So the next day at 4 o'clock we boarded our boat/yacht called the New Horizon and headed of to the Whitsunday Islands. My very wounded camera decided to stop working completely, so have very few pics of such a beautiful place. But we did buy a waterproof disposable one to take pics while we were diving so we have a few.

Basically the tour was short but fantastic, great food, views and company. We had a very short scuba dive included in the price, but as Kate had no proof of being qualified she had to join Laura in the Introductory dive. There was the promise of another dive the next day for extra money. However after a very drunken and messy second night on the boat, with a bunch of Irish lads, that ended in full nudity and red marker pens (I won't elaborate) the drving instructors were over the alcohol limit and woke up too late to conduct the dive the next morning. This was much to Kate's annoyance as she had delibrately not drunk anything that night so she could dive the next day.

We also went to Whitsunday beach, which was this fantastic white sandy beach, clear blue sea pretty much paradise. It apparantely had the finest sand in the world on it that felt fantastic between the toes. Kept our eyes out for stingrays and eels from the beach but didn't see any to our disappointment. Our disapointment didn't last long as a gigantic sea turtle rose to breath right in front of our dingy as it picked us up from the island to take us back to the boat, it was amasing.

The highlight of the trip has to be the snorkelling (we had to wear special stinger suits to protect us from the killer jelly fish and stingrays) that we did it was absolutley fantastic! We saw sea turtles and millions of types of coral and fish (including really a big one). Laura has decided that snorkelling on the great barrier reef is the best cure of a hangover!