Although it was supposed to be the beginning of an epic sea faring adventure, the day started of pretty relaxed. A bit of e-mailing, shopping, book swapping and 'goon' purchasing and by 2pm I was ready to board 'Tongarra', a catamaran which was to become my home for the next two days and two nights. They call it the fastest red boat on the Whitsunday's, but I have a sneaky suspicion it is because it the only RED boat out there. There are hundreds of boats to c...

The bus journey from Cairns to Airlie was not as painful as the last 12 hour trip I made (Sydney-Melbourne) or maybe I just started the trip with lower expectations. The coach was a bit warmer, no ridiculous films, I was much more tired when I started and I actually got to spread out across two seats for the whole journey, which meant I got a little bit more sleep and not such a sore neck - it also meant I was not rolling around the floor all night. Greyhound ...

A very relaxing morning which merely consisted of checking out, eating breakfast and updating my journal. After which I was picked up by Joe, another friendly tour guide who was going to help me continue on the tour which I had started two days earlier. Once again I managed to pre-empt the guide and eat an ice cream at the hostel before being taken to an ice-cream factory. Genius. Well I suppose you can never have too much ice cream when you are in the rainfor...

After a wonderful night's sleep, once I had gotten used to the odd bird calls, bugs and constant tree swaying, we grabbed some cheese, bread, crisps and biscuits and made our way out to the Cape Tribulation lookout point. The map made it look like quite a hike up the side of the cape and into the rainforest to get a stunning view of Cape Tribulation beach, but 30minutes later and having not even broken a sweat yet, there we were looking out from amongst the t...

After the most confusing checkout in history, where I honestly thought I was about to break the poor guys neck at reception, I finally managed to persuade them that I had been staying there for the last couple of nights and that I had paid for it all and that they were going to look after my bag for a couple of days. I consider myself a morning person but that was vile! I bet that poor guy wished he had called in sick. After that kafuffle Debbie, my very chirp...