Time for our first special Aussie trip! Loaded up with our boxes of beers and ciders, and a few clothes shoved into the bags that had been provided, we walked from Airlie Beach around the coast to South Marina, Abel Point. There we met Elliott, the deck hand on our boat, Silent Night, along with the rest of the group. Elliot was a typical Aussie, very laid back and a good laugh. When people say they went on holiday, quit their jobs and just didn't go back - he actually did that when he went to the Whitsundays (he used to be a City Planner in Sydney).

Elliot led us to Silent Night, which is a true sailing boat and one of the smallest charter boats around - there was only 12 of us on it and two crew. Silent Night is a gorgeous navy and white; it used to sail in races and won a few, back when the inside of the boat was empty for less weight.

We met Taylor, our Skipper, and soon were off pacing away from the harbour. It was awesome sitting on the side of the boat with your legs dangling down and toes getting splashed. At first the motor moved the boat along, but when the wind picked up the motor was turned off, the sails went up and we were truly sailing the Whitsunday Islands. Thus at times, we had to change positions on the boat to allow certain ropes and poles to move. On the first day, a few of the guys including Max hoisted the sail up the mast.

Altogether there are 74 islands that make up the Whitsundays and all but 4 are uninhabited. They were discovered back in the day by Captain Cook and feature beautiful turquoise water which is perfect to sail around. We had perfect weather for our trip, with relatively calm waters, a breeze for the sails, and scorching sunshine.

It was a great group of people on the boat with 7 Germans and 3 Swiss from 18 to 28 years old. The music flowed, conversation was interesting (although lots of German), and wind was refreshing. We sailed for about 2 hours to our first destination.

Our first stop was the most northerly point of the Whitsundays beyond Hayman Island at Blue Pearl Bay. The bay was empty, quite an unusual feat according to Elliot and Taylor, so we were keen to get in for a snorkel and cool off. First things first, we had to get our stinger suits on; there are deadly, invisible box jellyfish in the tropic waters here so you can't jump in without a protective suit on. Elliot took us over in the dingy (Silent Night tows it along) to the best part of the reef. It's still part of the Great Barrier Reef on the Whitsundays so naturally the coral was of all different shapes, sizes and colours and the fish were vibrant. We saw a few Mauri Rass (we're unsure of the spelling) which are huge black fish about 3 foot long.

When we'd finished snorkelling, the dingy ferried us back to Silent Night and we anchored there for the night. We watched the sunset with a few beers and ate our dinner marvelling at the giant fish around the boat jumping out the water to catch smaller fish. Underneath the deck was pretty cosy with people asleep everywhere. We had a tiny private cabin that seemed as small as our campervan (which we didn't think would be possible!). As there weren't enough beds for everyone, the Skipper slept up on the boom!

With the sunlight pouring in and heat unbearable, everyone woke up really early. We rapidly set off and soon were at Hook Island, the second biggest island out of the Whitsundays. We stopped in Luncheon Bay for more snorkelling in our stinger suits. It was a nice way to wake up and we saw a nemo in an anemone!

Back on the boat, the girls hoisted the sails - they had a bit more trouble than the boys! We sailed to Tongue Bay on Whitsunday Island, the biggest of the 74, and stopped there for a bit of lunch. The bed of Tongue Bay is covered in sea grass so there are hundreds of giant sea turtles around. It was cool spotting them pop up for air while we ate our lunch.

Next, we were ferried over on the dingy to the island for a visit to the highlight of the trip - Whitehaven Beach. Elliot and Taylor were really flexible with our schedule and knew when to get to the best spots at the best time. As we walked through the jungle trek to the lookout spot for Whitehaven Beach, boat loads of people were leaving. Whitehaven Beach is amazing, probably the most beautiful beach we've been to so far. We were fortunate to see it when the tide was low so there was loads of fine white grain sand to walk on and the sea around was greens and blues.

After a few hours on Whitehaven, Silent Night raced against the sunlight to get round to Nara Bay for sunset and to stay for our second night. Again, we watched the sunset and saw dolphins swimming around the bay. A few hours after dinner, we watched the moon set - quite weird as we never really see the moon set at home. We turned off all the lights on the boat so that we could spend the evening stargazing with our beers. It was so beautiful, we have never seen so many stars. Elliot taught us some cool stuff about the stars, such as that (of course) they can't see the North Star here (too far down under) and about the Southern Cross of stars, which is on their flag and used by the Aussies traditionally to calculate which way is south. We also saw Venus, Orion's Belt and the Milky Way, plus a few shooting stars.

This morning we were up bright and early again and set off to False Nara Bay for a last snorkel. It was the best spot so far for coral but we didn't see as many fish. We enjoyed the sunshine as Silent Night sailed back to Airlie Beach and, sadly, we all parted ways.

Keen to get back on the road and rack up some kilometres, we are currently driving to 1770. We had a pitstop at Hungry Jack's for lunch and stopped on the coast to cook dinner. We found a nice little picnic table right on the beach with no one around. Best view for a lamb curry!

Steph and Max x