Hey everyone! done quite afew awesome trips since we last wrote on here, its been pretty hectic the last couple of weeks with everything that we've been doing but its just getting better and better!!!

We left Townsville and headed for Airlie beach, which is a single strip packed out with backpackers, hostels and lots of bars! On our first evening we went down to the huge bar inside our hostel (Magnums) to have afew drinks and meet some people, ended up sitting with a aussie couples, had a few more jugs than expected and it ended up being a really good night.

The next day we set off down to the harbour to get on our boat for the Whit Sundays sailing trip, we saw what we thought was our boat but it was actually the much smaller one hiding behind it, LOL! There was only 25 of us on the boat including the four crew but this made it better as everyone got to know each other much better and we all got involved in the sailing, which was actaully really fun! stoppd off at couple of islands to do snorkelling and our free dive. Snorkelling actually turned out better than the diving! Saw loads of tropical BIG fish! And the weather was loverly so i think every one had a good first day! Every couple of hours danielle was taking her Sickness travel tablets and luckily she was fine :) In the evening every one went to a little pub for a "couple of drinks" It tuned into 25 people playing drinking games and the social drink turned into a night of heavy drinking! When we got back onto the boat the drinking carried on till early hours of the morning! Every one become every ones best friend and was just a wicked night! However We both was a bit ill before we went to bed. Danielle is still blaming that it was travel sickness but it was too much wine! haha

Our second day on the boat we did more snorkelling and his is where we saw several nemo fish... was awsome! And people then pay to do more diving. The weather wasnt to good today and every one was feeling it abit from the nigth before! We were supposed to go to whitehaven beach-which is supposed to be one of the best beaches in Oz but we had a vote and no one could be bothered to sail there so we just snorkelled and relaxed all day. Also the food was amazing!! A girl called maxi did all the cooking in the tinyest kitchen and it was great. was soo good to have three proper meals a day! In the evening a few people were drinking again but not every one, including us two! Still ended up being a late one considering eveyone has to be up at half seven for breakfast and to start the day!

On our last day on the boat we again snorkelled and went to a beautiful sand dune where we swam with a turtle!! This was pretty much the end of our sailing trip and after this we headed back to Airlie beach harbour where we raced two other sailing boats (the Card & Sisska) but of corse the mighty Apollo (3x Sydney - Hobart winner) won!

In the evening we met up with everyone and the crew for a few drinks and a final send off which was good but again ended up a messy one! We then stayed the night before setting off to Mackay...

So we arrived late about 6:30pm not knowing really anything about the place other than it was a big city so we thought we'd give it a go... we got there and discovered the hostel we thought we would be staying at was fully booked which b*****ed us up as we didn't know anywhere else to stay! so we wondered around for abit, flagged down a taxi and got them to take us to the nearest hostel.

We looked around abit at the hostel and found that the only thing to do in Mackay is make a rainforest trip which was simular to the one we had done in Cairns so we got on the net, done abit of research into our next destination (Rockhampton) and found some hostel addresses then booked the next bus out of there... lesson learnt!

We arrived in Rockhampton and got picked up from the bus by a laddy called Robbie who ran a hostel by herself above a pub/resturant. Her nickname was the backpackers mum and we soon discovered why...

She took us back gave us some tea bags, milk etc for Nathans nightly cuppa and then gave us loads of info on Rockhampton and what there was to do around the place and just generally made us feel at home which was somthing we hadn't had before in any previous hostels.

The next day we decided to go to the Botanic gardens/zoo of Rockhampton. This turned out to be a great day as the gardens had some beatiful scenary/flowers and by the time we had finished looking around we arrived just in time for the feeding of the animals at the zoo and all this was completely free to get into!

The second day we decided to go on a trip with some local guy who went by the name of 'Capricorn Dave' or crazy dave as the backpackers called him. It didn't look too convincing at first but afew years ago the guys from Jackass came over to tour Australia and they had heard of this crazy dave guy, went with him and really enjoyed it so we deicded we'd give it a go aswell...

The trip only took 8 max each day but it ended up being just us and this Dave matey driving out to the middle of nowhere and basically just getting out of the van, taking a walk around and seeing what we could find. This guy was a realy nutcase! he was walking bare foot in this long grass and threw boggy mud and all sorts with us following behind him, we saw afew snakes etc and anytime we saw anything he'd be straight after them, jumping up trees, through bushes even out of the van leaving us inside while it was still moving LOL!

Anyway to cut a long story short, we did an Ant dance which was basically where you stomped on meat eating ants nests bare foot and p****ed them off hard and they would come out and go all up your legs, feet etc and bite you until you couldnt take it anymore, we also found afew lizzards, tree frogs and spiders! Held afew on our face as you can see by the pictures, dont ask how we did it that man just has a way of coaxing you into it, hes a legend! If only we did a video of it!!!

Also in the day he took us to a gorgeous billabong which had mud containing pure tee-tree oil so naturally we slapped it on! we also had afew laughs on a tarzan rope before dave took us to a country pub for a beer and a burger (which he paid for!) then we headed home driving over these hills/plains with all these kangeroo's/emu's running along beside us just as the sun was setting which made the views gorgeous and this made the driving an adventure itself as he was a bloody maniac!

he then took us back to the hostel before buying us afew more beers... top man!!! We then headed to the resturant where Nathan had the most nicest steak ever which he got to cook himself, it had to be done as Rockhampton is known as the Beef capital of australia!

Been here just over a month now, only another 4! having the time of our lives out here... hope your still liking all the pics, going Fraser island tommorrow so we'll tell you all about it soon...

lots and lots of love Nathan & Danielle xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx