Hey, how you going?

(this phrase we have come to realise is the most commonly used Aussie greeting, other than g'day of course...at first it threw us as we thought we had to respond and ask how they were 'going' but with time we realised you just smile and say hi!!)

So this will be our final blog entry for Australia as we made it to the top of the East Coast safe and sound. Our last entry ended with Fraser Island so next we moved further up the coast to Airlie Beach which is home to the Whitsunday Islands which is basically a group of 74 very pretty islands just off the coast. Airlie beach itself was just a small town with a nice swimming lagoon as you can't swim in the sea beacuse of the scary and deadly jellyfish!! So we of course booked a cruise to see the Whitsunday Islands and we decided to go for a high speed rafting boat which was so much fun, we decided to be brave and sit at the front of the boat in the 'bumpy area' and it was insane!! at one point we both literally came off our seats and slammed back down, i thought i had crushed my ribs and even my camera bag flew off down the boat, it was a bit choppy to say the least but good fun! First we stopped at a nice snorkelling spot to experience our first taste of The Great Barrier Reef and now we understand why the Aussie's gloat about it beacuse it really was amazing...the coral is huge and so colourful and varied and we saw lots and lots and lots of different fish. We did have our eyes peeled for sharks as they are common all along the great barrier reef but sadly we didn't see any here :( hehe. Next we headed to WHitehaven Beach which is the most well known beach amongst the islands and it really was paradise!! We were very lucky to arrive just as the sun came out so we got to sunbathe and enjoy the beach. We also had an amazing buffet lunch of meats and pasta salads...considering weve been living off pasta and sauce this was great and we made the most of it!! There were also some lizard visitors while we were eating lunch, i cant remember the name of them but they are well known on the beach and apparently can be dangerous if you annoy them, they whip their tails at you so we tried to steer clear (at one point we both had our feet up on the benches as they were approaching us!!). We finished the day with a high speed return to the harbour and free cookies...again amazing! I should also comment on the picture of me naked behind the Whitsunday Islands sign...apparently this is a tradition so it had to be done hehe

After Airlie Beach our next stop was Townsville which is home to Magnetic Island, again just off the coast. We were only here for a day so we headed straight to Magnetic Island which is another very pretty island. We didnt realise the East Coast of Australia had so many islands off of it!! That shows our geography knowledge :P We went on the Forts Walk which basically takes you up to the top of the island so you can see it in all its glory. We were as usual not dressed for hiking both wearing flip flops and just as we set off we came across a sign, i took a photo of it, which basically told us about a death adder snake we might meet who hides in leaves and whos venom will kill! At the end it said 'enjoy your walk' thanks!! Anyway we survived the walk and even saw a wild koala in the trees on our way so it was all ok! We spent the rest of the day sunbathing on the beach as it was another lovely day.

Then came our final stop on the East Coats Cairns. We had been looking forward to Cairns as it is considered the tropics and boasts about having 340 days of sunshine each year. You can imagine our shock when we arrived to rain, rain, rain!! We spent 3 days here and evetry day it rained, so much for the tropics!! Anyway the first night we headed to the pub to watch the Lions game, the Lions of course won and it ended up being a really good night, made evene better by the fact that there was a happy hour of $7 jugs of cider, this is soooo cheap compared to everything else in Oz so we took advantage of this and went wild hehe.

SO the main reason we were in Cairns was to see The Great Barrier Reef so we went on a day trip which took us to 2 reef sites where we could dive or snorkel. We ended up snorkelling on both as they were shallow sites so there wasnt alot of point in diving. The reef was incredible, even better than the WHitsundays, it had basically every kind of coral you could imagine, giant clams that were really huge!, and loads of giant fish, at one point we saw a group of 8 enormous fish shoot past us, so cool! and we can finally say we saw a SHARK! a white tipped shark which wasnt actually that big, probably half the size of us, this was definet;y the highlight of the day!! We were promised to see turtles on our second site however there seems to be a habit forming where we get promised something and don;t see it, in Koh Tao diving it was a whale shark and a turtle, we didnt see either :( and on this trip we spent an hour and a half swimming around looking for the turtles and didint see one, then the minute we got back on the boat and the last few people were heading back on a turtle popped its head out of the sea...typical! so we kind of saw one but we didnt get to swim with any booo hehe

That pretty much sums up our Aussie adventure, next stop is the land of the kiwis, New Zealand so we will be wrapping up warm for the big chill!! Here's a summary of Australia:

Things we will miss:

1) The koalas and kangaroos (so cute)

2) Tim Tams (they are like penguin chocolate bars but come in all varieties)

3) The Aussie accents & the sunshine

Things we won't miss:

1) The price of everything...its insane

2) The very small showers they seem to have

3) Scanning the toilets and everywhere for spiders and snakes!!