Tuesday 22nd January - Kroombit (Cattle Station)
After very little sleep we got on the Oz Experience and embarked for our fun and games at Kroombit, the cattle station! This is a compulsory stop with Oz so we had no choice but to land here for the night! Arrived at the 'ranch' to be greeted by Wayne the cowboy (the over enthusiastic cowboy!). There was plenty for us to learn i.e. goat herding, clay pigeon shooting. horse riding and lassoing but as we were so tired (and it was raining) and the most important question, why would you want to herd goats?!, we stayed on the coach with our friends Alex and Rachel and watched the crowd get soaked! It wasn't a total loss as we kept ourselves up to date with the Britney crisis as we were enjoying our trashy mags while on the coach! Shock horror we even went to bed early, leaving the other 30 people in our group cracking whips till the early hours. There is nothing quite like organised (or is that forced?!) entertainment to enjoy yourselves with!

Wednesday 23rd January - Airlie Beach
Said our goodbyes to our cowboy friends and while Charlie was checking out they asked if we had participated in any activities the night before to pay the final bill. After saying 'no' for the 4th time it got a bit embaressing! Wayne then asked in the next sentence 'so you had fun then?!' It was lovely I replied.
Arrived at Airlie Beach late afternoon and stayed at the YHA (hurray!), again you can't go wrong with YHA's. Still feeling tired from Fraser Island and having Fraser Island withdrawal symptons it was yet another early night ready for our nautical adventure in the Whitsundays tomorrow! We brought supplies for the boat as they provide all food but no drink - they even said on the documents to not take any valuables which included our cameras :(( we were very disappointed with this and even though we brought a disposal camera for the trip really wanted to take our cameras. It later turns out that it would of been fine to take our cameras on board so mental note, make sure you take your digital cameras no matter what the documents say!

Thursday 24th January - Saturday 27th January - on board 'Enid' - Whitsundays trip
Walked to the harbour in blazing heat to meet our fellow sailors. Out of a possible 21 people, we were a boat of 9! This was great as it mean't we had lots of room on board and it was definately a bonus. The skippers name was Jonny O'Leary and he was a true Aussie skipper! He reminded us of Mick Dundee (we kept calling him Mick) and was a cool customer. We think he grew to love his new nickname (and us!) bless im. Jonny is a true sailor and very passionate about his job and the sea. He taught us so many things and he was a delight to be around. He entertained us in the evening with his guitair playing and we joined in singing along to the likes of 'i'm a believer', 'wonderwall' and the classic aussie song with lots of swear words which we can't really write on here! The deckhand was a guy called Ben from New Zealand. He was so helpful and really went out of his way to help us - a total sweetie. The host was a guy called Charles, also from New Zealand who not only was a great host but was the best cook ever! The meals we had on board were great and totally exceeded our expectations. We were very spoiled. The other passengers were a mix of couples and single travellers. Sleeping on board the boat was an experience and half as it was a rocky voyage! Charlie's sea sickness stayed away (only just though!) while Sarah's sea legs were working fine! We are not certain if it was the waves or the Rose that made Charlie feel a bit dodgy! We went snorkelling and saw some beautiful fish and coral. We also saw sea turtle and sharks (not while in the water!!), we also saw some Sea Eagles which Jonny called by whistling and throwing meat into the sea - this was an amazing sight to see them swooping down to collect their meat. We also stopped at Whitehaven beach which was totally amazing. It's a shame we are unable to show you the pics on our blog but one of our fellow travellers said she would email us her pics so we can update to you all then :) Once back on dry land (Australia Day - 27th), we went out to Beaches, the local backpacker bar where all the boat passengers were meetings for drinks. We caught up with a few of our Fraser Island crew and had a fantastic night.