Sunday 29th November 2009

We arrived in Airlie beach this morning at 7am the hostel was very close to the bus stop which was a relief because we were in no mood to carry our bags very far after an overnight bus. We couldn't check into the hostel until 1 o'clock so we found a comfy small sofa in the common area which we had to share and tried to get a few more hours sleep. At about 10am we decided to explore Airlie and more importantly to get some food, we found a small café overlooking the lagoon and had a typical Sunday brunch of eggs on toast with baked beans which was lovely. After we had eaten it was time to check in and have a much needed shower, the hostel was great really clean and modern with a balcony overlooking the sea.

After a shower we headed to the lagoon as you can't swim in the sea here because of the killer jellyfish so a lot of places have man made lagoons. The lagoon was really nice very big with lots of room to swim in, so we spent the afternoon here swimming and reading our books and trying to top up the tans a bit more.We then headed back to the hostel stopping at the supermarket on the way and the phone boxes to ring Mum. After another shower Suzie cooked Tuna pasta bake while I went to ring Rachel. After tea we were both absolutely shattered so we had a really early night and had some well deserved sleep.

Monday 30th November 2009

This morning after a bit of a lay in we headed out to the lagoon stopping to check in for our boat on the way which we had to do the day before we departed for the Whitsundays. We then spent the afternoon at the lagoon. Back at the hostel we were both a bit peckish so we got some calamari from the fish and chip shop and a bit later we had the remains of the pasta from last night.

Tonight we went out in Airlie beach to meet Philippa and Ann who we had met at Rainbow beach. We met them in Beaches another hostels had a few drinks there then we spent the rest of the night at Mama Africas where we had a good boogey. Tonight we got an unusual lift home as we were walking out of the club a police car went past and in our drunken states we shouted "Can we have a lift" and they actually stopped and took us back to our hostel even though it was only round the corner, you would never get the police doing that back home!!!! (The Australians our so friendly).

Tuesday 1st December 2009

We both felt slightly jaded this morning after last night and to make matters worst we had to check out at 10am and for some reason the alarm didn't go off so we had very little time to get ready and pack. Which led to me shoving everything in my bag and then re packing everything on the grassed area across the road from the hostel.

Today we were going on our Whitsundays cruise on the Atlantic Clipper for 2 days and 2 nights but the boat wasn't leaving until 2pm so we had quite a while to kill. First of all we went to drop our big bags at Peterpans who were storing them for free and then we had some lunch and got some last minute shopping to take on the boat with us very important things like beer, wine and cigarettes.

The marina where we were leaving from was about a 25 minute walk away from the main town so we set off about 1.15pm as we weren't too sure where it was. Of course we got there early so we had a good 30 minutes hanging about which we just love think we must get it from Dad. We all eventually boarded the boat at around 2.15pm.

The Atlantic clipper is one of the biggest boats on the Whitsundays and holds 54 passengers and 8 crew. It has the reputation of being the party boat on the Whitsundays they also have a hot tub (which is freezing) and a slide on board. The first part of the tour was spent with safety talks and signing wavers for snorkeling and scuba diving so if you die you can't then blame them. The sea was so rough for the first hour there were a lot of poorly people myself included just glad I made it to the toilet before the announced they didn't want people being sick in the toilets so could we please do off the side of the boat just what you want to do in front of 53 people not at all embarrassing!!!! The waters became calmer after that thank god so we spent the afternoon relaxing on board and then we were encouraged to go in the hot tub and told it was really warm they were lying it was freezing I spent the whole time shivering not an experienced I'll raced back to repeat.

Tonight we had baked fish with salad for tea which was really good. We spent the rest of the evening talking to two Australian lads Nick and Jared we'd sat with at dinner they were so funny we both had a really good night. We also learnt some interesting things tonight from this chat about:

1.The Angry Pirate

2.Drummer boy

3.The Cheeky Monkey

(You can send us an email to ask what these are but we can't possibly put it in the blog when Gran is reading it).

They also kept talking about Nick's party trick but they wouldn't tell us what it was because they said if they told us it was that sick we'd never talk to them again. I eventually found out what it was when we were back in Airlie and it's called the Bubbler and it is very sick (Again email if you want to know) but I still talked to him after it didn't shock me as much as I thought it would. Nick eventually shocked the whole boat by streaking around the boat from a bet we'd made and he'd lost but I actually think he likes getting naked by the sounds of it, it happens quite often. The bet was basically he'd said to me that we'd see Dolphins tonight and me and Suzie had both disagreed so if we'd lost we had to kiss Jared if he lost he had to run around the boat naked so he lost out either way but he set the bet so they were his terms.

We eventually went to bed at about 2am Suzie slept in the cabin and I slept out on the deck with a few of the others but it got really cold around 5am so I gave in and went inside. The cabin they had given us was a four berth one with two singles and one double we ended up with the double and it looked no bigger than the singles but it was actually bigger than it looked once you got in it so it wasn't as tighter squeeze as we'd originally thought it would.

Wednesday 2nd December 2009

We were woken up at 7am this morning and breakfast was between 7am and 8am, after breakfast we were at our first stop of the day Whitehaven Beach. As the big boats couldn't get up to the shore we were all ferried over to the beach in speedboats. The first thing we noticed were the horse flies they were hundreds of them and they are a nightmare as they bite you they were especially bad when we were walking to the view point through the forest they weren't as bad when we got to the actual beach. The views were spectacular from the view point and the beach was one of nicest beaches I have ever been on it would have been even better minus the other two hundred people on it as well but I suppose you can't have everything in life. The sand on White heaven is so fine you can polish your teeth with it we didn't try this as the last thing we wanted was a gritty mouth!!!

We all looked gorgeous in the water as we all had to wear stinger suits to go in the water because of the jelly fish Suzie and I must have got our suits mixed up because hers was a bit small and I could have fitted an extra person in mine. We had 3 hours at the beach which we spent reading, swimming and sun bathing. We also had a walk along the shore as people had seen sting rays and sharks we only saw sting rays but it was amazing there was about 10 of them all really close to the shore unfortunately the pictures didn't come out very well.

We all got back on the boat around 11.30am and we had a short time to chill out before lunch which was sandwiches and salads again very good. This afternoon we did a scuba dive but unfortunately we both had really bad dives partly I think because we haven't done it since Thailand but also because the visibility was really bad but basically we both panic and I was so pleased to finish it, it's a real shame because we both enjoyed it so much in Thailand. After we had recovered from the dive we got the speedboat over to the snorkeling spot and that was amazing we saw so much really colourful fish and coral.

Once back on the boat we sunbathed for a bit before having a shower and getting ready for dinner. Tonight dinner was spaghetti Bolognese with garlic bread. After dinner was the same as last night back on the top deck having a drink with everyone, but tonight the dolphin did actually come but Nick missed it as he was poorly and in bed we were thankful for that as the bet tonight was that if we did see one we had to run around the boat naked so we were glad to get out of that one!!! The dolphin was amazing it stayed around the boat for about an hour jumping in and out the water it was pretty special. Tonight we spent the evening talking to a group of Irish in between the party games that the crew had set up.Again I slept on the deck but remembered to take a duvet tonight so I didn't wake up freezing and Suzie being sensible went to sleep in a proper bed so she got comfy nights sleep.

Thursday 3rd December 2009

This morning we were woken up at 7am by sexy Ryan the dive instructor playing the gairtar and singing sweet nothings into our ears I can think of worst things to be woken up with. We were both suppose to be doing another dive this morning, I decided to just go snorkeling but Suzie went and she had a much better dive today and she even got to meet Elvis the fish who she fed out of a bottle I've seen a picture of a fish similar to Elvis and he is massive. The snorkeling was good today but not half as good as yesterday but it was still really nice and just the wake up call I needed. We spent the rest of the morning sunbathing on the deck before lunch and then we got back to Airlie beach at around 1.30pm.

After walking back to the hostel and collecting our big bags from Peterpans we spent the rest of the afternoon in bed we were both so tired from 3 heavy nights and we had another one to prepare for tonight. It's a good job we set the alarm or I think we would have still been there in the morning.

Tonight was the after party we met everyone at Phoenix bar for free pizza and then we went to Magnums and then ended up at Mama Africa again. It was a pretty good night but not as good as other nights we've had.

Friday 4th December 2009

We had a well deserved lay in this morning and the morning was pretty much non existant. Once we were up and sorted we went for some lunch at the café we'd been to on the first day and then spent the afternoon at the lagoon.

Tonight we didn't feel like cooking so we went to the fish and chip shop next door to the hostel that we'd been eyeing up since we'd arrived. Suzie had Baramundi and chips and I had garlic prawns, chips and salad I think I got 14 king prawns it's the best $10 I've ever spent I even had to throw 2 away it broke my heart!!!Tonight after we had eaten and done some washing we got an early night and packed our bags ready to leave in the morning.

Saturday 5th December 2009

This morning we had to check out by 10am we had a quick coffee before going to catch our bus destination Magnetic Island.