Day 99, 100, 101 - Town of 1770 & Castaway Trip to Middle Island- Monday 23rd, Tuesday 24th, Wednesday 25th January 2012

Our bus wasn't until early evening so after our 10am check out we camped out in the lodges from room and used their WIFI and facilities all day!

Come 5pm we jumped on our bus only to see Joe (aka Frodo) on the bus! We chatted in between watching a film and a couple of hours later we arrived in the Town of 1770.

1770 is another of those Australian towns that not many people stop at - however, the castaway trip which we were booked on for the following day seemed to be changing that. 1770 was the second landing of James Cook and the crew of HM Bark Endeavour in May 1770 so it's aptly named after that date. I've just finished Bill Bryson's "Down Under" and so my head is filled with facts about Australia - apparently the celebrated "Captain" James Cook was actually only a lieutenant when he landed in Australia.

1770 is so tiny that it is paired with Agnes Water and Agnes water only has only parade of shops! With this mind, we headed to bed to get some sleep before our 9am briefing in the morning.

We were up early to have breakfast and check out ready for our 9am briefing for castaway. The briefing basically consisted of being told we'd be on the 1.45pm flight out with another girl called Jude and that we would be left on the desolate Island for 26 hours. On the Island camp there are apparently tents and a small stove but that's about it - oh and of course, the Wilson football from the film Castaway will be there!

We killed some time until our flight was due and come 1.45 we were on the patch of grass known as the airfield looking at the tiny 4 man plane we were about to get it. Strangely enough, in the briefing we had been asked if we were scared of flying - having met the crazy pilot Bruce I was now starting to feel suspicious of why they had asked the question. Sure enough Bruce didn't disappoint! At one point he asked Jude, who was in the front, to take a picture of Ad and I and at that very moment, without any mention to us of his intention, he dropped the plane head first towards the ocean below, it was horrific!! The picture of our faces is a classic though! Several more drops, some no-handed flying and side slopes later we finally arrived on dry ground, well, the beach of Middle Island. Our stomachs however were still up in the air somewhere!

On the Island already were 3 Irish girls called Brenda, Jess and Christina, a couple from England called Simon and Lucy and Claire who was the friend of Jude who'd been on our flight. They seemed like a nice bunch and we soon got chatting about our travels. It turned out that the Irish girls were from Galway in Ireland and knew my friend Lynda's brother - small world!!

After settling into camp and setting up our tent and checking out the bush toilet (pictures of Adam on it in the album!), Ad and I decided to go for the 40 minute walk to the lighthouse and caves. My timing of spending a castaway trip on a desert Island and just finishing Bill Bryson's "Down Under" couldn't have been worse - to quote the book……………."Australia has more things that will kill you than anywhere else in the world. Of the world's 10 most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. 5 of its creatures - the funnel wed spider, box jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, paralysis tick and stonefish - are the most lethal in the world. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. Pick up an innocuous cone shell from a Queensland beach, as innocent tourists all too want to do, and you will discover the little fellow inside is not just astoundingly swift and testy, but exceedingly venomous. If you are not stung or pronged to death on some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. It's a tough place"………………………………………this should be fun!

Our walk to the lighthouse was ummmmmm interesting! It was like the mozzie's had never seen human flesh before and the end result as you can imagine, was not pretty. We started to resemble someone with measles…….

We finally reached the Bustard Head lighthouse; it was ok to look at but not very pretty - it's apparently the second oldest in Queensland, built in 1868 - funny as that's relatively new to anyone who lives in England! We swiftly headed on to the caves as the tide was coming in and we needed to get there before the tide was in completely. After a bit of scrambling around we reached the caves and had a bit of an exploration before the tide came in. I also had a quick wee on the side of the rocks which Adam, very nicely captured on camera!

That done, we headed back via the Island's cemetery which is surround by a white picket fence - it contains 9 graves dating from 1879 to 1911 as well as 2 unmarked child size graves. 11 graves seems an awful lot for an uninhibited Island and once you read the causes of death it all gets a little bit odd. All I can say is that not many of the cemetery's folk seemed to be able to swim or hack it on the Island - 1 of them even slit their own throat! Totally freaked out and bitten to b*****y, we walked back to camp and set of for an evening of drinking, eating meat stew cooked on the camp stove, toasting marshmallows on the fire, sheltering from the rain and being freaked out by all the noises coming from the bush!

We woke early the next day to the sound of the ocean and various animal noises in the bush. We slept surprisingly well given that we were in the middle of the bush! And the good news was that the sun was shining and it was a glorious day so what better to do than chill in the sun whilst we wait for our flight out of the Island.

Whilst we were on the beach we saw dolphins playing and swimming in the shallows of the water on the beach - what a brilliant end to our castaway trip!

Bruce finally arrived to pick us all up and after some posed group pictures he picked us up in groups of 3 with Ad, Jude and I being the last group.

Back at 1770 we grabbed some food and chilled in the hostel before heading for the shelter and coolness (it's raining very heavily and very humid) of our room.