Next up on the Bruce Highway was Airlie beach and home to the Whitsunday Islands. We didnt end up doing a sailing trip or anything here. Ruben nd Lenneke have run out money and I dont really have much left...so maybe I will come back when I have worked for a bit (hoping to do so in Cairns!).

Airlie beach was nice, apart from the 8 hour drive it took us to reach it and by the way the views remain near enough exactly the same the whole entire way lol....which made it extremely boring...thank god for the CDs!!! We found a wonderful Coral beach here though made of dead coral which was cool. Awesome views of the islands which are beautiful....im so coming back! The second night on our hostel was one that a story has to be told about...

Two big lads from Ireland came runing outside (as we were drinking 2 dollar mugs of wine!!) asking for the manager as there was a spider outside someones room lol. They were panicking rather a lot so we all got up to investigate with the girl that worked there. Now when I imagine spiders I think of the ones we have back in UK and I know im in Oz so there is the possibility that they could kill you but even then they are the small ones. Well....we got to the corridor where stood lots of people and there it was a giant, grey, hairy Spider!!!! It was about the size of a hand spread out! I have never seen anything that big...it ended up being a Tarrantula of somekind and not highly toxic, but still it was horrid to think that this big beauty had been crawling its way around the hostel and about to creep into someones room...eekk! just wait till you see the pic of it!!! Unfortunately it ended up having a leg or two chopped off as we tried to get it out..poor thing....but we really didnt know if it was harmful!

Airlie beach is cool though and a bit of a party place...wet t shirt comps and the like..not really my thing I have to say!!

xxxxx