Day 1:

We arrived in Airlie Beach from Magnetic Island today armed with our free nights accomodation pass for a dorm room! Yes it was our first ever night in shared accomodation, oh and what fun it was! Some may call us flashpackers but i always knew there was a reason why we didnt stay in dorms and today was the day we found out why!

As we walked into the room an overwhelming smell of urine took over me and I almost gagged. The fridge had been ripped out of the wall and there were clothes all over the place. I hadnt even put my backpack down before i was back at reception complaining! I felt like such an idiot complaining at a backpackers hostel when i was getting a free nights accomodation (i think Tom would have rather i didn't complain)but i really couln't bear the thought of sharing a urine stained room with 5 other boys! Joy! Anyway we moved and the room was much better...phew!

Our main aim for the day was to check in for our Whitsunday Island sailing trip. Once we had done that we chilled by the lagoon (once again there is no beach as its too shark/croc and jellyfish infested!), bulk bought alcohol for the next few days and had a Mc Donald's dinner. Mmmm healthy!

Day 2:

I've decided to ban dorm rooms from now on! (except for all the room sharing we'll have to do on our Whitsundays trip!) I got hardley any sleep with people coming in and out all night and talking loudly on their phones! I suppose we were being a bit boring being in bed at 11pm but we had to get up for a big day today!

Once we checked out we dumped our big backpacks and walked down to the marina ready to board our sailing ship. On the way down the heavens opened and it rained heavily! Great weather conditions for a 3 day sailing trip. Luckily once we boarded our ship, the SV Whitehaven, the weather eased off. There were 25 of us on the ship, including the 3 man crew. Tom and I were lucky we got to share a double bed, which was much better value than the tiny single beds. We shared a room with 6 other people, one Finnish girl, 2 scottish girls, a Welsh lad, and 2 English girls. One of the English girls was from stoke! NOOOOOO! The accent! It was nearly the end for me when she opened her mouth to speak for the first time! Worse still i came away from the trip having picked up some of her accent! Not good!

Anyway our group on the ship was a mixed bunch of people all of whom were really nice and we all got on well. We sailed for a few hours and then stopped at a reef to go snorkelling. As the start of November signals the start of the deadly jellyfish season we had to don sexy stinger suits that are basically head to toe lycra. I've got photos but im not sure we should pollute the world wide web with them! We enjoyed the snorkelling and saw some huge fish and lots of flourescent fish we'd never seen before. The Whitsunday Islands are beautiful. The sea is such an amazing colour. Afternoon tea and biscuits were ready for us when we got back on the ship...how very english. The tea was pretty rubbish though! We sailed on through the afternoon until we reached the spot where we were going to stay for the night and then we had dinner and a few drinks. The backpacker drink of choice is a cheap boxed wine that is called Goon in slang. Its absolutely disgusting but Tom and I mixed it with Coke to get the desired taste. Still disgusting but it does the job! I got chatting to a group of really nice Irish girls and Tom was chatting to some English girls. One of whom lives in Sutton Coldfield, in Boldmere! What are the chances of that! We soon all headed off to bed. Lucky for all of us in our room, Luke the Welsh lad was a chronic snorer. Nice.

Day 2:

We were woken up bright and early by Andy the deck hand, we had some brekkie and then sailed off to find Whitehaven Island. We were dropped off at one end of the island and Andy walked through and told us some history about the Whitsundays and took us to a viewpoint which overlooked the islands but as it was a bit cloudy the view wasn't that great. He then took us to the beach where we just chilled for a few hours. There were reef sharks and jellyfish up by the shore so no swimming thanks! After we took a few cheesy group photos we headed back to the boat for some afternoon tea. We then sailed off to the next snorkelling location. Tom and I had decided to not bother snorkelling...we are a bit snorkelled out to be honest and the thought of squeezing ourselves into the stinger suits put us off. Unfortunately Andy heard the rumour we werent going to get in and practically threw us in! Aftyer dinner we had a few more drinks and Fergus one of the Irish boys started some wierd drinking game using a snorkel. Needless to say Luke's snoring didn't bother us much that night!

Day 3:

It was our last day on the boat and to be honest i think both of us were ready to get to land. Not before an early morning snorkell! We managed to get out of this one though...hehehe! The sail back was beautiful. Its such a nice area and we were both really glad to have done the trip. When we got back to land i was still swaying! We had nowhere to go as we were catching a night bus to our next location so we just slept by the lagoon like vagabonds for the afternoon!