It's been a while since I've updated my blog, mainly because I've been too busy having lots of fun! However, I have two hours to kill until my bus takes me to Noosa so I thought I'd update y'all about what I've been up to.
After Cairns, I started my journey south and ended up on a Magnetic Island (refereed to as 'Maggie' by the locals). It's a really beautiful island with lots of bush walks and white sandy beaches and I even spotted me a koala in the wild! From Maggie, I headed to Airlie Beach for my Whitsunday's trip. Like a lot of these small towns on the East Coast, there isn't a whole lot to do in Airlie but Whitsunday's was A-MAZ-ING
I was on the boat 'Anaconda III' which, unlike most of the boats, is three nights long so we went all the way to the outer reef, where I finished my scuba diving certification. If I could afford this very expensive habit, I would become absolutely addicted to scuba diving. It's incredible! I did my very first night dive as my first dive as a certified scuba diver which was just out of this world. The experience of diving at night is something else! I found myself swimming underneath a turtle which was about a meter long. If you wake a sleeping turtle they immediately try and find the moon to find where the surface is to take a breath so you have to guide them up with your torch. I had a bit of a hairy experience where my torch actually stopped working, not something you want to happen when 12 meters underwater in pitch black! Fortunately the instructor gave me his and all was fine as soon as I swam to catch up with the others!
The Whitsunday islands are so beautiful it's unreal. The water is crystal clear so the snorkelling is really good (I saw a blue spotted sting ray on one snorkel!) and on White Haven beach the sand is so fine that you can polish jewellery, exfoliate tur face and even wash your hair with it (yes, I tried all three!)
I had such an amazing time sailing on the catamaran that I decided to stay on as a 'volly' which was a lot of fun. It's weird seeing it from the perspective of the crew, who do this day in day out for five trips in a row, eating the same food, answering the same questions, living in such a cramped environment but I had fun and I managed to get three free dives thrown in which on it's own was worth $180!
After saying goodbye to the beautiful islands, I headed further south to Rainbow Beach where I am now to do Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and a LOT of fun to drive around in 4x4's. Days were spent following the lead car around the island, swimming in lakes, hiking around the sands dunes and avoiding any confrontation with dingoes at all costs! The evenings were filled with drinking Goon (sweet wine in a box, very cheap and absolutely revolting) playing card games and dancing like lunatics around the campfire. The island itself is beautiful and we saw dolphins, whales and went to a really cool fresh water rock pool full of tropical fish.
The only negative thing bout Fraser is the bloody scary dingoes! We've all heard the story about the baby eaten by the dingo but I kid you not, dingoes are flipping scary! Our guide was really strict with us about walking anywhere on our own and insisted that we go to the toilet in groups of four because 'two people against four dingoes isn't going to come off well' erm great!! Every time someone wanted to go to the toilet you would stand up in the communal social area and shout 'anyone need a toilet buddy?' - we all managed to get on the same 'pee cycle' for the camping trip and just pray that you don't need to go in the middle of the night! Although I was never confronted by a dingo, we did see about five dingoes circle a girl which was pretty scary as they started growling at her but fortunately the guide was there to control the situation!!
Apart from dicing with death on Fraser Island, I'm loving the backpacker lifestyle, meeting tonnes of people and seeing some amazing things, but I'm desperate for a decent meal that doesn't involve carb on carb (it's like being back in halls at uni!) and a kitchen that doesn't seem to be growing mushrooms in every corner. However, I'm having an amazing time and cannot wait to see what Nossa, Brisbane and Byron Bay have to offer!
Three weeks and I'm back on English soil - where did the year go?! Xoxo
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