Wednesday June 25th: We had to get up bright and early again. Today was the start of our five day learn to scuba course. The shuttle picked us up and took us to their retail shop in downtown Cairns. There we squared up all the remaining money, met our instructor Nick and the other six people that would be in our class. From tehre we were shuttled to a small private pool. There we spent the rest of the day. There were two days to be spent here. The people on day two of the course were already in the pool [View Full Entry]

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First of all thanks for your interest in my trip. Wanted to write a short message. Sorry I have been unable to update photos on the blog. Unless you were a member on facebook you were unable to see photos....until now. I just noticed that there is a public viewing link on the bottom of the photos I add. Because of this and that the adding process of images on Travelblog.org is rather slow I have added the link to each photo group that I have on Facebook to the coresponding entry on here. They might be difficult to find. At [View Full Entry]

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I was allowed to sleep in today, with nothing planned early. We had the bungy jump today, the final part of our three day "adrenaline experience." I got up not worried about the jump at all. After jumping out of a plane from 14000 feet, a 50 metre bungy jump was nothing to worry about! The shuttle picked us up about 11 O'Clock and drove us to the outskirts of town where the town meets the mountains. The man made bungy tower was built on the edge of a mountain wiht a pond beneath. We signed the paperwork and baught a [View Full Entry]

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The alarm went off @ 7:30 after a pretty brutal sleep. I went to bed early the night before but the room was cold and I was unbelieveably stressed waking up with my stomach in my throat. I checked out and grabbed breakfast before the skydive shuttle picked us up at 7:30. We arrived at their complex shortly after spending lots more money getting a dvd of the experience. There was also plenty of paperwork. After that everything seemed to occur in fast forward mode. I met my dive partner Toby who had been doing 5-10 dives a day for 4 [View Full Entry]

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The bus picked us up today at 7:50 to go white water rafting. After a short stop at the companies offices to meet all the people who had come down from Cairns we were off. The venue was the Tully River. It was a perfect place as Tully, the town receives 4.5 metres of rain per year and also because there is a hydroelectric facility upstream which regulates the amount of water flowing making rafting possible 365 days a year. Because of all this rain Tully is also very productive agriculturally producing 60% of Australias bananas, part of which comes from [View Full Entry]

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Today was another travel day catching a 9:30 bus from Airlie Beach north to Mission Beach. We arrived in Mission Beach at around 5:30. Because we are so much closer to the equatoryou can really notice how much more sunlight you receive and how much later the sun sets. I went to sleep very early tired from the Whitsundays and because I had to be up early tomorrow for white water rafting. [View Full Entry]

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http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29002&l=d14cf&id=503645207 Wednesday, June 18th: My alarm woke me up at 7:50. Today was the start of the Whitsundays Sailing Trip! I grabbed brekkie as they call it in Australia then check out, putting my bags in storage. Everyone met at a small cafe at the Marina where we received instructions and got our stinger suits. From there we boarded the boat. We had paid a good amount of money to get on this boat (http://www.ozsailing.com.au/vessel.php?name=Avatar) and were rewarded with an awesome boat for the trip. We met our crew which was very interesting. For a group of 22 we had just [View Full Entry]

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After a 14 hour bus ride from Rainbow Beach, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn we arrived in Airlie Beach. The bus ride was rather uneventful with three bus driver changes and complete darkness for a good 11 hours of the trip (winter here). I was actually quite impressed by the amount of sleep I achieved on the bus. Mike required most of the day to catch up on sleep, while I had already achieved my nine hours. After getting off the bus we walked a short while to our hostel. This isnt as easy as it seems lugging the 40 kilos [View Full Entry]

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I got up just before check out time knowing that all I had to do was hand in my key and throw my sheets in the machine by 9:30. After doing that I went back to the room, showered, packed up and stored all my bags. The rest of the day was quite lazy. Our group sat in the lounge room eating and talking most of the day saying good bye to members as they left for their buses. I also got a chance to update my blog for the first time in just under a week. other then that nothing [View Full Entry]

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http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28999&l=1e09a&id=503645207 Today we had to get up at 6:30 to go to Fraser Island. We had our complementary pancakes which shockingly did not include maple syrup even though 20% of Australian backpackers are Canadian I have heard. After breakfast we had to get with our groups and start packing up the 4X4's. The 4X4 was set up with three siting in the back and 8 in the back. The 8 in the back sat with their backs to the side walls and all their feet cramed down the centre isle. After taking a short ferry to the island we were off. [View Full Entry]

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