Mack-nificant Australia! /

---

Hello all!

I am now in Byron Bay, a few adventures down on the East coast! The trip on the reef in Cairns was -well - a bit rocky to say the least! Sea sickness was rife after about 10 minutes the sea was so rough! I can safely say that we didnt pick the best day to go out on the ocean on a very small boat as after about 10 minutes on the sea there were 6 people heaving over the end of the boat , fortunately I managed to hold my stomach by digging my nails into my arm desperately focussing on something else! When we eventually got out to the reef everyone breathed a sigh of relief and couldnt wait to get into the water - anywhere just not on a boat! Fran and I decided to do a trial dive once we were out there which was absolutely fantastic - there were so many beautiful fish and we even saw a couple of sharks! Argh - so I can now claim I have been diving with sharks (even if they were reef sharks!) how brave am I??? I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to get down to the sea bed though as I kept floating back to the top - the instructor had to keep grabbing me and pulling me back down! In the end he put some more weights on me to hold me down - perhaps they had underestimated my two flotation devices! Luckily I didnt sink to the bottom with a thud and was able to stay at about the right depth.

After the dive we spent the afternoon snorkelling around Michaelmas island which was lovely - you can see an impressive amount just snorkelling, although it took a bit of concentration not to ground yourself on the coral. As the day wore on there was a strange patting sensation on the back of my head as it had decided to rain really quite hard, but still better in the water than on that rocky boat- especially as I was avoiding the strange 50 year old Danish man who kept asking me to rub suncream into his hairy back - yuck! At about 4 the skipper dragged us all back on and subjected us to another couple of hours of nausiating sailing back to Cairns and we were all able to wobble onto land, albeit a bit green around the edges.

We then headed down to Airlie beach via Townsville to start our Whitsunday trip. On Monday morning we dashed into town to catch our bus to the harbour to meet our boat- Enid. The sailing was lovely; quichk and graceful although the boat does lean to the side at an alrming angle, fortunately I dint slip off at any point. It was, however , a vast improvement on the trip in Cairns! Unfortunately it wasn't long before the skies were looking fairly threatening, and yet again, it started to rain. We had a couple of snorkels and some lunch (trying to catch the lettuce in the air that was flying off everyone's plates in the sea breeze became a good game!) By the evening the skies were really black and we were anchored by the side of whitehaven beach. Everyone was sat on deck in yellow macks suffering the rain as the boat was rocking so much no-one wanted to be below deck. that evening nobody got much sleep! The boat was rocking wildly as waves slapped against its sides; the crockery was flying around the kitchen, the roof leaked over my bed inflicting a kind of chinese water torture onto my legs and head so I resorted to sleeping under my mack in a tipee type arangement, and the boat radio was blaring out about needing an emergency helicopter. I was thinking a helicopter sounded quite good, but it was slightly frustrating at having the man go on about it ALL night! We had all assumed that this radio was some kind of emergency wavelength that had to be on at all times, only to discover the next morning that our Skipper had just forgotten to turn it off - argh!!!!!!. the next morning, the skies were grey and miserable, but, ever optimistic, our skipper still insisted we all went onto Whitehaven beach. By the time we had all got over there (in our yellow macks and wet suits) the whitsunday islands had entirely dissappeared from view and it had started to rain so hard it hurt! Feeling very british we sat it out for a couple of hours and the the sun finally came out... but then we had to leaver to go onto the next place and our skipper promptly sailed off in direction of the dark skies - yipee! THankfully by the time we arrived at the look out point ion one of the islands the weather had cleared up enough for us to enjoy the gorgeous view down onto the sea and over the islands.

We were certainly a motley bunch on the boat comprising of (amongst others) 3 nurses from Darby, a londener with a good beer belly, a couple on their honeymoon (poor things!), two miserable sisters form Belgium, a couple from England, 3 women from Norway and a rather wacky alternative yoga teacher form Sydney. I found it hard to keep a straight face when the yoga teacher commented she hoped the healing with water crystals books she had bought for her family she hasn't seen in 10 years were going to be ok, not to wierd - um yeah.... THe group from Darby kept us serenaded with songs for the entire journey which was quite fun (although they may have not helped the rain issue) and the couple on their honeymoon spent the entire trip trying not to be sick! I felt so sorry for them, I imagine it wasn't quite as romantic as they had hoped - being stuck on a small boat with 25 people in the rain for 3 days for your honeymoon is an aquired taste I spose...!


That afternoon we went snorkelling and saw a massive 4 foot, bright blue fish - it was actiually quite scary! It had a really big fish mouth and was a bit too friendly for my liking! That evening the sea was much calmer and, although we were still in our macks, we sat on the deck watching the fish by torchlight. I think just to cheer us up a mother and baby dolphin showed up jumping around the boat- that was enough to make everyone smile! Thankfully that night the roof didnt leak and we all got some sleep.

Wednesday was the only day it didnt rain! We had a snorkel in the morning at Mantaray bay where I saw a couple of rays before we had a long, beautiful, dry(!) sail back to Airlie Beach. I can thankfully say it has now been several days since i have been on a boat - thank goodness! I dont think I'll take to a life at sea just yet!

We transferred through Townsville the next day on our way to Brisbane where we stayed with Fran's cousin for a couple of days enjoying the home comforts of a proper house! We sat by the harbour on the first evening having 'Barra and chips ' and watching the boats come in which was rather lovely and spent the next few days meandering about enjoying the city and the sofa!

Byron Bay was our next stop (full of wooley hats and painted wellies!)- we took a bus down from Brisbane along the sunshine coast to Byron. We drove through miles and miles of sunny sea-side spots only to find it chucking it down when we arrived in Byron! Great, another wet coastal experience. Despite the grey skies when it cheered up we set off with a group from our hostel to walk up to the lighthouse overlooking the bay. Just as we were right in the middle of the beach away from anykind of shelter the heavens opened and we all get really wet. Thankfully the weather cleared up so we could enjoy a couple of sunny (but quite a bit cooler) days on the beach. Although tempted I didnt get on a surf board - I decided my balancing act just wasnt up to it! On our last day I made it up to the lighthouse along the top of the coast which was really beautiful - the most Easterly point of Australia no less!

We arrived in Sydney on Friday and made our way to the house of another cousin of Fran's - Helen. We were here for a couple of days, I made my way over to Balmoral to see Trevor and Judy Wildon before they flew back to the UK - the ferry journey over the Harbour was spectacular past the Opera house and Harbour Bridge, it doesnt really feel like you are in a massive city from over the otherside of the harbour! On Sunday Helen hired a car and took us round to Watsons bay which was really lovely and we walked around the top of the cliffs, unfortunately we had to walk past a nudist beach full of wrinkly men posing on the beach - right in frontof the naval base - make of that what you will!
. Much love to you all,

Sarah xxx

---