I found Nemo!!!!

Apologies in advance for this being such a lengthy entry!

We left you in Hervey Bay in the rain and since then we have had some fantastic adventures that we can't wait to tell you about so here goes...

Fraser Island was a complete and utter washout! After umming and ahhring for hours over which trip to take (the 3 day drive yourself safari versus the guided coach day trip) we checked the weather forecast and saw the torrential downpours continuing for the week, so opted for the safe (expensive) option of a nice easy guided coach trip. Thank goodness we did. The rain was horrendous and being stuck in a tent with group of party crazy 18 year-olds would not have been fun.

Fraser is the largest island in the world that is completely made of sand. Apparently it has more sand than the whole Sahara Desert! One of it's streams expels over 50,000,000 litres of fresh water into the ocean an hour! (Yet Australia has been in a drought for the last couple of years?) So what did we see? Well we got to see the rainforest in the rain, a lot of sand, some pretty turquoise lakes, the pinnacles, a couple of dingos and a whole lotta rain! The free 'all you can eat' lunch buffet was pretty good though!

Leaving that experience behind and another tick in the box on our 'Australia Tourist Attractions List', we headed north towards Airlie Beach. The rain continued for what felt like forever (actually about a week) as we listened to the news headlines of 'Australia having its largest rainfall for 3 years' - Yipee for us tourists! Not much to report here as we passed through towns and cities and saw the inside of our car and a whole lot of cabins.

We arrived into Airlie Beach for our first day of sunshine and to some sensational views. Wow - Queensland is so beautiful! So green, so clear, so tropical and totally stunning. We pitched the tent (yep!) and enjoyed the warmth and prepared for our sailing trip. Everyone knows that a visit to Australia just wouldn't be complete without sailing around the Whitsundays so we were booked on to a 3 day and 3 night cruise.
We hopped aboard our ship, the medium sized 'Pacific Star' with our fellow passengers and crew - 25 people altogether. The boat was a good sized catamaran with 2 sails and set up particularly for diving based trips as it was one of only about 3 or 4 boats licensed to cruise out to the outer Great Barrier Reef. Our group was great as it was real mix of people from all over the world including families, couples and some singles and all in their 20's or above... phew we managed to miss the booze cruise! Our cabin was the smallest thing you have ever seen and I'm not sure how we fit 3 people in there with bags, snacks and snorkelling gear but somehow we survived.
The sailing was amazing. Its hard to put into words the total experience as we were both so blown away by the magic of the place. The scenery was picture postcard perfect, the weather was hot and sunny with a light breeze and the marine life was totally out of this world. From sailing around we saw sea eagles, millions of the most amount of tropical fish (at night we sailed through a shoal of over a thousand fish literally flying out of the water - very surreal), turtles, reef sharks, Matt even saw a whale's tail (I just caught the splash!)

(Matt - Kerrie didn't mention that what i saw was a humpback whale about 40 metres from the boat and just a couple of minutes before we dived - It was crazy and scary at the same time!!!)

And this was just on the surface. However the highlight of the trip had to be the SCUBA! We both did a couple of intro dives (a big first for both of us!) in which we were taken down to 12 metres with our scuba hero Big Tom (the ultimate Aussie legend!) where we got to see a whole new world come to life. I have to admit that I was absolutely petrified (Barb, your 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' mantra went round and round my head!). The whole being submerged in deep shark ridden sea water with over 20 kilograms of weight attached to my body seemed like the most insane thing ever. What the heck were we thinking? Fortunately, once the air had been squeezed from my jacket and we were lowered down to the bottom of the ocean, the beauty of the coral and tropical life sent me into the relaxation that comes from watching fish in a very very large tank. That did not stop me from pretty much being glued to Big Tom the scuba hero the whole time! During our dives we saw endless amounts of fish, some small and some huge, a reef shark (Yes a shark!!!!), beautiful coral, and we even went into a cave which was pretty cool (not for poor Alistair who got stuck in there and had his air mouthpiece knocked out!) It felt like we were down there forever (actually about 25 minutes) but we sure travelled huge distances. All in all, the scuba experience was fantastic and something that we both will never ever forget!

The rest of the trip was spent snorkelling, (which is when I found Nemo swimming in and out of his home in the coral, I think I even saw his Mum too!) sunbathing, eating the fab food and generally just relaxing and soaking up the sensational atmosphere. We saw some of the best sunrises and sunsets and one evening (when the sea was rough and I was felling ill) between us we saw 4 shooting stars in the clearest night sky. What a top trip!

Today we are getting over a couple of minor hangovers after our post trip night out with our group and crew and now in Bowen checking out the film set of the new Baz Luhrmann Australian epic film innovatively named 'Australia'...

So thats it for now, until next time...

(Matt - Just another small entry from me! I wanted to say a big thankyou to Jo for talking us into diving the Great barrier reef, it was awesome!!! my main highlights - swimming with and touching turtles. Swimming with a reef shark, obviously the humpback whale, Sting rays and feeding amoungst others Rupert our pet fish shown in the shots, it's hard to describe how big that fish was!! Anyway a totally fantastic experience just a bit gutted it's all over :-(

Oh by the way, there's another page of photos so don't miss them!

Lots of love
Kerrie (and Matt) xxx

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