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After 2 fun filled days battling the sandflies and the immense crowds in Mackay we decided to head for Airlie beach.

Our first impressions of Airlie beach were good - there were loads of people around and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Despite its name there's not much of a beach there but there is a beautiful lagoon, which more than made up for it. We stayed for a couple of days before heading out on a 2 day 2 night cruise on the Whitsundays. The trip was pretty good. Good snorkelling, great food and a good crowd of people on board. Whitehaven beach is really cool. I was a little disapointed in the actual reef they brought us to for snorkelling - it wasn't as colourful as I expected, i'd say the reef is definitely dying. We did see loads of colourful fish though.

We headed for Townsville (the departure point for Magnetic Island) the day we got back. There's not alot to the town but it is slightly better than Rockhampton and Mackay. The following day we headed to the Island for Carol's birthday.

All the brochures I had read up to this point indicated that Magnetic Island was one of the sunniest places in Oz. What a load of cr*p - it rained bucket loads for the 2 days we were there. It didn't start of course until we had started a 3 hour trek on the first day! In saying that we still had a good time and I'd say if the sun was shining it would be a cool place.

We left Townsville as soon as the bad wheather died down. Luckily we weren't headin south as there were really bad floods all the way back down to Mackay. (Actually caused millions of dollars worth of damage in Mackay alone). The same day we left Townsville we heard that one of the tour boats on the Whitsundays ran aground and a boat sank in Airlie beach harbour. I think people were stranded back in Airlie beach for the next few days. To be honest we've been blessed with the weather so far.

So off we went further north in search of some sun. We stopped off in Cairns for the night before headin up to Cape Tribulation the following day. Cape Tribulation has the oldest rainforest in the world and its really unique for the fact that the forest runs right up to the beach. It would have been nicer if we had good weather but it was still worth seeing. We stopped off at Mossman Gorge on the way back to Cairns for a swim (One of the only waterspots not infested with crocodiles!). It was really enjoyable and was great to cool down from the 90% humidity!)

A few days later we headed up to Port Douglas to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. The diving was great and seeing our first shark and sea turtle really topped it off.

My overall impression was that Cairns is a really nice place but it is a bit over the top. There are souvenier shops everywhere and to be honest it could easily be mistaken for being a part of Asia as most of the shops advertise in Chinese and English. It seems to be a very popular destination for Asian tourists.

Anyway till next time .......

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