The final chapter: Airlie Beach - Whitsunday Islands - Airlie Beach - Cairns

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The Whitsunday Islands are group of 74 islands of the coast from Airlie Beach. Fifty-one of us boarded the boat the Atlantic Clipper last tuesday, in the wind and rain. Its a big boat with a large saloon area, big upper deck for us to sunbathe (ha!) and party and many small cabins with the beds arranged half on top of each other. We had a safety briefing as we started to sail on the lower deck, which was no good for me and my sea sickness (this is new) thankfully it was only a feeling! On the upper deck I was fine, although a little cold, there was really strong winds making the sea extremely choppy! We stopped for the night in the shelter of Hook Island, where we ate a gorgeous meal (luxury) and a few drinks. I've never slept on a boat before!

Up bright and early the next day for SCUBA diving on the fringing coral reefs, we swam out from the beach before heading down to see what we could find. Its so crazy, on the surface you can just sea blue sea all around, but underneath the ocean is so busy! Bright corals of all different types wherever you look and loads of bright-multicoloured fish. Visibility wasn't great but still impressive. Unfortunately no sharks or turtles 😞, but we did find nemo!

After a bit of snorkelling and lunch the boat took us to White Haven Beach, voted 2nd in the world. The sand is 98% silica, so extremely pure and fine and very very very white! Was beautiful to look at from above with the blue sea crashing up onto the white sand. We did have our stinger suits but didn't go in the water (it was a bit cloudy), instead we spent our time playing old school games - always fun! Small dinghy boats took us back and forth from the Clipper, while on these boats we saw three turtles!! They would come up to the surface, swim along for a bit taking a few breaths before diving down again, great creatures to watch.

That evening we anchored the other side of Hook Island before having another yummy dinner and having a big party. Over the side of the boat the fish were mesmerising, big fish trying to catch small fish that were darting about all over the place - some of the big fish were successful, it was one of those now you see it, now you don't kind of moments.

Up bright and early again for more SCUBA this sunny morning with Orlagh (Ireland), Lauren (England) and Ryan (instructor, Australia). Visibility was really poor today, some times we'd be swimming not knowing what we were swimming into or what was around us, quite unnevrving but very exciting! Unfortunately we didn't run into much. Some great corals again, we touched a feather coral which sticks to your hand, but we saw less than ten fish the entire dive. When we surfaced the dinghy picked us up, we took off our SCUBA gear and us three girls decided to snorkel back to shore - I'm so glad we did this. We'd been snorkelling around for about twenty minutes when we decided we were a bit cold so should go in, the next thing I know Orlagh is tapping we and making the hand signal for turtle, I see it and do the same so Lauren finds it too. We were in very shallow waters, only about a foot off the coral, it was a Green Turtle, just cruising about, amazing pattern on his head (google it), we stayed about a metre back, as not to spook him, but we could easily have touched him. He saw us and carried on swimming around with us following for about 10 minutes, then he sped off, which was a cue for us to leave him alone - awesome experience! Such great creatures!

Back on the Clipper the slide was up and running - yesssssssss!! A few goes on the slide and a few jumps off the upper deck into the warm blue sea later, we were sailing back to Airlie Beach. The weather was beautiful when we got back so a group of us went to the lagoon, before showering and happy hour - a great way to end the trip.

The next day, Sophie and I spent another day by the lagoon (baking hot sunshine), before catching the night bus to Cairns.

We arrived in Cairns the next morning, to beautiful sunshine - really hot. We spent the morning looking around the markets and shopping 😊, until we could check into our very nice hostel. I like Cairns, definately good for shopping and has the relaxed Aussie feel about it. The lagoon in Cairns in closed at the moment which is a bit disappointing, but our hostel has a pool so all was good. Sophie and I went to the night market with Emilie (Canada), but had a fairly early night because had to be up early the next morning.

6.45am I was picked up by a mini bus headed for Port Douglas, where I boarded a boat (the Haba) for the outer regions of the Great Barrier Reef. Wow wasn't it a bumpy ride!! I headed up to the upper deck to aid my new found sea sickness, after 10 seconds I was drenched from head to toe! The waves the boat was bouncing over were about 10ft high, they would crash over the side of the boat and drench us all - quite and exciting ride! Thankfully (although still a little choppy) conditions were better when we got to Opal reef. A small group of us were straight in the water and straight under it for some fore SCUBA, which was AMAZING! We went down to about 17m where it was exactly like finding Nemo, loads of different brightly coloured corals, tonnes of brightly coloured fish swimming around - so busy. There were a bunch of clown fish hanging out by their pink sea anemone, Dory was around and so was scar face! It was magical. Feather corals, Staghorn corals, boulder corals and hundreds more I don't know the names off. Many maori Wrasse - these we saw as we were surfacing, they were hanging out by the boat - its a completely different world.

After lunch the boat took us to the other side of Opal reef, which is double the size of Cairns. Back in the water for another dive, again went down to about 17m, we were swimming around amongst the chaos of the reef for about 10 minutes when we came over a bed of sand and oh yes there was none other than a white tip reef shark chilling out on the bed!!!! He was about 1.5m long, so not a huge shark - but a shark none-the-less, quite shy creatures, we swam towards him, which made him dart off to find another spot in the sand to settle on! yessssss!!! Ryan picked up a sea Cucumber for us to touch - very strange feeling, slimy and squishy. For some reason I started having problems equalising my left ear, which began to hurt a little, I got Ryan's attention and we went to the surface to come back down again and boy am I glad I went back down, my ear equalised fine and after 2 minutes under the water a green turtle swam past us! oh yeah!! I could watch turtles all day!

After the dive I went snorkelling with Walter (Holland), where we saw so many giant clams, which lie fairly flat on the rocks and when you swim over them they close up. The Giant Clams were all different colours and patterns. There was also huge parrot fish which were all sorts of really bright vivid colours, they were having a snack on the coral. So many fish of all different colours, it was amazing.

The boat ride back was just as crazy as the boat out, but this time I stayed inside - it was like a roller coaster - great ride! A warm up for Florida (very excited!).

Today is nice and sunny again and it is my last day in Australia! I've had the most incredible adventure I can't believe it is almost over. I've met some amazing people from all over the world, I've done some crazy, exciting, beautiful things and I've enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.

I've had a few low times, but they have been more than counteracted by the most incredible highs.

I can't wait to see all the amazing people I already knew at home, I have missed you a lot and hope to see you all very soon for some new adventures!

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