Whitsunday Islands, Clipper Boat Tour, Australia, February 2014

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Waking up in a random house, in the middle of no where, hungover, was not what I wanted to be doing on the morning of a boat tour but hey ho, here I was. One of the lads put some music on again and then offered us a lift back into town, sorted! We had to drive for about 10 minutes down a dirt track before we even reached a road which showed we were pretty far out, although when I asked the lad he did admit that it meant they can have the best house parties with no interruptions from neighbours or Police. I got dropped off at the hostel and it was a mad rush for me to quickly pack my bag, check out and head down to the harbour. We were running a bit late but quickly grabbed a big bottle of vodka and a 4L box of goon each for the trip. We then took a brisk walk around to the harbour and got there just in time. All the boat tours had to wait at the shop and then the workers called out each boat tour and took a register. Finally it was time to head down to the boat and it was really nice and even had a slide on it! We dropped our bags downstairs, had an introduction upstairs and were then given our cabins. Me and Freeman were in separate cabins and I shared with two Irish guys who were good crack. For the whole day we just cruised along looking at the beautiful islands and chatted to most people trying to get to know everyone. Me and Freeman stood at the front of the boat speaking to a really tall guy called Harry for most of the day, he was a Leeds fan the same as Freeman so they were loving life chatting away about that. Another notable guy was an Australian called Jakob who was already off his face, stumbling around slurring to everyone but to be fair the more I spoke to him the more I realised he was a decent lad, albeit an incredibly drunk one. The drink fridge was locked until 4pm as it wasn't technically a 'booze cruise' but as soon as 4pm came we all started drinking (or in Jakob's case, carried on drinking). We anchored in the evening and they pushed the slide out and let us all jump off the boat, once we had all put our 'stinger suits' on which were basically just wet suits to protect us from being stung by jellyfish. I tried a gainer (run and jump off forwards but do a backflip) but failed, it was good fun jumping in though. The staff didn't arrange any games that evening so after dinner we all just sat up on the top deck and tried to get some drinking games going but it failed miserably because there was just too many of us. I then played Take Me Out so we got the girls sat in a group and I danced in as if I had just came out of the lift. We then did the typical rounds with the girls having their hands on their heads if they were still interested, it was all good banter and the rounds were pretty funny! I managed to bag myself a date as well! A few people then had an early night but a small group of us stayed up late. The two Irish guys from my room sang some classic Irish songs and I sang a bit of Ed Sheeran for them. We finally all headed to bed in the early hours.

We got an abrupt awakening by the workers at 6:30am the next morning; they all ran into our rooms screaming and shouting at us to get up to the eating area as fast as we could. It turns out one of the lads, blonde Harry from London, had somehow managed to fall overboard in the middle of the night so they were absolutely raging at him and took their frustrations out on all of us. They finally let us have breakfast after a huge and to be quite honest massively over the top, out of order reaction and we then sailed to the famous Whitehaven Beach. Unfortunately it rained and was cloudy so after we had trekked up to the best view point it looked nice but no where near as good as the sunny photos that you see, slightly gutting... We could see stingrays in the water but we trekked down to the beach and jumped in the water anyway, we did have our sexy stinger suits on after all! We sat in the water with the Irish girls and had a bit of banter that it was my Take Me Out date from the night before. One of the workers then brought a camera down and we had to spell ATLANTIC CLIPPER with our bodies. I was part of the 'T' so I stood up and had a girl lay across my shoulders to cross the line of the T. We then made human pyramids and after all of the girls got in the water for a girly photo. It was at this point us lads looked around and realised how outnumbered we were by the girls, it was around 37 girls to 17 guys! After more chilling the sun finally came out but we headed back onto our boat and sailed to Blue Pearl Harbour, apparently the best snorkelling spot in the Whitsundays. We hopped into a speedboat and jumped out at the snorkelling spot. We saw quite a few fish but I must admit I had expected better. We spent around an hour floating around but I couldn't find the famous Elvis, a big fish that everybody gets photos with, although I did find Nemo. I went back on the first boat and Jakob had been stung by a jellyfish where he hadn't done up the back of his stinger suit properly. Another boat full then came back and they had all seen Elvis, gutted! We all jumped off the boat again, went down the slide and in the cold Jacuzzi on the boat before sailing to our new anchor spot for the infamous Clipper party night. We had a few drinks and dinner then the announcement was made to go to their fancy dress box and grab whatever you could. I ended up with a pink low cut dress whilst Freeman got a 'Wicked' silk dressing gown and pink pyjama bottoms. At first we all hit the dancefloor and they would shout a number and you had to get in a group of that number, for example 3's. They then split us into 5 groups and we had to sit down in a line, row and sway as fast and wildly as we could. My group wasn't doing very well at it and I thought we were gonna get eliminated but luckily we didn't. In the next round we had to get into 3's so it was me Freeman and a blonde girl. They then shouted threesome so Freeman got us both on his shoulders and the girl nearly dropped me so I ended up upside down clinging on for dear life. We got through to the next round. In round 3 we were in pairs so me and Freeman were together. We should have partnered girls as this time they gave us 3 moves, the 'Clipper Dipper', 69 and doggy style, needless to say I became the girl... To be fair to us we smashed it again and Freeman's legs were in bits from the Clipper Dipper position. We got through to the semi-final, only four couples left. We were given chairs and had one minute to give each other a crazy lap dance, again we gave it so much energy and mad antics that we were the first couple through to the final. Two girls also got to the final, for which we had 45 seconds to do a dance in front of everyone on your own. It went girl, me, girl, Freeman and the girls were both pretty lame in their attempts. I went all out, throwing some arm shapes, did the worm forwards and backwards then grinded on the crowd, before stripping completely naked and doing the willycopter, great performance. Freeman pulled out his classic Spice Girls peach fingers across the eyes, arm worm and snorkel and then jumped around like a mad man! They made the crowd cheer for me first and I got a good reception. The two girls got quieter cheers so then it was down to Freeman... He got the loudest cheer and was proudly crowned 'King of the Clipper', legend! After these crazy antics we all just drank and partied on, getting absolutely smashed. We ended up having a cabin rave until the early hours but I was so wasted I passed out and was fast asleep whilst the rave was still going on. What a great night!

We were woken up for breakfast on the final day all feeling worse for wear. I struggled to eat breakfast and then everybody just chilled up on the top deck. It was a bit like a car crash up there as everyone tried to find spots to lie down and sunbathe whilst we sailed back to port. Our relaxation was then ruined by rain hammering it down so we all squeezed in like sardines under the covers. Me, Freeman and Harry stood chatting away at the front of the boat again and then Natalie came and joined us too. We got some nice views as we came back in to dock, said our goodbyes to all of the staff and walked back to the hostel. I tried to get Freeman to go down to the lagoon that afternoon but he was hanging so he was going nowhere. Instead I popped out to the shop, bought a new diary and spent the afternoon writing that and as I came into our car park I could see Team Sweden's car (the lads we had met in Fraser Island) so I was buzzing to see them again! In the evening we showered, got ready and went down to our hostel bar to get the steak and beer meal deal again as it was so good the time before. We finally saw Team Sweden and Felix came over to sit with us. We had a good chat and he told us about spending his parents money because he wasn't bothered and just wanted to enjoy his life, what a lad! After dinner we went out and got some goon, bumped into tall Harry and he came to our room to pre drink with us. We had a few drinks in our room and Natalie also came up to see us. We opened the door and could hear Team Sweden's music across the hallway so we went across to their room and we all went wild, chucking each other around the room, jumping around and even pushing each other round in a washing trolley! There were two random girls in their room that weren't going out and they looked a mixture of being scared and annoyed at our behaviour. I apologised to them and promised that we wouldn't be in there long. Everyone from our boat tour had agreed to meet at a particular bar and when we got there the bar wasn't actually that big but it was rammed. All of the workers from the boat were absolutely steaming and were all over the girls from our boat, all trying their luck, fair play to them. Tom Brindle, the guy from Thailand 2012 that I had randomly met a few nights before, then came out for a few drinks with me so I spent a couple of hours chatting away to him catching up. We then headed to the club, Tom went home so me and Freeman were dancing around with Laura, Amy and all their mates. However, I wasn't that drunk, I was shattered from the previous nights and we had a bus at 7am the next morning so I went back to the hostel and got to sleep about 2:30am.

The Clipper Tour of the Whitsunday Island had been a great tour but wasn't as good as we had expected after everyone said it was the best thing in Australia. I don't think the weather helped the situation but the Whitsundays were beautiful and I can imagine would be stunning if it was sunny the whole time. For me, Fraser Island was a much better tour but i'm glad we did the Clipper Boat and I would still recommend that people do it.

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