The long awaited Australia Blog!

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Tuesday 20th July - Day 1 (Total days = 36)

Afternoon Australia…. I land in Perth around 13:30, I’ve lost 6 hours from South Africa and it’s a 7hr difference to England. I’m not worried about losing time as I’ll gain a lot of hours when I fly over the pacific to Hawaii and mainland USA. I’m a big believer in ensuring all my time is worth it so when you lose 6 hours, you’ll never get it back, it’s like forgetting to fast forward past the adverts when you’ve recorded a program on sky+ you’ll never get the time back!!!



An hour later and I’m still in the Airport. This country is strict and all bags are x-rayed (not just hand luggage) when they come off the plane they are sent through an x-ray and the wait for the bags is painstakingly long! In addition to this you have to declare if you’d farted on the plane. Only joking! But they do ask for everything from dairy products to wood carvings etc to be declared. I actually had some spices from South Africa in my bag, nothing special, just some mixed herbs and pepper that the boys had bought in their first few weeks during the World Cup Tour, it was a shame to throw them so I’d put them in my bag. This meant that I had another long wait to get out the airport as my bag had to be searched and I had to show them the spices. They went through fine in the end!

I manage to get out the airport approximately an hour and a half after landing, I sit down for a quick drink of water and notice a shuttle bus in front of me, he looked like he was waiting for a few people to turn up. I’d not planned how I was to get from the airport to the hostel so saw this as an opportunity. I eventually go over to the bus and the driver is about to pull off, I shout his attention and he opens the door, ‘I’m going to Billabong backpackers are you going anywhere near?’ I ask, ‘Yes’ He replied, ‘Everyone else on the bus was too’. Jackpot! I jumped in and grabbed a seat.

The next destination was over to the other airport domestic terminal to collect more passengers, 11 in total! Using his C.B Radio the driver blared out his route to the head office. Billabong Backpackers was last stop! Crap. It was a good bus tour of Perth but I just wanted to get to the hostel and relax, I’d been travelling for a while now and didn’t want to wait any longer. I eventually pull up at the hostel around 16:30, 3 hours after I’d landed! The hostel was definitely the biggest I’d stayed at, it was more like a hotel than a hostel. The main reception sat adjacent to the lounge/dining area with a separate kitchen room and outside seating by the pool. To the left of reception lay a booth of computers all ready to charge you extortionate rates for internet usage! I check in and find my room, top floor no lift I slog it up the stairs expecting to walk into a large dormitory, but this was nothing like my expectations. The hostel was basically a converted hotel. The floor had two corridors that sat together like a big ‘L’ shape. Each room on the floor housed a mini dormitory, some with 4 beds, some with 6 beds each room, all with an en-suite bathroom. I was in a 4 bed dorm but unlucky enough to get a top bunk, I never like climbing up them at night and getting out in the morning it was just more hassle when trying to get in/out of bed!

(Note: I’m really behind on the blog at this point i.e. 10 days behind! I’m currently writing this on board the Kangaroo Explorer Vessel out in the middle of the great barrier reef, I’ve just completed my first open water dive and I’m buzzing, so trying to get as much down on the paper as possible!)

I really needed to sleep but needed food more. I went down to reception to ask about internet usage and they pointed at the booth I’d seen previously, not a chance I was paying those prices so I asked about local free internet cafes and got pointed in the direction of one about a 5min walk away. I manage to use the internet and update the blog check my facebook, Jade had sent me a message which was pretty uplifting it helped cheer me up but I still felt lonely!

Later on I walked back to the hostel, dumped my laptop in the room and headed downstairs to meet some new people, first guys I met were from England (Coventry), he explained how expensive booze was in Oz and suggested that I drink ‘goon’. ‘What the hell is goon?’ I ask. He explained to me that it’s basically a box of wine. The word goon originates from the Aboriginal word for pillow, when the box has been drunk the cavity inside the box which holds the wine can be used as a pillow, strange, but true! I sat and talked to Pete for a while and decided I was hungry again, it was Tuesday special at Dominos and another English guy, Luke was walking down to the shop to pick up a pizza, I rung through my order and we set off. Luke was from Manchester, a true Mancunian but had been living in Perth over 8 months. Luke was an extremely laid back guy and for once I could speak to someone without having to pronounce all my ‘T’s’!!! We got on pretty well and it was from there on I’d spend the next few days/nights with him. Luke explained to me how Perth was at night and he also explained that plenty of aboriginals or ‘abbos’ lived in the areas on the outskirts of the city centre, the ‘abbos’ had recently attacked a couple of girls in the hostel, hitting them and throwing petrol on them, they seemed like some very unsavory characters which were to be avoided. Luke revealed that most of the abbos were living on benefits or homeless, a lot of them spent their nights on the numerous parks around Perth sniffing glue or petrol to get high. I was pretty surprised by all this; it’s not something you hear about when talking about Australia. We returned from the pizza shop and I felt like a beer so ended up walking over to the bottle shop with Pete. I spent the rest of the night chatting to Luke and Pete until retiring to bed around midnight. For some reason even though I’d met these new people I was still sad for leaving South Africa , it felt as if nothing in Oz could cheer me up, I had a whole new adventure ahead of me but couldn’t get excited about it, I knew the feeling would pass, it did eventually, but not for a while!

Wednesday 21st July - Day 2 (Total days = 37)

I had a text from my second cousin Katie around 11am, I wanted to stay in bed but knew it was right to get up and go meet her and the other family; we arrange to meet at 12pm outside a local pub down the road from the hostel. Katie and I are related via my mother’s sister Ruth, her husband Paul is Katies cousin, it’s a very distant relation but it’s still good to hook up with family you’ve never met or spoke to before. I eventually get out of bed and get in the shower, I was starving, the hostel actually did a free breakfast of toast and cereal but I’d already missed it. I get downstairs and walk up to the local pub called ‘The Queens’, it was only a short walk away. I got there with about 5 minutes to spare so sat on the wall outside and waited for Katie. She turned up moments later, I’d actually forgot she had a little kid so I didn’t recognize her at first, the little one is called Cody, he looked quite shy and was just getting over an illness so he wasn’t to be himself! I say my hello’s and we walk back to where she’d parked. The plan was to go and meet her parents Paul and Margaret; it was about a 15 minute drive from the area of Perth I was staying. So I strapped in and we chatted away for the entire journey, it was quite strange meeting new family, I thought I’d be nervous but Katie and I got on really well. We pull up at Katie’s parents; it was a lovely bungalow overlooking a big open grass field. I get out of the car and Paul and Margaret are just exiting the house to come and meet me, it was lovely to meet them, Paul reminded me of a lot of Mike (my Uncle Paul’s late father). After saying our hellos I’m invited into the house for a cup of tea, I couldn’t refuse, it would be my first cup of proper tea since I’d left England, if there was one thing I’d forgotten for the trip it would definitely be English tea bags! The supermarkets sell Tetley in Australia; it’s not quite the same as back home but still better than the crap they sell in South Africa!

After enjoying my cup of tea we all decided what would be the best thing for me to do and go and see during the day, Paul suggested we go and play mini golf at a local course which also had a playground for Cody. After a quick sandwich Katie made me we decided to set off for the golf course. We pull up to the golf course and book in for a game of 9 holes, the clubs were hardened plastic and the balls were rubbery so it wasn’t a serious course, more of a fun course! The grounds of the course were beautiful, there was so much greenery and the landscape it reminded me of a stereotypical Australian landscape! After a couple of photos with the new found family, Paul and I parted company with Margaret, Katie and Cody, while we went off to play golf the others retreated to the local park.

After an abysmal round of golf, Paul had beaten me by one shot, he was an experienced golfer but after using what I can only say were ‘kids’ clubs and balls did not help matters in the slightest! It was good timing as after we’d finished the golf Margaret, Katie and Cody were also just walking back to meet us! The plan was now to go and visit a local beauty spot called Oasis Springs or Creek, (Rigby family - please correct me here if I’m wrong I can’t fully remember the name of the place!)

The location was only a short drive away from the golf course so we buckled up and set-off in the car. We drove in via a very windy and twisty road, due the fact that it was dry season in WA (Western Australia) Paul was unsure of there would be any water in the creek but it was soon apparent that there was an abundant stream of water running through the various rapids. We pull up at the car park and commence walking along the path towards the main spot, Margaret walked with Katie and Cody in the push chair while Paul and I took an alternative route along the rocks that laid aside the creek, I took a few pictures of the running stream and we headed on towards a bridge that ran across the creek. Paul had explained to me that each year they have a canoeing competition down the rapids of the creek, even though the water was at a low level it was still fairly rapid and it looked difficult to co-ordinate through the many different gulches and separate little water basins that lead in all directions. The spot was lovely, we all congregated in the middle of the bridge and took some pictures of the landscape, It was my first view of the Australian countryside, a nice peaceful spot.

After a few more pictures we proceeded back to the car, I was getting hungry at this point as all I’d eaten was the sandwich Katie had kindly made me at Paul and Margaret’s. There was one more thing to go and do before we could retire to Paul and Margaret’s for a BBQ. It was close to 5pm and it was about time when the wild Kangaroos would start appearing at a local place (can’t remember name) close to Paul and Margaret’s, we pull up at a car-park and go and walk to find them, it wouldn’t take long to find them, Paul and I walked up the road about 100 meters to a pack of about 3 or 4 kangaroos, it was the first wild one I’d seen so I was pretty happy to get a few close up pictures. It was a tick off the list for something Australia is famous for!

Back in the car and back to Paul and Margaret’s for the BBQ! I couldn’t wait, I was getting hungrier by the moment and I was looking forward to sampling my first Australian BBQ! Paul was in charge of cooking the meat while Margaret rustled up a potato and green salad, I sat and watched Thomas the tank engine with Cody, it brought me back to my own childhood, and even though Thomas was now very modernized it was still a similar storyline to each episode! The BBQ didn’t fail to impress, I tucked into a lovely steak and plenty of potato salad, and it was like I’d never been fed before! After the BBQ we all had a brew and sat down for a chat, Cody was getting tired and Katie wanted to get him home to bed so it was soon time to say my goodbye to Paul and Margaret. We’d planned to meet up again the following Sunday and go to Hilary’s boat harbour so I said my goodbye’s and Katie drove me back to the hostel. It had been a great day with family that I’d never me, we all got on really well and it seemed as though they were as happy to see me as I was them; being with the family helped me get over the thought of leaving South Africa it was a strange feeling as I’ve mentioned previously but I put it down to missing a certain someone rather than the country itself!

Thursday 22nd July - Day 3 (Total days = 38)

I slept in again, but managed to make the 10am breakfast deadline! The selection was fairly minimal, toast with jam, peanut butter or spread and cereal which consisted of rice crispies or corn flakes. I opted for the most balanced option of Peanut butter on toast and after 3 slices I was done!

The objective of the day was to go swimming and sort an Australian sim card to make and receive calls while in Oz, I’d run out of credit on my SA sim card and using my English one was far too expensive. I saw Luke at breakfast and he wasn’t up to much that day so he said he’d join me for the walk into Perth city centre, everyone I’d spoken to persuaded me to go for a Vodafone sim card it was a good deal for just $30 you get $150 dollars of extra credit to call other Vodafone customers plus another $150 for calling anyone in the world! After the short walk into Perth city centre I was straight in a Vodafone shop and within about ten minutes I had a working sim card and new Australian number! Luke suggested he show me around the city centre and where everything was, so we spent the next half an hour or so walking around the centre like a mini tour of Perth’s shopping district, Luke wanted to go to an English sweet shop which was in a place called London Court, it was basically a small shopping Arcade that was a mock up of an English high street, or at least it tried to be, it reminded me more of something you see in Amsterdam not London! We get into the sweet shop and Luke buys a can of fizzy Vimto, I spotted a box of PG tips and even though the price was extortionate I couldn’t resist I love my tea and I had the opportunity to get some proper English tea bags, $7 later I was 40 bags of tea up! After this we decided to walk back towards the hostel, Luke explained to me about the working situation in Perth and how the Australian visa system worked, he said if you can get to work in the mines you can be guaranteed to earn over $100,000 dollars a year, or even just laboring can pull in around $55,000 a year, work was plentiful in Perth and that is why a lot of backpackers settle there.
Half way back to the hostel Luke and I parted ways, I’d already pre-packed my swimming stuff and had an idea of how to get to the local pool so we agreed to meet up later on and go halves on a crate of beer, it was a much cheaper option than buying packs of 6 or 12 so I took Luke’s number and arranged a time to meet.

After asking for directions I eventually found the pool, ‘Beatty Park Leisure Centre’, set next to a large playing field stood a fairly large building that housed a swimming pool and a gymnasium, the grounds were well maintained so it was a promising sight for the swimming pool being in good condition. I get to reception and ask to go for a swim, ‘Which pool?’ the lady asked, ‘I’ve got a choice have i?’, there were 3 pools, one outdoor and two indoor, I opted for the outdoor 50m Olympic sized heated pool, it would be the first time I’d swim in a 50m pool so was curious to see how different it would be to the normal 18-25m pools I swim in! The changing rooms were fairly simple set-up and after a few minutes I was in the pool, it was a good temperature a little on the cold side but it’s better than being too hot. I started my usual routine and got into the swing of things fairly easily I hadn’t noticed too much fitness loss and still managed to do a 1.5km swim. The 50m pool was difficult to get used to but still good fun, the place was very quiet so apart from a few lanes taken up by a senior citizens swim club I had the place to myself.

The walk back to the hostel was round 15mins, I felt good in myself after eventually getting some exercise done but it was all to be undone on the night ahead. I decided to go straight to the supermarket and get some food to cook for tea, it was to be a simple pasta and Bolognese sauce, I didn’t want to shell out for red wine s it was so dam expensive so it wouldn’t be the best but still palatable! After getting back to the hostel I put my food in the fridge and gave Luke a call, he was in his room so I knocked on and we decided to go and get some beers, we were joined by one of Luke’s new roommates a French guy called Benoir, for this blog we’ll call him ‘Le Frog’ he was the first French traveler I’d met, he was an ageing guy who I’d put around mid thirties, his English wasn’t too strong but he tried!
So we all set off together for the bottle shop which was up by the ‘Queens’ pub. We decided on the cheapest option for a crate and carried it back-up to the hostel to start drinking and playing pool. A friend of Luke’s joined us, called Dave, he was also from Manchester and another top guy I got along with really well, he explained to me that he worked for a local web-site design business but was nearly sacked for not updating a website properly that day! It was a funny story when he told it because his firm designed websites for a local Subaru dealer the update he didn’t publish was to remove an out of date discount offer! His job was pretty cushy and he worked on a commission basis and was regularly pulling in amounts of 2 to 3 thousand dollars per week, it was madness!

After a few beers it was time for tea, Luke was cooking Sausage and chips with his friend Lisa and I had my Bolognese to rustle up, I’d forgotten the garlic but it still turned out pretty good in the end! We sat down to eat our dinner and was joined by some Scottish people Luke knew, it was a strange set-up, there were two gay guys both called Stuart travelling together with a girl called Kerry, they were nice people but I couldn’t help thinking the set-up was strange!

After cleaning up the dinner stuff we carried on drinking with le frog and the scots, Kerry was being very flirtatious but I didn’t give her anything back, she wore far too much make up and her accent was annoying, I couldn’t even imagine trying it on with another girl, I had December to look forward to! We carried on playing pool for most of the night and after a second trip to the bottle shop I retired around 1am after we had ran out of beer, I was planning to meet Katie in the morning to go to out in the car to the Outback so I needed sleep.

To add to this day I also booked my flight to Cairns, I took the cheapest option which meant I now had another 3 nights in Perth as I would be flying out Monday evening.

Friday 23rd July - Day 4 (Total days = 39)

I get up at a fairly decent time of 8:30am in time to meet Katie at 10am; breakfast consisted of proper tea and more peanut butter on toast! After a long shower I felt dehydrated so bought a bottle of water and a waited for Katie just outside the hostel. I didn’t know what the plan was for the day and she was unsure what I’d actually want to do so we decided on driving off into the outback to a reservoir called Mundaring Weir, the reservoir pumps water to a small percentage of Perth city and another larger percentage to its surrounding townships, Katie explained this as we were heading for the place and it was hard to miss the giant water pipes running along the road. When we got to the place it seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere but we soon saw life when a giant concrete dam came into view. The dam was there to act as a collection point for the water to be pumped out of the reservoir to the surrounding towns, it was a huge structure and the surrounding bush land was stunning, the reservoir stretched as far as the eye could see, there was a walkway across the top of the dam that allowed visitors to go and walk out and around the other side to see how the pumping station worked and where the certain additives were supplemented to the water.
After we’d walked across the dam we got back across a walkway to the side we started on, there was a small park for Cody to play on while I looked out at the different types of wildlife. I was hoping to spot something poisonous or dangerous but could only manage to spot a colourful parakeet!

After this we decided to head back to another much better park for Cody to play on, the plan after this was to get my hair-cut. I’d mentioned it to Katie a few days earlier when she mentioned she was a hair-dresser so it was a good opportunity to get my hair-cut with someone who I trusted, plus it wasn’t cheap for a hair-cut in Perth, it was around $25 for a cut so getting Katie to so it was perfect!
On the way back to Katie’s house we stopped for ice cream at a local parlor, it was an award winning ice creamery so I was looking forward to sampling some, plus it was getting close to lunchtime so I was pretty hank! I offered to buy Katie and Cody’s ice cream in return for the hair-cut, it was the least I could do and it would be strange trying to give money to Katie because out of kindness she probably wouldn’t want to accept it from another family member!

On to the hair-cut! It was one of the best I’ve had, Katie really did a thorough job and it showed that she was passionate about her work, I was well pleased with it, the mop I had before was getting out of hand! After the cut it was time for me to go, Katie wanted to get Cody off to sleep so it was either wait a few hours or get going, I was planning to go out for a drink with Luke, Dave and some Danish girls that were also staying in the hostel.

I had a lot of time to spare so decided on another swim. After this I was getting fairly hungry so I decided to cook for myself again; I had some leftover ingredients from the other night’s cook-off but decided to nip down to Coles (local supermarket) to get some garlic and stock cubes before returning to the hostel. On my return I was not a happy person! I’d got my new ingredients, got my utensils and crockery ready and was looking forward to some food. I searched the fridge for my left-over food but couldn’t find it. The policy in the hostel was to label all bags with Room Number, Name and check-out date, I did just that but still my food was nowhere to be seen, I was fuming, the food storage area had a camera to I went right to reception to ask about my missing food. They suspected it was the cleaners because that day the fridges had been cleaned, I didn’t want to go too mad but they didn’t seem bothered about it, they asked me to check again but it was pointless, I’d searched high and low! I asked them to check the cameras but they had to wait for the ’boss’ to turn up and check. It was a pointless argument, for what was a few dollars worth of food so I stormed out pissed off that I had another walk back to the supermarket!

I get back with the same ingredients that I’d lost and cooked a much better Bolognese. I wash up my ingredients and give Luke a call, we agreed to go down to the bottle shop and get some more beers, his room was just down the corridor from mine so when I walked out to go and knock on I bumped into Dave. He already had a half crate under his arm so we begun drinking them on the balcony of Luke’s dorm while constantly chain smoking and talking about the many nights out we’d had back in England! Messy times!!! After running out of beer we decide to walk to the bottle shop and grab another crate, we splash out on a box of Heineken and walk it back to the hostel to carry on drinking. We meet up with the Danish contingency, two girls who were out in Perth on a student exchange I can’t remember their names but they sounded more Canadian than Danish, they were really nice people, and I’d always got on well with the Danish, especially after my exploits in Johannesburg!

After finishing up the crate it was getting late so the plan was to move on to a club, Dave wasnt dressed for the occasion so he bailed early, it was just me Luke, the two Danish, and the Scottish girl, Kerry! After getting to the club I realised I didn’t have my passport with me, its required everywhere in Australia, even if you do look over 18! After a quick taxi ride back to the hostel to grab it I eventually got into the club to meet the others, there was a good band on and we all had a good dance. Later that night Luke disappeared with one of the Danish girls, good lad! I was left with the Scottish and other Danish girl, we danced on for about another hour then left for a kebab and got a taxi back to the hostel, it was a great night out!

Saturday 24th July - Day 5 (Total days = 40)

Woke-up dazzled, where did the night go I ask myself? I get up after missing breakfast and all I was thinking of was food, I start by making myself a cup of tea and sat outside talking to some Irish guy called Darren. Luke shouted down from his balcony and asked if I wanted to go to the pub, I wasn’t feeling it so turned it down saying I wanted to get food, he came down all the same and explained he was just going to a place on the waterfront. His mates (can’t remember their names) had just turned up and they were about to get off they told me where they were going and that I could get food there. Give me 5 minutes I said and ran up stair to have a quick wash. His mates were two brothers from London I will call them the ‘cockney wideboys’ so it’ll be CW1 and CW2!!! They were both life loving guys and very funny, there favourite saying had to be ‘ledge’ aka ‘legend’. It was funny to hear them talk! Anyhow. We set off walking towards the city centre, the journey was about a 20min walk, as we got nearer the train terminal CW1 suggested we check out some weird art exhibition at a local art gallery. None of us were n for it but CW1 promised some ‘freaky shit’ so we agreed. As we walked in to the gallery security was tight, they were everywhere and it soon became apparent why, this was some freaky shit! The first thing we saw against the main wall were two life sized kids playing the game boy, they weren’t normal though and at first I walked past them thinking they were just two kids but up close you could see they weren’t normal, their faces were aged and they had the skin of a 70+ year old, it was strange to see. The next few exhibits were wrong, I mean really wrong, the main one I remember was a bed, the bed had a child in it, a normal child of around 8-10 years old, he was lying next to a gruesome creature which looked like half man half creature with the bottom half that resembled a fish the top half resembled an alien like creature, it was strange. We couldn’t take pictures and it’s hard to explain the eeriness of the display but there were many more like this! I will try finding some pictures on the internet to show you but the rest of the display was just weird I didn’t understand any of it and just thinking of it now makes me cringe! We carry on out of the gallery towards the pub, we eventually got there after walking past a huge concert field where that night the Strokes and Mumford and Sons were playing. The bar was perfectly placed upon the waterfront it was called the ‘Lucky Shag’ the outside dining area was heaving and after a struggle we managed to get a seat ordered food and started drinking for the day! I felt awake again and soon started to get back into the swing of things, this was going to turn out to be another day on the source! After a couple of hours drinking the cockney wideboys left Luke and I to carry onto another bar further into the city centre, we went to a place called Razzle Dazzles it reminded me of a typical English wetherspoons but served good beer and they had the rugby on the big screen. It was the Tri-nations game between Australia and South Africa; naturally I was supporting SA but Australia was the better team on the day. After a few more beers Luke and I decided to head back up to the hostel, when we got back it was already kicking off, everyone was out drinking so we decided to get another crate in. Dave turned up and he was dressed and ready to go out. After polishing off the crate we headed to a place called the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, it was packed! The plan next was to go back to the club we visited the previous night ‘Paramount’ but I didn’t make it that far, I couldn’t drink anymore so got a kebab and decided to call it a night as I also had another day out with Katie in the morning.

Sunday 25th July - Day 6 (Total days = 41)

Jade hadn’t text all night and I was pretty worried about her, she had also gone out so I was worried what had happened to her, we were growing apart, she hardly text anymore and even an email was scarce, I started to doubt things would ever pick up again and started to think she’d met someone else but just didn’t want to tell me as it would hurt my feelings, I know this wasn’t to be the case but I couldn’t help but think it, it was like my head was telling me one thing but my heart the other!

Katie picked me up around 11am the plan was to visit Hillary’s boat harbour, just north of Perth city. We get to the boat harbour and it was a lovely spot set back from the main ocean the boat harbour had its own little beach with a kiddie’s playground, after Cody had his fun on the slides and climbing frames we walked on around the jetty that lead to a number of eateries and an arcade of tourist souvenir and surf shops, I managed to get a little food and an ice cream while Katie bought some chips for Cody and a smoothie for herself. We walked on and I wanted to go and see the ocean a bit more so we pulled up close to a beach and walked along the rocks a little bit. The next planned stop was a beach further down the coast called Scarborough beach! They must have inherited the name from the English town?!? We stop at the beach and I take a few pictures of the stunning coast line. Katie needed to get home to meet someone so she dropped me off back at the hostel, we said our goodbyes and gave her big thanks for the trips out, I was to fly out the next day so had to go and pack.

I got into the room and had a chat with the South African guy who was staying in the same dorm, he mentioned he had a lot of videos and podcasts on his iPod so I proceeded to show him how easy it was to transfer the music to and from any iPod, I got a lot of his movies and music so i kicked back and watched The Hangover, it made me excited for going back to Las Vegas I couldn’t wait t get there and meet my dad. I didn’t really miss home much; I only missed the people I left behind, family and friends etc.
That night I watched a film called ‘Awake’ another one I got from the SA guy, I’d never heard of the film so it was potluck about what it was about, after about 15mins I was hooked on it so decided to watch it all, the storyline was shocking, it’s a good film, a little sad at the end but I would recommend it to anyone.

Monday 26th July - Day 7 (Total days = 42)

Not much on this day! So I’ll keep it short…
Got up and finished packing my stuff, check-out was 10am but I didn’t make it down until 10:30, I apologised and made up an excuse that I thought check-out was 11am and just smiled at the receptionist! She let me off and I got to put my bags in the luggage store for the day, I booked the airport shuttle and set-off for a local café to use the free internet to go and email Jade back. She hadn’t emailed for a few days and I started to worry again!

Later that day I had a walk around Perth. When I got back to the hostel I met up with Aaron a guy from Norwich, he was going swimming so I said I’d join him, he also had transport so I didn’t have to walk the 15min journey. He bigged himself up as a good swimmer but I put him through his paces after 2km he felt sick. I was ready for more, I love swimming! After a swim we went and sat in the café and had bought a bottle of water. I kept catching one of the lifeguards looking at me, every time I looked she’d smile, I gave her a straight smile and turned away as if to say I’m not interested thanks, but she looked very interested and she made it obvious when we were walking out the swimming baths she grabbed her bag and started walking out too, she hurried herself to ensure she could get along side us. Aaron and I walked right and so did she, she must have been about two meters from me, she was gazing over probably waiting for me to say something but I blanked her and walked off, she was stunning, but I still only had thoughts for Jade. She ended up turning around and walked back towards the entrance and onto another part of the car park. Aaron asked me why I didn’t ask her out but I said I’ve already got feelings for someone, plus I was leaving Perth later that night.

My flight was at 22:30, the airport shuttle pick up was at 19:30. I got talking to a girl from Surrey, England, I had my England shirt on, she gave me a beaming smile when I got on the bus so I went and sat on the seat behind her and we started chatting away. She was going home, she felt really sad about it as well, she talked about a guy she’d met, an Australian, I don’t know what it is but it seems like everyone has their own little holiday romance, I couldn’t help thinking there was a resemblance between her situation and my own with Jade, we spoke about how hard it was to leave and she was nearly in tears, she clearly felt for this guy. After a little while we were at the airport and we said our goodbyes she was staying on the bus to go to another terminal but I was getting off at the domestic departures terminal.

I ask the lady at the desk for an aisle seat, after proceeding through custom I use the free internet terminals and check my facebook to email Jade and check my facebook. I’d left her behind and I couldn’t help thinking leaving her was a mistake at even though I promised I’d be back in December.

I get on the flight only to be sat in the middle of two people, not on an aisle. I asked the hostess if I could move but she said if I did then I would be moved back to my original seat, she said I could move when the seat belt light was turned off. I wasn’t happy, there were lots of other seats free on the plane and I was sat next to a guy who looked like he could easily fill two seats, it was cramped. Before the flight took off things got worse with the hostesses, they had cocked up the seats in front of me, it seemed they had given two people the same seat number, so they just said to the guy he could sit anywhere, I raised my voice and asked if I could move too but it fell on deaf ears, she just said no. I started to get a bit pissed off with them and said it was double standards, this guy had just got on could pick any seat he wanted but I couldn’t! I wasn’t happy but had a plan to move when the seatbelt light went out.

The plane takes off and soon enough the seatbelt light flickers off and back on again, for some reason knew this would happen, it always does on some planes so I took the opportunity to move. I get out my seat and move up towards two that are free. They were straight on me, ‘sir, please take your seat’. I replied and said ok, I’ll have this one; I walked straight past her into the free seats where I could spread out. I kick back and start watching a movie on my laptop. Out of spite I kept the hostesses busy, ordering coffee and plenty of sweets and chocolate, then more coffee, I didn’t let them rest, I was pretty childish but I got my own back for them not letting me move!

Tuesday 27th July - Day 7 (Total days = 43)

I land in Cairns around 9am, as soon as I walk out of the airport the heat hits me, its tropical weather here so humidity was fairly high and the air temperature was around 28 degrees. Bloody hot. I’d convinced myself that I wanted to go and do my diving certification and go and dive the great barrier reef so my plan was to check out the various diving companies. After getting a bus to my hostel The Northern Greenhouse, I get in my room and collapse for a few hours of much needed rest. After waking up I meet my new roommates, all German apart from a Canadian who was due to leave the next day.

I ask the Canadian guy for directions on a supermarket and head out to try and find some food, I strolled towards the marina area and settled on a cheapish restaurant on the waterfront. Cairns didn’t have a beach it was purely a marina/port where most boat trips to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) would leave. After getting some food I headed back to the hostel to use the free internet to search for some dive companies and also to try and meet some new people, I ended up chilling with one of the German roommates, Martin, he was a really friendly guy, he was travelling and working in Australia but had got stuck in the Cairns lifestyle of partying at night and pretty much doing nothing in the day! After spending a little bit of time in the common room decided to go head down to the bar for a drink and see if there was anyone else I could meet, my plan was to visit Kuranda the next day so had to find someone to do it with. It didn’t take me long to find an English guy to join in and complain about AFL (Australian Football League), it’s a strange game with a mix of rugby, Gaelic football, and normal football, it was hard to follow. After a few more beers Stuart agreed to come to Kuranda with me he had wanted to do it for sometime but was also stuck in the Cairns lifestyle of doing mostly nothing, he wasn’t even working and his Dad was paying for his trip, even though he was a typical southern fairy he would do for the trip up to Kuranda.

Wednesday 28th July - Day 8 (Total days = 44)

Stuart and I had agreed to get up and meet in the common room at 08:30. 9am came and went so I decided to knock on for him, he’d just woken up. Southerners! Full of eastern promise, Stuart was a bit of a fairy boy so I had to wait for him to have a shower and do his hair. I wasn’t too bothered but I’d been up an hour already and could have had a lie in myself! I decided to wait in reception and enquire about CDC (Cairns Dive centre), they looked to have the best dive package available at a good value, the reception at NGH would book everything for me so I left them a list of questions to ask and they would call up for me in the day, I wanted to book on the course starting immediately i.e. the next day I didn’t want to hang around, I wanted to go and dive, I’d never done it before but something told me I’d like it!
I waited in reception for a further 30mins or so until Kai came down to reception to meet me, he was Stuarts friend and roommate, Stuart had mentioned him the previous night but I’d forgot he also wanted to come. Kai was a much more down to earth guy, a Newcastle lad born and bred meant us northerners could laugh at the southern fairy boy, it was only lighthearted friendly banter but sometime Stuart took it to heart, it was funny to watch his face change when we cracked the southern jokes!

The pick-up bus to Kuranda arrives, I was just nodding off as we arrived after the 15min journey but we had to get off and onto the cable car that would take us over the rainforest to Kuranda.

Kuranda it is an old mining town a very small conurbation that lies north west of Cairns; they are separated by a large rainforest, there is a number of ways to get there but the most popular seems to be getting a cable car there and a train back. The cable car runs over the top canopies of the rainforest and the ‘scenic’ railway runs pretty much straight through it dodging through the various valleys heading south back to cairns.

We get through the small cue and into the cable car, they are designed for 6 people but Stu, Kai and me take one for ourselves, they didn’t mind as it wasn’t very busy. Before arriving at Kuranda the cable car stops off at two different stations that allows people to get out and look around the different wildlife and vegetation of the rainforest, I wasn’t majorly impressed with it but it was good all the same, I was just looking for something dangerous like a snake or a spider to take a picture of, but I didn’t find anything! After visiting the two stations we hop back onto Kuranda and hope to find some lunch there. After getting off the cable car there was a short walk up to Kuranda village. It was basically a tourist trap, full of useless souvenir shops and eateries. We stopped for some food at a café and carried onwards to the various waking trails. We had about an hour before the train would depart so we decided on taking the long walk through the rainforest and through a creek that led into the Daintree River. After the walk I was pretty parched so we got some fluids and went to sit on the train.

The journey back on the train was slightly uncomfortable but fascinating, it was like a museum on wheels the train was purposefully built to take passengers back down the valley towards Cairns while explain the story of how the railway was built and stopping at the various beauty spots along the way.

After falling asleep for the final part of the journey I wake up in Cairns central station and we start the short walk back to the hostel, after checking out a couple of Indian places to eat we get back to the hostel and agree to meet up and have a drink in the bar for happy hour. After booking the diving course I had a shower and a 20min power nap and was ready to go, the course consisted of 2 days in a classroom then liveaboard a boat for 3days 2nights, the course would make me a certified Open Water Diver allowing me to dive to a depth of 18meters, there was an option to take the advanced course but I wasn’t sure in taking that yet, the advanced course would allow me to dive deeper (30 meters) and also learn other new skills but I would have to see if I could actually dive first!

After a few drinks in the bar we head to the Indian place we’d settled to go in. It was probably the worst Indian meal I’d ever had, I could of done better myself, it wasn’t cheap either so after paying we made a quick exit and back to the hostel for another couple of beers. I got chatting with the barman about diving etc and he mentioned another good place to go was further down the coast called the SS Yongola, a shipwreck that sunk nearly 100years earlier it was classed as one of the Top 10 dive sites in Australia I was interested in doing it so kept it in mind, it was a 28meter dive so taking the advanced course was becoming more of a reality. I went to bed early, looking forward to my diving course the next day.

Thursday 29th July - Day 9 (Total days = 45)

Pick up was at 7:10am so I was up for 6:00am, i couldn’t sleep that well for the excitement of learning to dive and I was also dubious about getting back into a classroom, it felt strange that I was here on holiday but I had two days to spend in a classroom, I’d not been in a classroom for a good 2 years after doing the first year of my Computing Information Systems BSc I decided not to take up the 2nd year due to work restrictions and travelling to Coningsby, Lincolnshire nearly every week!
I’m picked up at 07:05 by the CDC minibus, there were already two people in the bus, Kamylia from Bulgaria and Riikka from Finland, the driver said it would just be the three of us on the course so I was glad we would be getting good attention from the instructor. I assumed the driver would be the instructor but he wasn’t, he was just a driver, he took us back to the main CDC shop where we would meet Ben, our instructor for the next 5 days. Ben had become a dive master at just 14years of age, he was fortunate to get an opportunity to work on a boat as a TDC specialist (Technical Dive Control) and went onto become dive master and then instructor from there. Ben was only a small guy with a baby face but I would put him in his early thirties.
After filing out numerous bits of paperwork and getting our photo taken for our Open Water Certification Cards. After that it was onto the classroom, it wasn’t at the actual main dive shop, but only a short journey to the CDC classroom and training pool.

We all jump out of the van and straight into the classroom, it wasnt as bad as I thought, as most of the teaching was done via video and by 10am we were in the pool. There was a small pool test of having to swim 200meters non-stop and treading water for 10minutes, it was a doddle for Riikka and me but Kamylia wasn’t a strong swimmer but still managed it. After this we jumped out the pool and where Ben proceeded to teach us all about the necessary dive equipment, I was pretty straight forward, and soon after we could all set up our own equipment, perform buddy checks for each other and it wasn’t long before I was breathing under water! We practiced a series of skills that would later have to be performed at depth in the ocean; they ranged from having to take your mask off underwater to removing your equipment on the surface and practicing air sharing with your buddy. Ben paired Riikka and me up as buddies for the week which I was happy about as she seemed a very confident and able person, whereas Kamylia had struggled with a few of the skills Riikka and I managed everything was ease.

After a bit more time in the pool it was time to pack up and get back into the classroom, after a short lecture from Ben about the effects of diving on the body, basically diving effects the body in a number of ways, the deeper you go the more the effects come on due to the additional pressure of a deeper dive it also effects the amount of nitrogen your body absorbs which can be hazardous to health, to understand the effects there is a tabular system designed by the US navy that can be easily used to figure out the depth limits and time of each dive, I won’t go into any more detail here but it was easy to understand!

3:30 came around so quickly, and it was time to pack up and finish for the day, time flies when you’re having fun, the day had flown by. We had been given some homework to get do which consisted of a set of questions from the dive manual we had been given at the start of the day.
After getting back to the hostel I was pleased with the first day and found diving really easy, I understood it would be a different kettle of fish in the ocean but I felt prepared for it.

That night I hooked up with Stu and Kai again and we decided to cook our own curry, after a quick visit to the local Woolworths supermarket we had our ingredients for the curry, the spices would be far too expensive to buy ourselves so we opted for a pre-mixed jar of curry sauce, I’d not used a sauce jar for years I have all the spices at home and will always cook my own curries but due to the cost saving involved I was forced to cook with the pre-mix sauce! It turned out pretty well and we even had Naans and poppadoms for a side, it was 100 times better than the curry we had the night before for only a fraction of the price, it cost us less than $5 per person, compared to the $20+ the previous evening!
After the curry we made it in time for happy hour in the hostel bar where I spent the night doing my homework, drinking and watching United take apart the MLS (Major League Soccer) Allstars, American football (or soccer!) is not a patch on the English premier league, it was good to watch some football for a change as the last game I had watched was the World Cup Final, watching another premiership team play made me nervous but excited for the upcoming fixtures of Blackpool, they would be travelling to Wigan for the opening game of the season! I was unhappy that I would miss it, but couldn’t miss my opportunity to travel the world; I would have to hope and pray of watching it on Australian TV…

Friday 30th July - Day 10 (Total days = 46)

Final day in the classroom, I couldn’t wait to get out into the Ocean, the second day consisted much the same as the first, videos and work in the pool, only after this we had an exam, it was un-failable and I rushed through it made a few mistakes but still managed 92%!,(MISSING) even if you do fail it then all that needs to be done is go through the questions with the instructor and he will still pass you, it was that simple. The day ended a little later around 4pm, this time the bus took us back to the main CDC shop. After speaking to Ben earlier in the day he had urged me to do my advanced course, which would mean an extra night and day on the boat, I also purchased my own mask and snorkel as there was no guarantee that the stock equipment on the boat would be suitable plus I wanted to go and dive the Yongola and there was another dive site in Hawaii that interested me so I would make good use of the purchase. I made the short walk back to the hostel and met up again with Stu and Kai, they were really excited that they just had 4 girls move into their 6 bed dorm so had arranged to go out with them that night, I wasn’t on for it at first as my pick up was due at 6:30am so I needed some sleep plus I’d need to pack my bag to move out of the hostel for the 3nights/4days that I would be away. Anyhow, after a couple of drinks from the bar I decided to come out with them as they were going to a place that did $5 pizzas!

Earlier in the week I’d ordered an underwater camera to hire for my journey out to the Great Barrier Reef, I waited around for a while and two guys eventually turned up to show me how to use the camera and what equipment was involved, it came in a big orange pelican case that looked quite professional. My goal was to try and get a picture of a shark, I wasn’t bothered about anything else, I just wanted to see a shark!

After a quick change we headed down to meet the girls that were staying in Stu and Kais room, we each ordered a pizza and a beer and went to chat with the girls, a couple were from New Zealand and the other two were from England and Scotland. After our pizzas, we headed to another bar nearer the hostel, I got talking to the English girl called Becky, she was really nice and I found it easy to talk to her, she spoke about a guy she’d met in New Zealand and wanted to go back and see him and I also spoke to her about Jade, and my worries of not seeing her again, she understood my situation so we got on really well with each other. After a quick drink I decided to head back to the hostel and retire for the night, I exchanged contact details with Becky and we agreed we could possibly meet further down the coast as she was taking the same route as me along the East coast of Australia.

Saturday 31st July - Day 11 (Total days = 47)

I slept well after the previous nights beers and woke up like a shot when my alarm went off, I had quite a bit of packing to do it was still dark, I didn’t want to switch the light on out of courtesy to the other people in the dorm so I decided to pack my gear using the small amount of light coming from the bathroom, it wasn’t easy but I still managed it none the less.

Got picked up around 07:30 and was taken straight to the main dive shop, it was already getting a little busy with all the people rendezvousing to go to the liveaboard, I’d packed and brought my big bag with me but couldn’t take it on the boat so had to pay to leave it stored at the main dive shop, Ben sorted me out though, he got the key for the room and I chucked my bag in without paying! After being asked to wait outside for the bus I got talking to a French girl called Emilie, she seemed a little crazy at first but I put it down to her excitement, she had booked the trip for a night to come and snorkel the Great Barrier Reef apparently the Greyhound bus service does Kilometer passes, and if you don’t use all the kilometers for your trip you can exchange it for trips so she was there for free (kind of!).
The bus soon arrived and I started to get a little nervous, not about the diving but more about what the accommodation would be like and more importantly would the food be any good, this was because I’d been told to look out for the inferior companies that crowd the boats and serve poor quality food? Plus there was the added worry about sea sickness, I’d been warned most of the week about how rough the journey would be but I’d never really thought about it until now, I’d never had sea sickness before but this could be the first? We get off the bus, as there were two buses so approx. 16 people and were lead down by Ben, we get to the boat (The Sunkist) and have to take our shoes off and jump aboard, there were quite a lot of people on board and it was pretty crowded, I worried about what the other boat was going to be like with all these people on but I soon found out that most were just on a day trip so it wouldn’t be so bad!
2 hours later and we arrive at the mooring point of the Kangaroo Explorer, my home for the next 3 nights, it was a very large boat with 3 floors, I didn’t feel sick in the slightest, Ben asked if we were ok but I just said I was more hungry than sick, ‘Dinners soon’ he replied! We entered the boat via the stern and got told to await further instructions on the sun deck which is at the top of the boat, after climbing a couple of flights of stairs we get to the top deck, which was quite spacious and full seats, this was basically the outside ‘chill out’ area, what followed was a small tour of the boat by Ben where I found out where my room was, it was only small but still a very nice 4 berth room with separate shower next was the long awaited lunch! The saloon or dining area was on the bottom floor of the boat, just a small entrance separated this from the main dive preparation area, it was only a small room but seated around 20 people, and there was a small bar adjacent to the buffet area. Only thing to do next was tuck in, there was plenty of choice and each mealtime was different but basic lunch consisted of soup followed by pasta bake with a selection of cold meats and plenty of fresh salad! All my worries had been alleviated I was now looking forward to my first open water dive on the Great Barrier Reef!

The daily schedule aboard the boat is as follows:

• 5:30am Wake up time
  
• 6:00am O/W (Open Water) Course first dive
  
• 6:10am Advanced course dive
  
• 6:10am-6:20am Dive brief for certified divers
  
• 7:00am Breakfast
  
• 8:00am O/W Course dive
  
• 8:10am Advanced course dive
  
• 8:10am-8:20am Dive brief for certified divers and snorkelers
  
• 9:15am KE Moves to new dive site
  
• 10:30am Dive brief for 11:00am dive
  
• 10:30am-11:00am Sunkist arrives with new passengers (This is where I joined the first day!)
  
• 11:00am - Dive and snorkel for current passengers and those leaving for Cairns
  
• 11:30am Lunch for new arrivals
  
• 12noon New O/W Water dive brief
  
• 12:05pm Lunch for those returning to Cairns and current passengers
  
• 1:00pm New O/W Course Dive
  
• 1:30pm New arrival certified dive and snorkel
  
• 2:30pm-3:00pm Sunkist takes passenger back to Cairns
  
• 2:30pm-3:00pm KE moves to new dive site
  
• 3:30pm-4:00pm O/W Course Dive
  
• 3:30pm-4:00pm Dive brief for certified divers and snorkelers
  
• 6:00pm Dinner time
  
• 6:45pm Dive brief for O/W Course
  
• 6:45pm Night Dive brief on the dive deck
  
• 7:15pm Night dive
  
• 8:30pm Drinks in the saloon!
  

As soon as we’d eaten we were to be getting into the water at the 1pm scheduled dive, this wasn’t to be my first dive, it was only a snorkel, I was slightly disappointed, I wanted to get straight in there but we had to prove that we were sea worth before going to dive, the snorkel was fairly easy and Ben asked us to prove that we could dive down and touch a piece of coral, it was a little hard with the buoyancy of a wetsuit but I just about managed it, there was an art to holding your breath properly, and I needed more practice but this first dive was only to check we could actually perform the skill, I was over pleased that I’d purchased my own mask and snorkel, it made it a lot easier to clear the water out of the mouthpiece as the snorkel came with a one way valve at the bottom near the mouth piece!

We were out of the water within 15minutes and then it would be time for my first dive! We gear up, and because of my anxiety to get into the water I’d forgotten to turn my air supply on! This was discovered by my buddy, Riikka after doing the 3point ‘ABC’ Air, Buoyancy, and Clips check.

It was soon time to get into the water, and after a last check by Ben to make sure we were all ok, we jumped into the Ocean. The dive deck was situated at the back of the deck, with around 30+ stations for divers to gear up, proceeding towards the rear of the boat there was lower deck where divers and snorkelers would enter the water, before proceeding onto the lower deck each diver must declare the amount of air they have in the tanks so the dive master can check them off the list prior to entry into the deep blue!

We’re all in the water and Ben gives us the thumbs down signal to lower into the depths, the first dive was just to get us out there, no specialty skills were to be performed as such. While lowering into the depths I had a little problem with clearing my ears, there are a number of ways to do this like swallowing or holding your nose and blowing out, I soon got them clear by ensuring that my ears were full of water and performing the latter of blowing out while holding my nose, for a minute I didn’t think the squeeze on my ears would go. The dive was amazing, I immediately loved it, we went down to a depth of nearly 12meters, Ben took us around a few sunken coral islands or rocks aka bommies, I couldn’t identify any of the fish but there were literally hundreds of separate multi-colored shoals. My air was getting low and I was down to half a tank approximately 100bar, the golden rule is to always turn back at 100bat so I signaled to Ben and we headed back to the boat for a decompression (deco) stop. Performing a deco is mandatory after each dive, due to the pressure of diving and breathing in a mix of nitrogen and oxygen it is necessary to allow the body to acclamatise back to its normal (Add info on deco stops). The deco stop is performed for 3 mins at a depth of 5meters, though when diving deeper it is necessary to perfrom a deco stop sometimes at 15meters for 5mins, this first dive was called a ‘tables dive’ i.e. we didn’t use the dive computers e ven though we had them attached to our tanks, the tables dive is a mandatory skill for an open water diver to perform before moving onto a computer dive, using the computers is far easier as it is constantly calculating what the deco stop time should be and what depth it is to be performed at.

We’re soon out of the water and I already couldn’t wait to get back in! The next dive was to be at 4pm and all we had to do now was chill out on the sun deck while the KE moved to another location. I should of used this time to write my blog but I wanted to go and watch the crew fish. The crew only fish when the boat moves, they’d cast out a lure and let it trail behind the boat while it is moving to another location, their first catch brought in a 10lb Tuna fish, but this would be the only one before arriving at the next location Briggs Reef Which was nicknamed ‘The fishbowl’. This was due to the layout of the reef, it consisted of a number of that lay in the shape of a circle, inside the circle of bommies was basically a mass of fish hence the name ‘The fishbowl’!

The second dive was closing in, and it wasn’t long before I had my wet-suit on and was ready to gear up, our group was the only O/W group on the boat so we were to be first in. For this dive Ben had given me a much bigger tank to ensure my air would last longer, due to me being a beginner it was natural that air consumption would be over average, plus with my size I naturally need more oxygen just to stay alive! The second dive was better than the first, I spotted my first shark a White Tip Reef shark, it was only around 1 meter long but still, it was what I wanted to see more than any other marine animal, theres a stigma about sharks being dangerous but most of the time the sharks we come across are more scared of us than we are of them! Other species such as the anemone fish (Nemo), clown fish (or Dory - for those that have watched finding Nemo), Christmas tree worm, sea cucumbers (looks like giant poo), a giant 70-80 year old clam. After swimming around a few bommies we performed probably the hardest of theunderwater skills, having to remove your mask at 10meters and replace it back upon your head, it wasn’t a problem for any of us but apparently this is where some people can fail, they panic and begin to surface, for the fear of taking water in through the nose. After a little trouble clearing my mask I managed to execute the skill and we started to head back along the top ‘The wall’, the wall was basically a drop off from the reef and it drops to a depth of around 30meters, when we reached the boat, the 4 of us started to ascend to perform our safety stop at 5meters, I was at the rear of the group, Ben and Riikka in the middle and Kamylia at the front, suddenly Bens regulator started blowing with air, an explosion of bubbles ascended around his head and immediately I thought something could be wrong or it could have been a test. There was something wrong, Bens BCD (Buoyancy control device) inflator pipe had burst and he was losing air, Riikka was right next to him so without notice he grabbed a hold of her and took her back up regulator, disaster averted! Riikka and Ben performed a shared air ascent (a skill we’d already learnt) and we all surfaced. Ben just laughed about it when we got out, Riikka boasted about saving his life and we all had a good giggle about it, it wasn’t that much of problem at a depth of 5 meters but it could have been more a problem at depth! Dive number two completed and that was it for the first day, all I had to look forward to would be dinner and then the next day’s diving! That night we had a brief from Adam the boats videographer from Leeds, on our second dive the following day he would be filming us underwater receiving our certification cards, he gave us a message board each and told us we should write something on them, this could either be a message for people back home or something quirky and funny! The message to people back home was relevant because there was an option of having the video sent back home but after a lot of deliberation between Riikka, Kamylia and me we came to the conclusion we should write something funny. During the past few days of the course we’d been joking that we wanted to spot a shark fighting with a croc and a whale so we put something along those lines on the message boards and we were set on to be certified! (Note: I have sent the DVD home so those of you who wish to watch it, please get in touch)

Sunday 1st August - Day 12 (Total days = 48)

Certification day! I’m first up, its 5:30am and I’m raring to go the first dive is at 6:00am, I bru up and await the rest of the divers and crew to surface, I finish my brew and begin to get my wet-suit on, I got my camera ready for the sunrise but it was far to cloudy to see anything but a burnt horizon, I was soon joined my Kamylia and Riikka and soon Adam came down with the camera and started to ask us questions about being ready, I cant remember what I replied but I was sure to say I was more than ready! There was one more dive to do before we were to be certified, Adam would film us on the second dive at 8:00am but this first dive would require us to dive to a depth of 18meters! If we were to dive any deeper than 18m then there would be a fine. A spoon of vegemite (similar to marmite) per 0.1 of a meter, we’d agreed with Ben that those who got to 18m dead would make him eat a spoon of vegemite so we were in competition to get to 18m dead!
We geared up and as soon as there was enough light we were in the water, the first people of the day, it was fairly cold, around 22 deg Celsius compared to the previous day of 25 deg Celsius.
We were soon down in the depths and swimming along the top of the wall, there were certain parts where the top of the wall would drop deeper and it was soon enough that I realsied we were at 17.5m. During the previous dives where we had to perform skills, Ben would always signal us to ensure we knew what we were doing, on this occasion he did nothing he was trying to catch us out so we would get the vegemite fine. I signaled Kamylia and Riikka of our depth and we carefully ascended to 18m. I got to 18m dead, perfect I thought to myself, I just got to hope that the others have done the same! I dropped my regulator/dive computer by my side and started to ascend above 18m. When I next looked down at my computer the reading said max depth: 18.1m, ‘shit’ I thought to myself, it must of registered the extra 0.1 when I dropped it to my side, I’m getting a vegemite fine!

We soon surfaced after 25mins and it turned out that both Riikka and Kamylia had hit 18m dead, I had to own up to 18.1m but I was pleased that the others had got Ben to have two spoons of vegemite!

We get out of the water and soon after breakfast Adam comes in, camera in one hand, vegemite in the other. I wasn’t looking forward to this, my first thoughts were that vegemite would taste a little like marmite, oh how wrong I was, it was disgusting, very salty and thick, I gipped a little as it went down my throat and immediately felt like throwing up, I felt even more sorry for Ben, he got double my portion!

After a couple more cups of tea it was nearing 8:00am and time to get suited up again, our certification dive! Again I was massively excited because after this dive I would be certified and allowed to go out without an instructor and do pretty much anything we liked! After gearing up, a quick brief from Ben and acquiring our message boards it was time to enter the water. For the camera, Ben proceeded in showing us a barrel roll into the water (James Bond style!), I followed and after me the two girls. All we had to do was log this last dive and we were certified, all skills had been completed so we swum to a clearing in the middle of the fishbowl. The plan was to be presented with our certification cards underwater, take our masks off, put on some sunglasses and pretend to swig on a beer in celebration of becoming certified! It was good fun apart from I forgot to take the sunglasses off my face before putting my mask back on so it was all caught on camera! After this, we were certified! I already couldn’t wait to get back in the water with the freedom of doing whatever I wanted! After swimming around a little more and being filmed spotting different sorts of wildlife like Nemo etc we returned to the boat to log our dives and celebrate our certification! Our next dive wasn’t to be until 4pm so I could chill out for the rest of the day.

The KE moved to a new site that we’d not yet been to, the place was called ‘Manta Ray Bay’ for obvious reasons! Unfortunately it wasn’t the time of the year for Manta Rays. Riikka and I were looking forward to going out for our first certified dive but we were told we would have to do the 4pm dive as we would also be doing the night dive. We were told we could go and snorkel though so we both geared up with just a wetsuit and snorkel and jumped in the water, I took the camera I’d hired with me and got a few good snaps, it was hard to dive down with a camera and thick wet-suit on so taking the pictures was difficult! After a good 20min snorkel we’d had enough and returned to the boat, where I spent the rest of my afternoon snoozing in the sun listening to music.

By the time 4pm came around Riikka and I were already to get into the water, I gave my camera to Riikka and asked her to get some shots of me in the depths, we navigated our way around the entire fishbowl and back towards the boat to complete our first OW solo dive! That evening we were to be going on the night dive, it would also be a part of my Advanced OW training. After sitting down to dinner I spoke with the new arrivals on the boat, one guy called Mike, an American who lived in Singapore and an English couple Nick and Jeanette. I recognized Jeanette’s immediately and asked if she came fromThe Wirral she looked at me funny and said, ‘yes’ how did you know that. It was a bit of a guess but the weak scouse accent gave it away! They both currently live in Longridge Preston though and it was strange to meet someone so close from home. After a bit more conversation they started to explain how and why they were travelling and it turned out Nick (Nick Hill - some of you BAE people may know him?) used to work at BAE Systems! Not only at Warton but it turned out we used to work in the same building. Small World!!! After another good dinner and a good chat with Mike, Nick and Jeanette we geared up as the sun set under the horizon and prepped for the night dive.
The dive master handed us all a torch and we were soon in the water. Riikka wasn’t taking the advanced course so I my buddy would be Mike. Ben warned us of ‘green eyes’, he said that if you spot two green eyes then its most likely a shark, I couldn’t wait to spot some more sharks. After the initial descent into the black water we stumbled across a couple of sleeping turtles and soon enough the green eyes came into view! We navigated around a few bommies and performed a few skills for the advanced course. On our way back to the boat one of the skills required us to switch our torches off and make out way back to the boat. During this time more and more green eyes appeared and Ben switched his torch on to discover 3 fairly large sharks swimming close to us. As soon as they see the torchlight’s they would swim off. After the initial 3 sharks we were off back towards the boat torches off. The lights from the boat allowed me to spot a black silhouette swimming directly towards me, at first I thought it was a bommies but it was getting bigger and bigger, I couldn’t resist but turn my torch on and I immediately spotted a lonely shark swimming straight towards me, as soon as my torch light shone on him he shot off like a bullet! After this we spotted Barry the barracuda who is a resident of the fishbowl on night dives! We soon surfaced and my first night dive was complete, we spotted 3 turtles and several sharks! Ben later confessed that was his best night dive in years, I enjoyed it so much I didn’t know what was better, diving in the day or the night!

Monday 2nd August - Day 13 (Total days = 49)

Another advanced dive day! We dived at the later time of 8am so we had a good lie in ate breakfast and geared up. This would be our deep dive, 30meteres of depth and having to write our name backwards on a slate. The reason for this is to prove that you can handle the additional depth pressure, due to the extra pressure the nitrogen expands which can cause narcosis (the feeling of being drunk). After getting into the water we descend straight down the wall, on the way down we spotted a medium sized octopus, it scattered as soon as it saw us. We soon hit the bottom of the wall. The colours change at depth and everything became a murky bluey colour the red pigment in all objects changes and becomes a lot harder to see. After writing our names backwards Ben shows us the forces of pressure by cracking an egg open, the whole egg yolk and white stayed the same shape, it was possible to pass it around one another without it breaking open. After the egg trick we started to ascend, this time performing an extra safety stop at 15meters, by this time I was low on air so Ben offered me his back-up regulator to ensure I wouldn’t run out while performing the second safety stop. We surfaced after a very short dive; due to the depth air is used a lot quicker!

The next advanced dive involved navigation and use of a compass under water, with my buddy Mike we were tasked to swim in a 50m square near the bow of the boat, it was an easy task to perform using a compass so after we’d finished we were left to go and roam the sights, I’d spotted a lonely turtle while performing the task so we tried to find that again, we searched for a few minutes but couldn’t find it, we didn’t really know the area too well so stuck around the boat until it was time to surface.

After completing the navigation dive we only had two more skills left to complete, this being a boat drop and computer dive. The boat drop would require us to drop off the smaller sized boat and the computer dive would be pretty much a given as we’d been using them all the time.
Riikka and Ben were leaving the boat to go back to shore, Ben was to have the following day off before he started a new course and Riikka wasn’t doing the advanced course so it was the end of her trip, after saying my goodbyes we’d planned to meet for drinks the following night at a place in Cairns. The 16:00 dive would be our boat drop; there were 3 of us in the boat, Mike, Thomas and myself. Thomas was a German Professor who lectured physics at Nottingham university, he wasn’t a confident diver and looked a little worried about the boat drop as we would be going far out from the KE, about 150meters and having to navigate our way back. We all jumped in the dingy with our gear on, it was quite difficult as there was a bit of swell on the water, another dive master, Ned took us out to a white buoy where he stopped to explain what the method was to drop from the boat, the method was to sit on the edge of the dingy lift your legs as far up as possible and let go, it was a backwards roll into the water. We all had to drop at the same time, if we didn’t do that there would be a risk of dropping onto another person and injuring them, after we’d all checked our equipment it was time to get the regulators in the mouth and drop off, it was a lot easier than I thought and we were soon descending into the depths. To find the way back we had to follow the wall back towards the KE and pitch a right at the correct time, neither Mike nor Thomas knew the area as well as I did because I’d done most of my open water dives here I was elected to lead and get us back to the boat. After a little trouble with Thomas equalizing his ears we were in good stead, it about 10 mins to get back to the boat, where we stayed taking pictures of each other and the surrounding shoals of fish. I signaled to the others my air was low so I was going to surface at the boat and let them two carry on the dive as they still had some spare air. I met up with Ned on the dive deck and he seemed impressed we’d got back so quick; he said that most people get lost on the way back so I was chuffed with myself that I could manage it. I took all my wet gear off and started to get warm, the coldest place was inside the boat, due to the air conditioning, the warmest place was up on the sun deck, even though the weather was overcast and drops of rain were appearing, there was a constant breeze of warm air swirling around the boat.

The next dive, the night dive was to be classed as our computer dive, it meant nothing, as I mentioned earlier the computers are used at all time to track depth, dive time, decompression time and other things like water temperature and maximum depths of previous dives. Mike and I geared up checked our torches out and jumped in to the dark water. The plan was to get to the wall, this was where all the sharks were, both of us were ambitious to see as many as we could! First we swam the same route as the previous nights dive, in search of the sleeping turtles, we spotted a couple and carried on towards the wall, it wasn’t long before we had a number of different green eyes in the distance, with a shine of the torch light we uncovered a number of sharks looking curious as to our presence. It only took a glimpse of the torch to scare them off. We swam along the wall a little more and took a right in towards the boat, the next 20mins we were followed some giant red brasse, clever fish really, they would wait until our torch light revealed another fish and they would dart towards it, all of the smaller fish seemed a lot quicker though and all of them got away. After spotting the barracuda again we headed back towards the back of the boat and surfaced after a 35min dive. After getting dry and warming up we had a couple of beers and retired to bed.

Tuesday 3rd August - Day 14 (Total days = 50)

My ears hadn’t cleared up in two days, usually sleeping would sort them out but not this time, I felt a constant blockage in both ears, it wasn’t a problem just annoying and once in the water they seemed fine. This morning we had to check-out of our rooms, square up any bar bills and leave our stuff on the sun-deck. I was soon informed by mike that he was not to be doing the dive due to some pain in his ears. I was buddyless! So asked Brendon aka ‘Potter’ (he looked like harry potter) the trip director if there were any other buddies going out, he told me to speak to Sarah, another dive master who had joined the boat the previous day, Sarah was going out with another newbie on the boat, he was certified and had all his own gear but hadn’t dived for a while, had all the gear but no idea! We all geared up and performed the necessary checks before jumping into the cold water. We headed straight out and down the wall to a depth of 28meters I found this strange as this guy wasn’t advanced there were regulations for open water divers to keep to a depth of 18m. We started our ascent from the wall and kept around the boat while I took some pictures of some coral. We ascended a short while after and Sarah asked my depth. ‘28meters I replied’. She looked at me with a smile and asked kindly if I’d tell them we’d only been to a depth of 18meters! I didn’t have a problem with it, when I got out of the water I announced a depth of 17.8m and took my kit off. No questions asked. It would soon be breakfast so I tucked into some pancakes and syrup and logged my dives from the previous day using the information on the sheet that was pinned on the wall of the canteen area.

It was soon time to gear up for the 8am dive, where this time I would be joined by both Mike and Nick, Jeanette didn’t want to come with us as she was feeling a little too tired. Nick had hired his own camera and before we left Mike said if I got low on air I was to use his other regulator so we could have a longer dive. The mission was to take pictures, we descend below the stern of the boat and headed forward towards the bow where most of the nice coral was, after taking a few pictures I signaled to Mike to use his air while we waited for Nick to take some pictures of the surrounding coral. We swim on a little further and along came a shark, perfect timing to get his picture taken. He was swimming directly towards me, calmy I snapped away where at the last second when he was about half a meter away he took a left and ascended gracefully to avoid a large coral rock, this was perfect opportunity to take a picture as the outline of the shark was distinct and I could also capture some other features of the coral on the bottom of the picture, it was perfect. Throughout all of the trip my ambition was to get some good pictures of a shark, on my second to last dive I’d done just that, We soon surfaced and I had a quick look at my pictures, they looked really good but I couldn’t really tell without taking the memory card out of the camera, something I didn’t want to do until I’d finished diving as the camera was sealed and tie wrapped by the hire company, if I was to undo this seal and the camera leaked it would be my fault so I waited until after my next dive until I viewed the pictures.
After this dive the boat moved toward a different dive site, back to Manta Ray bay, the place where Riikka and I had previously only snorkeled. This dive would be my final one on the great barrier reef, I was getting tired myself, it was only the buzz keeping me going, so after gearing up Mike and I would be on our own this time, Nick would be joined by Jeanette. Mike and I planned to circle one of the clover leafs. We’d heard that in the middle of the cloverleaf there was a swim through to get to the other side. After descending to the ocean floor it was clear there was a strong current, and it took us a while to swim against it to the bow of the boat. Apart from the snorkelers we would be the first divers in the water. Again I had my camera with me, as soon as we hit the back of the boat, even though the visibility was low I spotted an even bigger shark than the earlier one, took another great picture until it swam off. I spotted it again after swimming a little bit more around the cloverleaf but it was too quick for me to take another picture. I was so pleased, I had a better picture than the previous one and it was my last dive, lucky really! After deciding not to go through the swim through, it seemed a very tight squeeze for some big guys like Mike and me. We decided to go back the way we came where we bumped into Nick and Jeanette, we decided to pair up with one another taking pictures of each other until unfortunately it was time to ascend, and before I knew that was it my diving adventures on the great barrier reef would be over!

After lunch it was time to get back on the Sunkist for a two hour journey back to Cairns. It was the longest two hours of my life, I didn’t really feel sick but had to endure most other people spewing up into sick bags for most part of the journey! After speaking to a French guy for a little while we soon hit dry land. The French guy had been working on the boat with his girlfriend for 7 days, all he had to do was pot-wash and clean rooms and he could do 3 dives a day for free it seemed like a good deal. I said my goodbyes to him and I headed for the Northern greenhouse, Mike was to join me as he also needed accommodation for the night. After checking in, having a shower, checking my emails we both had a well deserved rest. That night the plan was to go and meet up with Ben and some of the others from the boat. They had reserved a table at a local bar/nightclub called the Woolshed. I’d agreed to meet up with Riikka and give her the pictures I had gotten from the diving, Mike and I headed for Riikkas hostel, Nomads, a short walk away from the northern greenhouse. After meeting up with Riikka, we headed for a local bar, the hostel Riikka stayed at provided free nightly basic meals at the bar we were headed, when we got in there we got a drink and all of us said we were staying at Nomads so after eating our free meals Riikka and I exchanged pictures, she was pleased with all of them and there was a great one of her scratching a turtles back.

It was soon time to meet a the Woolshed, Riikka had to go and get changed so Mike and I decided to have a look around the oriental night markets while we waited for her. There were numerous eateries dotted around the rear of the market and centrally it seemed like there were hundreds of little shops selling what looked like tourist souvenirs, a large percentage of the building was also took up by massage parlours (not the sleazy type!), most of them contained about 5 to 6 massage tables, Mike lived in Singapore znd was used to a daily massage so he jumped at the chance of a Thai style massage. $15 for 45mins was bliss, it was one of the best massages I’d had, second only to the ones I’d had in Thailand and it was well deserved after 4 days of diving!
Soon after this we met up with Riikka and headed for the woolshed, we met up with Ben and a few other people including the Professor Thomas from Nottingham! The bar laid on free pizza and jugs of beer. I was sat with Riikka most of the night she seemed very full on with me, she looked very pretty, on the dive boat she looked a little rough but after a good clean up she scrubbed up well! She was being flirtatious, but I didn’t really want to know, plus she had a boyfriend so it made it a little worse that she was trying to cheat on him! I avoided her for the rest of the night, she was a really nice girl but I didn’t condone her cheating on her boyfriend especially after she had spent the rest of the night with Adam, it got to about 2am and I’d had enough it was time to leave, I said my goodbyes to everyone and headed home to bed.

Wednesday 4th August - Day 15 (Total days = 51)

Check-out time was 10am, I had all my stuff to pack up and I also had to try and sort out getting to my next destination. My plan was to meet up with Becky at Mission beach so I had to sort out getting a greyhound bus ticket. After getting up early I’d spoken to the guy who was staying in the bed above me, I asked him where he was off to, ‘going on a diving course’ he replied. ‘Oh right, who with’ I asked, ‘his reply was ‘CDC!’. I started laughing and continued to explain to him that I’d just been on the boat for the past 4 days, I already knew his instructor would be Ben-Ra-Ra so I told him to say hi for me and off he went, lucky guy!

After packing my stuff up I head down to reception and check-out, leaving my big bag in the bag-check. After checking the bus timetable there would be a bus I could catch at 1:30pm to Mission beach, I’d heard that tickets are cheaper at the local travel office called Peter Pans so I head down there and book my bus ticket and the Yongola Dive package, two night accommodation and two dives for $250 dollars it would work out cheaper than booking direct with the Yongola Dive company.

After walking back to the hostel I wasn’t feeling great, my ears still hadn’t fully cleared and my balance was shot. It felt like I was constantly on a rocking boat, it was making me feel sick! I decided to have a lie down before catching the bus so settled in the NGH TV room for a little while and watched some old episodes of One foot in the grave - classic!

It was soon 1pm and time to go and catch the bus, my first bus journey in Australia; bus travel is probably the most popular choice of travel for most visitors alike. The bus was quiet, I got two full seats to myself, stretched out and plugged into the ipod! I woke up about two hours later and gazed out of the window for the rest of the journey, most of the Queensland state is made up of dense greenery, the tropical climate aids the growth of anything green! I soon arrive at mission beach, the bus stop is a little out of town, my destination was a place called Scottys, Becky was also staying here and she’d been kind to reserve me a room. The hostel laid on a mini-bus to get to/from the greyhound bus stop, it was less than a 10min drive to the hostel or a half hour walk! I jumped on the bus¬¬¬ and was soon at the hostel, the rooms were small but the lounge area was very nice, an open patch of grass and a small swimming pool, I’d only have one night here before we’d move onto Magnetic island. I meet up with Becky and we decide to go over to a local bar who had a pizza and beer deal on, for $10 you get a pizza and a pint of beer, not bad really. After catching up with Becky we made plans to travel to Townsville the following day and then get straight over to Magnetic Island. In her time at Mission Becky had befriended another English girl called Puja, it turned out that both the girls had been to the same school and lived fairly close to each other in London. I’d finished my pizza and we decided to go for a walk on Mission beach, we went looking for coconuts but could only find some moldy old ones. It was getting dark and it wasn’t wise to stay on the beach at night due to the danger of saltwater crocs! We headed back to the hostel, Becky cooked with Puja and I decided to start updating this blog, I didn’t get very far! I got chatting with a couple of German guys who were also staying in my dorm, we made plans to go over to the bar and play cards with Becky and Puja. We spent the rest of the night playing shithead and drinking jugs of beer, the bar shut very early, about 10:30pm so I decided to retire to bed as we had to be up early for the bus! Only a quick stop in mission beach, there really isn’t much to do in this place other than go on the beach or what most people do is sky dive!

Thursday 5th August - Day 16 (Total days = 52)

Up and ready to go at 8am, there was only about 5 of us in the mini-bus. Before we set off we managed to book our return ferry to/from Magnetic Island and two nights’ accommodation at the YHA hostel. We’d got halfway to the bus stop and reception radioed the bus driver that people had missed the bus! After dropping us off at the bus stop with a good 30mins to spare the bus shot back to pick the other stragglers up. I hadn’t eaten any breakfast at this point, we had a good 3hour bus journey ahead of us so I decide to nip the local Woolworths which was next to the bus stop. I bought some crackers and pate for the journey! Soon enough the bus arrived and it was time to wave goodbye to mission beach and after a quick stop in some unknown town it was hello to Townsville. The bus conveniently dropped us off at the ferry terminal, the ferry to Magnetic wasn’t for another hour or so, so we decided to sit outside in the sun and play cards! I was soon being called ‘Rainman’ after being able to remember the cards Becky and Puja had picked up so, it didn’t help me win but it was funny to wind the girls up by telling them what they should be putting down! After a few game of cards it was time to get on the ferry to Magnetic Island The name of the island came about because of the apparent "magnetic" effect it had on the ship's compass of Captain Cook as he passed the island when sailing up the east coast of Australia in 1770
We were all in good spirits and looking forward to the next few days on Magnetic Island. During our stay the plan was to hire a Moke for one of the days. A Moke is what I can only describe as a beach buggy, only its 2WD (pictures on facebook). The Moke consists of tubular frame chassis, roll bars for a roof and a very small metallic body to cover the engine and transmission components, the only luxury on the galvanized dashboard was a speedometer!

After a short 25min ferry journey we had landed at Magnetic Islands small harbour called Picnic Bay. Our destination was close to a place called Horseshoe Bay, the YHA was called Bungalow Bay, not sure where the bungalow bit is named from though! The island had a very limited amount of roads, the population of the island was only 2,500 and most of the island was inhabitable due to vast forestry and uneven landscape, this meant that getting round would be easy, apart from hiring a Moke the other means of transport was the regular bus service which coincided with the ferries, so as soon as we hopped off the ferry there awaited a bus to take us down the longest road on magnetic island approximately 7km long - you get the idea of how small it actually is! After checking into the YHA we dropped our bags and headed straight over to horseshoe bay only a 5min walk away from the hostel the lonely planet book badged this beach as a great place to watch the sunset. After a quick beer in one of the pubs overlooking the bay we didn’t get a great sunset due to cloud cover, the burnt sky effect looked impressive but it wasn’t a ‘classic’ sunset for example being able to watch the sunset over the horizon is often a great experience when sat on a beach! After it got dark we decided not to bother cooking but instead go for some fish and chips, the chippy only had breaded mackerel, I wasn’t keen on the idea as I’ve only tried mackerel once in my life before, and that was when I was about 11years old, I thought it was a very salty oily fish but even still I ordered it with a large chip just in case I didn’t like it the chips would be a good enough feed! Turns out it tasted amazing, I’d go as far as saying it’s on a par with the fish from English chippies. That night we sat down to play cards in the bar, the hostel were putting on a coconut bowls competition where you can win free drink tokens etc so I’d signed myself Puja and Becky up. After watching everyone try their hardest to knock down the skittles with a coconut it was clearly very hard to throw an oval coconut in a straight line, I managed to knock a few down, and so did puja but Becky got them all so she won a free pint of beer! After the failure of bowls we sat down for a few more drinks and played cards before retiring for the night due to the bar being closed at 10:00pm.

Friday 6th August - Day 17 (Total days = 53)

Today’s plan was to hire a Moke for the day and explore some of the island. I was out of bed first and down to the shop to buy some bread so I could make poached eggs on toast. Becky and I had been debating over the previous few days the best way to cook them, she uses a Delia Smith method but I use one I watched the Hairy Biker cooks make and it seemed an easier quicker way. Becky was feeling a little under the weather so I went off to cook my eggs while Puja made toast, I offered to cook her eggs but she was a veggie, who didn’t even eat eggs, oh well her loss! I usually use a touch of malt vinegar or white wine vinegar but I didn’t have either, there was some white vinegar in the ‘free food’ basket so I used this instead. I can say now they were some of the best eggs I’d cooked, perfect little balls of goodness! Eventually Becky got up and we headed out to the place close to the ferry terminal where you can hire the Moke’s. For $20 each we could get one for 24 hours so we all paid the money and set off in out bright yellow Moke, this one had a vinyl roof on it, the girls had wanted one with no roof on it so we agreed to go back later in the day to swap it for roofless model! For the rest of the day the plan was to go for a snorkel in a place called Arcadia bay and then have a BBQ on the beach. Most of the beaches in Australia have their own BBQ’s, they are free to use and consist of a hot plate and a counter for food preparation, it was a great idea that allowed anyone to go and use them whenever you wanted.

After picking up some snorkeling equipment for Becky and Puja we headed for a place called Arcadia bay to go and snorkel, it would be my first time in water since being out on the Great Barrier reef so I was looking forward to seeing the difference in the marine life. Puja and I snorkeled out into the bay and started looking for some marine life, there was a couple of locals also snorkeling so they were pointing things out to us, they managed to spot a stingray hiding under a rock which was pretty impressive as I’d only seen one on the Great Barrier Reef so it was cool to see one while snorkeling. After spotting a few jellyfish aka Sea Wasps that were not extremely harmful but still annoying if stung by one, we headed back to shore to wait for them to clear; I had a sleep in the shade while the girls’ sun bathed. It was getting on to being lunchtime so we headed for a local café to eat some lunch. After lunch we headed back to the hostel and dropped off the snorkeling equipment, no one could be bothered to snorkel again so we walked down the road towards horseshoe bay to chill out and wait for the sunset again. It was much better this time and we all got some awesome pictures of the sun disappearing behind the horizon. After the sunset we’d decided to go and get some food and have a BBQ on the beach, we set off in the Moke towards the one and only supermarket on the island. After getting half the way there Becky remembered about a night market, run by the locals every Friday night, we decided to take a de-tour towards the night market just to check it out but ended up staying there for a while. The market was set in the grounds of the village hall and hosted an array of stalls selling sweets, cakes and the main place selling hot Indonesian and thai food. We decided not to bother with the BBQ, instead opting to get some Indonesian specialities cooked by a local Indonesian lady, it wasn’t the cheapest meal I’d paid for but it was certainly one of the best take-away style meals I’d bought in Australia, I can’t remember what I had but it was a plate full of everything! After devouring the lot I bought some cookies with my left over money and munched on them while the others finished their food. We soon headed back to the hostel, and made a plan to have the BBQ the following day. When we returned to our room we had some new arrivals who turned out that they knew Becky from the hostel in mission beach, two teachers from Leeds who were travelling Australia during the summer holidays called Beth and Kat. We headed towards the bar and played cards for the rest of the night until the bar shut early again we played cards at in the dining area and then went to bed. The plan for tomorrow was to go and do the Forts walk with the promise of spotting some wild Koalas!

Saturday 7th August - Day 18 (Total days = 54)

We get up fairly early around 8:30am and eat breakfast, the Moke had to be back at the rental office for 12:30pm so we were to go on the walk and then return the vehicle. The Forts walk took a path up to the highest point on the island and was so named because Magnetic Island used to be a defensive fort during WW2. The walk take a couple of hours and soon enough we were at the top of the fort overlooking the various bays and out towards the Pacific Ocean. We were alerted of a few whales far in the distance by a local Australian couple, it was the first whale I’d seen in Australia! We headed onwards up towards the highest lookout point of the island, this was an old part of the fort which used to be a look-out post during WW2.
We’d still not spotted any Koalas and it was soon time to return back to the car, so we headed off down the track towards the car. The track was getting quite busy now which was inconvenient that everyone was put to spot Koalas, not just us. This meant it wouldn’t be long until we got to see a wild Koala bear munching away on the greenery of a eucalyptus tree, another tick in the book there, after a few pics we head back to the Moke spotting 3 or 4 more Koala on the way back.

After returning to the Moke we set off for the final drive, after much deliberation about who as driving, between Becky and me it was to be myself! She really couldn’t drive an ounce and I didn’t feel safe with anyone but myself behind the wheel! We get back to the rental office and head to the supermarket to buy the tackle for a BBQ. After getting all the stuff from the hostel we head to the beach to use the free BBQ’s, Becky and I made burgers while Puja had veggie sausages! After clearing up I fell asleep on the beach while the girls sun bathed. I woke for the sunset and took some more pictures. That night we played cards yet again! I was to leave in the morning to go to a place called Ayr so it was bed early for me!

Sunday 8th August - Day 19 (Total days = 55)

After getting uo early there were 3of us from the same room leaving the Island, a german called Anders, Puja and me. Becky had a lot more time in Australai than us so she wanted to stay for the warmer weather than travelling further south, we said our goodbyes and off we went to catch the bus, Again the bus was timed perfectly to catch the ferry and it we were soon back in Townsville awaiting the Greyhound. It was about a 2hour journey to my destination, where Puja and Anders were moving on towards Airlie beach (the main place to catch a boat to the Whitsunday Islands). I arrive in Ayr about 12:00pm and call the dive company who had agreed to pick me up. They advised me to get some food in before I arrived but with the supermarket closed I opted for a subway hoping it would get me through the day. It didn’t.
When I arrived at the accommodation I filled out the necessary paperwork etc and headed outside to read my book and write my blog. I was getting hungry already and they were cooking a BBQ the divers who were just about to return. The guy cooking it, an English guy called Chris told me to dig in as there would be plenty to go around so I didn’t hesitate to get a good fill. As I was sitting there munching my food, I spotted someone I knew, it was Alex, one of the girls who worked for CDC on the Kangaroo explorer, she was surprised to see me and me her, we chatted away for a while until they had to leave to go back to Cairns!

After the BBQ I headed upstairs to chill out and watch some TV, after watching a couple f films I decided to go to bed looking forward to diving in the morning!

Monday 9th August - Day 20 (Total days = 56)

After a free breakfast of toast and cereal I headed downstairs to get kitted up with a wet-suit, fins and scuba gear. After the dive brief we headed out in the 4x4, there was about 7 or 8 people diving with us. The boat was launched off the beach using a tractor and pull so we had to wade out to get onto the boat. It was to be a 25min boat ride out to the dive site depending on the conditions. The 25mins turned into 50mins and finally we got there, the waves and swell were massive, the biggest I’ve seen for going diving and this meant the boat was a lot slower getting to the dive site. It also meant I felt a little sea sick, it was like a constant rollercoaster going up and down more than 5ft each wave. I didn’t feel it at first but as soon as the boat stopped I felt like I could spew. I didn’t really get enough time to bfore we were in the water, as soon as I jumped in the sickness disappeared and we were ready to descend to the depths and see the SS Yongola. The SS Yongala sank off Cape Bowling Green on 23 March 1911. En route from Melbourne to Cairns she steamed into a cyclone and sank without a trace south of Townsville, Australia. All one hundred and twenty-two people on board perished in what is considered one of the most tragic incidents in Australian maritime history. It was only in 1958 that the wreck of the Yongala was discovered lying in waters south of Townsville, and it has since become renowned as an internationally regarded diving and tourist destination. (extract from wikipedia!)

Another interesting fact about the Yongala is about the death of a lady called Tina Watson. Her husband of 11 days was convicted of man slaughter after turning off her air shortly after the dive commenced. Tina drowned in the depths and even her husband a rescue diver did not even try to save her instead he returned to the surface and asked for help. He was subsequently convicted of manslaughter in an Australian court.

The Yongala lies in 30meteres of water, after following the mooring line down to the ocean floor we head along the structure about half way, there were all sorts of fish that I’d never seen before plus an large spotted eagle ray, the dive master took a lot of pictures and they can be found on my profile on facebook! After an interval of 1 hour we do a second dive this time around the complete vessel, the current was strong and it was hard to keep going in one direction.

Immediately after surfacing it was time to return to shore for the much awaited BBQ, it took a little less time to get back to shore this time but I still felt sick as a dog! The BBQ was very good, big aussy steaks and plenty of sausages, and potato salad to steam through. After the BBQ I had a nice hot shower, compiled my log book and lay down to rest. I was back on the bus tomorrow heading for Airlie beach and the Whitsunday islands.

Tuesday 10th August - Day 21 (Total days = 57)

After an early breakfast at 7:30 I climb back into bed for a bit more rest, the bus wasn’t until 12:00pm so I had time to kill. After speaking to a really annoying girl from Brunei I headed off in the dive places 4x4 to get the bus. After waiting around for a good hour there were only two people getting on the busy bus, a guy from Manchester called Linc, (Chris Lincoln) and myself. We got chatting for a while, he had been working in Oz for the past year and was now in the final stages of his trip where he was travelling back down to Sydney to get a flight home but before hand he was going to see some of the sights of the east coast.

It was fortunate I’d met this guy as I’d done very little research on Airlie beach, I didn’t know where to stay the direction of the main town in conjunction to the bus stop, and Linc guided us to the best hostel to stay at called Magnums. After booking in we both head for a beer in the bar area at the front of the hostel , I didn’t want to hang around Airlie beach so after a quick beer I went straight for the nearest travel office to book a sailing trip around the Whitsundays. The Whitsundays is a collection of islands off the east coast of Australia, a lot of them are naturally beautiful white sand beaches with turquoise blue waters. Ideally I was looking for a 2night 3 day trip, usually if you go and book a day before you can get stand-by rates for a knock-down price, I did just that and managed to get on a boat called Prima (could be wrong here!). It was only a small boat but never the less everything was included, all I had to do was turn up and have fun!

After a free dominoes pizza, which I got for free because I forgot to pay, I met up with Linc again and we headed out for a beer or two. Another strange little story here. We got talking to a Dutch couple who were very friendly, after about an hour’s conversation we got onto the subject of diving, first we talked about diving the Yongala, which they had also recently done with the same dive company we get onto the subject of the Great Barrier Reef. Turns out that the day I arrived on the CDC’s Kangaroo Explorer they were leaving the boat after a 3 night 4 day liveaboard. It was a small coincidence because we were all travelling the east coast of Australia but none the less it was a chance meeting that I met them in Airlie and they’d been on the same boat as me at the same time out in the Pacific Ocean! After a few more beers I headed for bed.

Wednesday 11th August - Day 22 (Total days = 58)

The boat didn’t leave until 13:00 so after checking out I mulled around for a little while, stocked up on some beers (the only thing I really needed to bring) and headed for the harbour where I would board my vessel for the next 2 nights.

It was smaller than I first expected but I didn’t mind, the captain Steve was a funny character and his deck hand Rachel, crazy, but pleasing to the eye, the other passengers consisted of a few Frenchies, Germans, Irish and two English girls.

We set sail for the Whitsunday Islands around 13:30 the water was pleasantly calm so no sea sickness here. We headed for one of the islands bays called Hook Island, on the way we spotted a few pods of dolphins and a humpback whale and her calf, after sailing around a few of the islands, it had been a very relaxed day, kicking back on the bow of the boat taking in some sun and watching the islands go by. We soon get to our mooring point for the night, I crack a few beers and start chatting to the Irish couple, Lorraine and Miles, they had been working in Australia and travelling around, apparently its really bad for work everywhere in Ireland at the minute so they were considering moving to Australia. After dinner we all sat around the table playing drinking games and have a right good laugh, it had been a long day and a lot of people went to bed early, I was sleeping in the lounge area on a pull-out bed with Rachel on a bed above me nearer the window and another couple of frenchies on the opposite side of the room sleeping on the some other pull out beds, it was surprisingly comfy!

Thursday 12th August - Day 23 (Total days = 59)

I was up quite early because of being in the lounge, Steve, the skipper was down early to make a tea, while everyone else was still asleep Rachel persuaded me to go for a dip in the sea, it looked cold but I thought what the heck, it would be a good wake up I suppose! She jumped in first and I soon followed with a gracious bomb, the water was fairly cold but good enough to stay in there for a little while, after a quick paddle about I jumped out to get warm and eat breakfast. Another typical Australian breakfast of toast and cereal followed, I opted for peanut butter sandwiches and a strong coffee. The first destination was Turtle bay a popular snorkeling destination off the main Whitsunday Island; I was looking forward to getting back in the water again! We set sail and anchored in the bay, we all jumped in the small dingy boat and towards the snorkeling spot, I was first in, it took the others a while to get in, alot of them were very apprehensive to say the least, the snorkel spot was good but not as magnificent as the Great Barrier Reef, my expectations of something similar were destroyed within minutes of snorkeling around, there wasn’t much to be seen apart from a giant clam! Instead I used the time up free diving as long as I could, I was getting pretty good at holding my breath for well over a minute at a time which meant I could explore the underwater swim-thru’s and deeper spots.

After about 30 mins it was time to get back on the boat to head for Whitehaven beach, the most popular beach throughout all the islands, the beach hosted magnificent pure white sands as far as the eye could see, companioned with the clear turquoise ocean the beach was paradise! After anchoring about 100meters from the shoreline it was time to get into the dingy to get to the shore, I handed my stuff to one of the girls and said I’d like to swim there. When arriving at the beach it was a chore to get onto dry land, due to the fineness of the white sand anywhere that was covered in the gentle waves became a mush like substance where your feet would sink instantly with little weight.

After a few minutes of exploring some of the finest sand in the world I lay back and took in the sun. After a few minutes I was bored so I begun to build a sandcastle in the shape of a whale, after a good hour of building I looked back at my masterpiece and felt chuffed with myself, it looked pretty good to b honest, so I took a couple of pictures and it was soon time to get back on the boat after about an hour of being on the island. After getting back on the boat I my back felt a little bit sore, it was red from the sun. I’d wore sun cream but forgot to ask someone to put some on my back for me, I’d expected to lie on my front but after building the sandcastle it was inevitable that the sun would get me. During the journey to the next destination I asked Rachel to put some aftersun on my back to cool it down she gave me a good massage for about 10mins, the way her hands were touching me felt as if she was trying something on, she kept reaching around to my ‘pelvic region’ if you know what I mean!!!!

After a sail by some other beautiful tropical islands we had arrived at our second snorkel spot called Dumbbell Island. It was another popular snorkel spot where previously a manta ray had been spotted; I didn’t see anything but a few fish and it was nowhere near as good as the first spot! After getting back on board and getting dry I got Rachel to put some more cream on and got another pleasing massage!
After setting sail for the same mooring point of the previous night, I got talking to Harriet and Imogen, they mentioned they might have some space in their car as they were going to Fraser island, I said I’d consider it but we should talk more after we got off the boat and talked to Imogens boyfriend Shaun.

Later that evening we all got pretty drunk, Rachel included. She was starting to be a little bt more up-front with me here, and after talking for a while on the top deck one thing lead to another and so and so! She wasn’t shy, that’s all I can say!

Friday 13th August - Day 24 (Total days = 60)

We return to Airlie beach around 13:00pm, I needed to sleep and also get some proper food. Food was first. After getting back to magnums I booked in for one more night and because I had booked my sailing trip with the magnums travel office I got the night for free! After getting an expensive sandwich at a local café I used the internet to send Jade an email, it was round about this time we had fallen out, she’s started calling me ‘buddy’ and said that we were just friends now, she’d found someone else but she had gone about telling me the wrong way and I sent her a pretty hurtful email. That’s the last I’m gonna say about her in this blog, I could write thousands of words of how I feel about her but she no longer felt the same as she did back in June, promises had been broken so I don’t want to go on.

After getting my expensive sandwich I go back to my room, I could hardly sleep so I decided to get on with my blog while sipping a beer! It was soon getting dark and that night it had been arranged that everyone from the boat would meet up at a local bar to get a few drinks, plus free pizza was on offer! After a quick shower and a big struggle to put after sun on my back I headed out to the bar, it was fairly quiet with only about 20 or so people in there but I managed to spot Miles and Lorraine already having a drink. I got myself a pint and a pizza voucher and joined Miles and Lorraine, we chatted for a while until Imogen, Harriet and Shaun turned up. Shaun seemed a nice enough guy but he was Canadian which meant his ego was probably a little too big for his boots, but none the less I was going to join these guys on a trip to Fraser Island which would save me hundreds of dollars. After a few more beers we’d arranged to meet up at 9am the following morning in the car park of Magnums, I was proper tired and wanted to get to bed so I said my goodbyes to Miles and Lorraine, vowing to add them on facebook!

Saturday 14th August - Day 25 (Total days = 61)

After meeting up in the car park and re-packing the car, we all hop into the Racing Green Series 1 Landrover Discovery. Our first destination was to go to a place called Town of 1770, the second destination of Captain James Cook, an Englishman who first discovered Australia in 1770, hence the name of the town. His first discovery was a place called Botany bay, further south of 1770. 1770 being the most famous as this is where he ran a ground and spent a number of nights in the bay repairing his ship, the drive is approx 400+ miles about 9 hours, it was a pretty boring day to be honest and I’m not going to big it up, we stopped at a place called Gladstone to eat lunch around 4pm and then headed off again, it was getting dark around 5.30pm so we decided to camp in a free camping spot about 2 hours from Town of 1770 in a place called Bororen. That night we had sausage butties and went to bed early.

I was a bit gutted about this day because it was Wigan vs. Blackpool, I stayed up as late as I could to get the text reports in but it wasn’t until the morning I found out we’d won 4-0 and were vriefly top of the league. Magic! I was ecstatic in the morning but no one shared my enthusiasm, travelling with two girls and a fake yank meant football wasn’t the main topic of conversation!!!

Sunday 15th August - Day 26 (Total days = 62)

After finding out the footy result my objective of the day was to get a few beers down my neck later in the evening. We eventually get to The Town of 1770 and head out to the peninsula for some amazing views over the coast and in towards the bay of the town. It was paradise again, the white sands extended far out into the bay creating a little island in the middle of the bay. After taking some pics we headed towards the beach to eat some lunch, I made some cheese sandwiches that I’d prepared the day earlier. After chilling out in the shade a little it was time to head off towards Rainbow beach, this is the main place to get the car ferry across to Fraser Island but first we got to get there, it’s another mammoth drive away and we are already approaching 1pm. We took an off road route only suitable for 4x4’s towards the next destination, it’s was a pretty good route to be fair although a little bumpy it was good fun! After getting back onto the main road we had another hour to drive to get back to where we were meant to be, at this point is was getting on towards 3pm and we knew we wouldn’t make it to Rainbow beach! Not far after the 4x4 track just as we were driving down the road we spotted a large object in the middle of the road, it was a definite snake, sunbathing . Shaun stopped the disco and reversed, we all jumped out, cameras in hand. Turns out it was a carpet python, a bloody large one at that, it didn’t seem fazed by us in the slightest, instead he decided to slither his way over to the other side of the road. If he’d stayed in the original position then he’d of been crushed, so it’s a good job he moved!

We head off in the disco only to get as far as a place called Bundaberg, its famous for its Rum, which I really don’t like so I wasn’t too interested. I asked Shaun to stop off at a liquor store so we could get some beers. I was the only one drinking! I didn’t care. Blackpool had won their first game in the premier league. 4-0 as well! We were second in the prem!!!!
After locating a camping spot on the map we headed for a place just outside of Bundaberg to go and camp. We knock up at the campsite about 30mins before dark, by this time Harriet and I were becoming experts at putting the tent up, so after 10mins it was time to get a beer cracked and start with cooking the food. We had pasta and sauce for dinner so it was just a case of boiling the pasta and adding the sauce. Simples! After dinner I had a few more beers and Shaun and Imogen went to bed, they didn’t have a tent, instead they slept in the disco, Shaun had converted the back of the car to allow a piece of wood to bend over and flatten out into a bed, it was a good idea and meant that they could sleep anywhere they wanted. Harriet and I had a tent to sleep in but e decided to stay up and chat for a little while. It wasn’t the warmest time to sleep in Australia but none the less it was manageable, other than food and petrol the only thing I had to buy recently had been the sleeping bag which meant camping was great on the budget I’d spent less than 100 dollars in 3 days, which in terms of Australlia is bloody cheap if you consider the hostels are $25-$30, then there food and amenities on top of that it would be easy to spend $100 in a day!

Monday 16th August - Day 27 (Total days = 63)

We set off from the campsite fairly early, around 8am, destination Hervey bay to pick up supplies for the trip and Imogen needed to go to the post office to pick up a parcel of contact lenses that had been sent there. After getting the supplies at Woolworths for the next 3 days, I made the mistake of not getting more beer! I still had some bottles of Heineken left as I’d bought a crate, as I later found out it wasn’t enough for the 2 nights / 3 days on Fraser Island!

We eventually get to Rainbow beach and head to the NPWS (National Parks and Wildlife Service) office to buy a camping pass for 2 nights on the island, it came to a grand total of £94 for the 4 of us. Next up was the barge pass, which set us back another $50 and then we filled with petrol. In all the total cost of the trip for everyone came to approximately $300. About $75 each. Bargain! Considering the operator run trips to the island cost a minimum of $300 we’d saved a hefty sum doing it all on our own! I was grateful that the girls had offered me to come along with them and also grateful to Shaun for doing most of the driving!

We hook up at the beach where you get on the barge across to Fraser Island, it was only a 10minute journey to get over to the Island, but before doing so we had to lower the tyre pressures of the disco to aid with traction on the deep sand. We get over to the barge and but it’s not quite ready to leave just yet so we settled down to some lunch of ham and cheese butties! We’re soon on the barge, the only people heading to Fraser Island, on the way over we spotted a large pod of dolphins but before we knew it, it was time to leave the barge and get onto the biggest sand island in the world! It was bigger than I thought! With one of the beaches called 75mile beach, it was a mammoth place about 180km long 25km wide! The 75mile beach acted as the main road of the island, interconnecting most of the driving paths that lead to the various lakes throughout the Island. The island has rain forests, woodland, mangrove forests, swamps, sand dunes, coastal heaths and a number of freshwater lakes.

The first drive was to get to the 75mile beach, we wanted to go an investigate some of the lakes near the southern part of the island, one of them being lake Mackenzie, the most famous lake that everyone talks about after they’ve visited the island, unfortunately it was closed due to the visitor centre being renovated so we decided to instead to head for lake Birrabean. A white sand (much like Whitehaven Beach) and freshwater lake combined makes this place very popular, we drove to the lake and jumped out of the car to have a look around, we didn’t have much time to stop and relax it was getting dark and we wanted to set up camp, instead we just had a quick paddle in the freshwater and headed off to find a campsite at a place called central station. The place had toilets and showers each of the camping spots had a washing up sink, a well maintained place.
After selecting our camping spot we set up tent and started to cook the dinner, we managed to throw together a good chicken stir fry with noodles and after a few beers it was time to get into bed. The past 3 nights we’d all been in bed before 10pm!

Tuesday 17th August - Day 28 (Total days = 64)

Up-early again, it made sense considering we only had 3 days on the island! So we had to make the most of it! The target destination of the day was to get to the northern most tip of the island, but on the way we wanted to visit a few other natural beauties. After getting out onto the 75mile beach Shaun offered me a drive of the disco, I didn’t hesitate to have a go! Driving on the beach and over some of the 4x4 tracks was good fun. We got to a place called Indian head, it was a very small peninsula slap bang in the middle of the island, it descended to about 30 meters and had lots of views out over the Pacific Ocean. After walking the short path to the top, the views were impressive, as far as the eye could see was golden sand and deep blue sea each side of the peninsula. Looking down from the cliff top there was an array of marine life, we spotted rays, turtles a few small sharks and lot ofwhales a little further out from the shore.

When getting back to the disco we ate a quick lunch and headed off, we needed to get to a certain point on the island before the tide got higher which would make it inaccessible. After another quick stop and trying to find a place called champagne pools we instead found the only gas station that was open on the island, after filling up with petrol we headed for sandy point, at this point it was getting on a little bit, it was nearing 2pm and we had a while to go before we’d get there. The rest of the journey consisted of driving along the beach but every now and then it would become accessible due to protruding rocks that would stretch out in the deeper parts of the shoreline, each time this happened there was always an alternative route to take around the rocks over a few sandy tracks and out the other side! This time we got to a set of rocks and the hill over the other side looked very steep, the initial attempt got us up over the hill, only to be greeted with another not as steep hill with a small incline now in front and behind us, Shaun hesitated slightly which meant we didn’t make it up the hill. No worries, it was a matter of reversing back up a slight incline and up over the hill. Shaun reversed but only got about 10ft before he couldn’t get up the incline behind us. Foot down and he went for the incline in front of us. No joy. We were stuck, stuck in a bowl as such, either side of the car was a steep sand wall and in front and behind us was a 10-15ft incline, stuck in a bowl of sand and nowhere to turn, getting to the northern tip of the island wasn’t looking good!
We all jumped out of the disco and started to see what the drama was; every time Shaun tried to get free he just kept digging deeper and deeper in the sand! We hurried to go and find some wood, branches, anything that we could put under the tires to gain traction, after a good ten minutes of searching I managed to find a couple of planks and the girls got a few branches and some other suitable wooden items to put under the tires. After digging out the wheels we placed the material under the tires. At first attempt we moved a good few feet, bt after a few more tries we ended up going backwards!

2 hours later after numerous attempts at digging out and replacing materials, we had a single audience of one dingo, but this time we were nearly there so I tell Shaun, “This is it! This is the one”. It bloody was, we managed to get up and over the incline. The next part of the beach was just as challenging; we had to navigate our way up and over huge rocks and boulders so at this point I had to get out of the car to guide Shaun around the right way to go. Because it got so late, and the high tide was in full force we eventually got to the rocky point with another diversion over a sand dune, but this time we couldn’t get up the sand dune it was just too steep and sandy! This meant we had to head back to a camping spot by the side of the beach! It had been a good adventure and a lot of teamwork involved in freeing ourselves out of the sandy bowl, by this point everyone was exhausted so after dinner we all had one bottle of beer (told you I should of brought more) and collapsed in bed!


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Comments

[Vic]

More blog please....
come on you i want to read more............ miss you and your cooking xx

[Vic]

More please...
like the bit where you say you only trust yourself driving.. ha ha