think I wore a shirt during the day once, its pretty good being able to go around in a swimsuit top and board shorts pretty much everywhere. We had gotten a package deal that included a bunch of activities, hostel accommodation at Koala Backpackers, and some of our meals. Here is what we did. (this is a pretty long post, but our days were pretty full, I figured I would just write it all, you can read what you want).Day 1
We woke up and went down to the dock to get on a sailing daytrip. This was on a smaller boat that was wind powered, but had an engine as well. The skipper was from the San Fernando Valley, how weird is that? The other two crew members were Magnus from Estonia and an Australian guy whose name I can't remember. Very diverse crew. Apparently a lot of backpackers get jobs on the boats for a few months at a time to save up money and keep traveling, it would be a pretty cool job I would think. We sailed to Blue Pearl Bay, hoping the sun would come out the whole time, but it remained overcast and lightly rained off and on. Nevertheless, it was a very cool experience. We signed up for the introductory SCUBA dive which we were all really stoked about because none of us had really wanted to spend lots of money on the certification training that took up two weekends which we didn't really have time to do in the first place. But we got really lucky because they were having a special deal on it and it only cost us $40 to dive. Pretty sweet. The 3 of us and one other American girl went diving with 2 of the crew and it was awesome. We didn't go super deep because it was an un-certified person dive, but we got a few meters down and saw a rass, the fish that switches sex from female to male and then gets frickin huge. This one is apparently mid switch, and her name is Priscilla. She comes right up to you and you can pet her, which is pretty weird, kinda like a dog. She is about 1.5 meters long. Big fish. Tons of other fish swim all around you right in front of your face. A couple of them even nipped at my mask, it was so crazy how many of them there were. Breathing underwater is really cool, one of the girls was freaking out and had to go up, but I was having a great time and it was fun just hanging out down there with the fishes. After we came up we got to snorkel for another hour and that was fun as well. The visibility was not amazing because it was overcast and there was a lot of debris in the water from recent bad weather, but it was really cool anyways. We sailed back home, and it was a bit cold, but still a lot of fun. The other people on the boat were cool too, there was a shark marine biologist, a construction guy, some other American exchange students studying in the Daintree rainforest, and a bunch of others. Everyone was real interesting to talk to. I also found out that recent storms in the past 2 months had caused over 60 boats to sink, 30 of which are still unrecovered. Nobody was hurt, a bunch of people had to get rescued by helicopters though. One of the boats is still washed up on the shore near the harbor. Pretty bad times, I'm glad we missed all that.
Day 2
The sun was out today and it was
glorious. This place is much more beautiful in good weather, and I was excited to go out and do something. The 2 girls I was with wanted to go shopping, and I didn't really think I could handle that, so I went over to one of the 30 travel places on this tiny street and looked around for something that I could do. Some girls on the sailboat the day before said that South Molle Island had some great bushwalking trails, so I looked for a way to get over there. I found out there is a ferry that leaves 4 or 5 times a day to get over there so I hopped on the next one that was going out at about noon. It was a really nice trip over, a lot faster than sailing but a lot louder, and everything was clear and sunny and beautiful. I got to South Molle and had only a few hours before the last ferry was leaving so I took off to the trails pretty quickly. The first one I went on, a snake fell down the hill across the trail in front of me, it was a bit startling. The trail went out to the beach and it was low tide, so you could also walk across a rock bridge to Mid Molle Island. The next trail I went on had an amazing view of the bay on the other side of the island, and the third was up to Point Jeffrey, where you had a 360 degree view of all of the islands. I took a bunch of pictures, it was a really amazing place. I had to run the last part of the trails because I was going to miss the ferry, and that would have been problematic to say the least. I guess I could have camped on the beach, there were campers there, but I was glad I got back to the mainland. It was a very cool experience and much better than shopping for surrrrrrre.Day 3
Third day here we took the Reefjet boat out for an all day trip to some really neat places. There were about 30 people on the boat, and it was a motor boat, not a sailboat. This was cool for getting around quicker and spending more time at the locations we were going to. The first place we stopped was off of Hook Island and we went snorkeling there. I saw a bunch of fish and took a ton of pictures, the camera works pretty well underwater, pretty amazing. My friends even saw a turtle and were in touching distance which is pretty amazing. I saw another rass and a giant clam and a lot of really pretty coral. The sun was out today, so you could see a bit more of the colors of the fish. On the way back to the boat, I saw a pretty big box jellyfish about 2 feet away which kinda scared the shit out of me, I stopped pretty quick and looked around to make sure no others were going to be around. There were none, so that was all good, because after hearing what happens to people that get stung I didn't want to stick around and find out about it. The skipper said that you dont really feel the sting, it just itches a bit, but then 30 minutes later your spine
starts hurting a lot and your central nervous system starts shutting down. No good. They make you wear 'stinger suits' when you are in the water, they are pretty much wetsuits that would protect you from box or irigangie jellyfish, both of which are all over, which is too bad because it is such a beautiful place, but to swim in the water you pretty much have to wear the suits.We got back on the boat and went to this bay where green turtles hang out because the whole floor is sea grass. They come up for air every once in awhile and I got to see a couple. They were really big turtles, about 4 or more feet long I would guess. We took the little raft boat to the shore and went on a bushwalk through a rainforest/jungle type area for a bit to a lookout point. I am pretty sure this was on Whitsunday Island, but it could have been a smaller one nearby. The lookout point is the 2nd most photographed spot in Australia apparently, and I can see why. It was an amazing panoramic view of Whitehaven Beach and the surrounding islands. We got some good pictures and stayed for a bit to enjoy the view. After, we got back onto the boat and went to Whitehaven Beach, and wow, it was just awesome. It is supposed to be one of the top 6 beaches in the world, and I can see why. The sand was pure white and extremely fine. You could pack it into a snowball if it was wet and the dry sand made skid sounds like on a basketball court when you walked on it. It had a really beautiful view as well. Another nice thing was that it wasn't very crowded because you have to take one of these boats out there to get there, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. You still have to wear the stinger suits if you want to be safe when swimming though. I swam around with Sydney and Sarah for a bit and then went walking along the beach. That walk made me really sketched out about actually swimming at that beach. I saw 4 stingrays just chillin at the edge of the water and jell
yfish had washed up onto the shore as well. I guess the danger of this place adds to the beauty? haha, also, there is a small island next to this beach (less than a square kilometer), and it is said to have the largest death adder snake population of any place in the world per square meter. Sounds like a great holiday destination. I played some volleyball with some Irish guys in the water and hung out with this guy from Slovakia as well, they were pretty cool people. The Slovakian guy, Mattej, is a real backpacker. He puts the others to shame. Most people travel around the country on buses and stay at hostels, but he was hitchhiking and camping everywhere he went. He had everything in his pack, cooking supplies, clothes, his whole life. Pretty impressive I thought. He was headed up north the next day to hopefully get work picking fruit. Many of the backpackers do that when they run out of money, just stop and pick fruit for a month or two until they get enough to move on to the next place. After leaving the beach, we got back on the boat and they gave us watermelon which was pretty much the best thing ever after being in the sun all day. We came back to Airlie Beach and decided it had been a pretty awesome day.Day 4
We got picked up by a bus in the morning on Wednesday and taken out to Porsepine for a Crocodile Safari. The guy that runs the place was even named Steve and wore khaki shorts/shirt, I guess the Steves gravitate towards this kind of work with the crocs in Australia. This activity seemed to be more geared towards families, but I had a good time. It was really hot out, but we werent doing anything very strenuous so it wasn't that bad. We got on a boat and it reminded me of the ju
ngle cruise in Disneyland. We saw some crocs laying out on the banks, they looked pretty relaxed. Saw a lot of birds too. The tour guide was really informed and I learned a lot about the animals and the ecosystem of the mangrove area. It pretty much enables all the animals of the ocean to survive, as most of the bottom food chain animals are born there, such as mud crabs. The mangroves are pretty amazing too, they can grow in salt water and sweat out the salt through their leaves. I also learned that Ian Fleming based his character of James Bond on a guy from Porsepine that was into doing crazy adventurous stuff. I don't remember the name, but he was real into crocodiles apparently. We went back to the main area and had a great lunch, probably the best meal since I've been here. Barramundi fish, chicken, salad, and this cake/bread/scone stuff called damper. It was all very fresh and good. We then went out on a ride through the grassland/swamp/forest area around the camp and saw a bunch of wallabys, birds, and cattle. It was a cool experience, definitely slower than the stuff we did on the other days, but I am glad we got to go on it.We got back and went straight
to the lagoon (this public pool in the middle of Airlie Beach, very cool thing to have there) to go swimming. Played catch with a bunch of Irish guys for a good long while then just hung out in the sun. We met up with some of Sydney's friends after dinner (I heated up some good canned soup at the hostel, it was quite awesome) and had some goon (cheap box wine) and played zoo (they call it thumper - the clapping game where everyone has a sign and you send it around the table, good times) at one of the bbq area picnic tables. It was fun, this one girl kept fucking up the game and they were giving her a hard time. We went out to some bars after that and it was pretty good. We ran into the Irish clan again (plus a Scottish guy) and went from the backpacker's bar Beaches to the Irish Pub to this dance club place called Evolutions. We had briefly stopped by Evo's the night before, but the whole place smelled weird, reminded me of my hockey gear, so we decided to take off. They must have air freshened the place up 
because it was better this night. All these places are pretty much right next door to each other, and that's how the street is set up. I hung out with the Scottish guy for awhile after that and asked if he wore kilts all the time and played the bagpipes. He said no, but that he really does like haggis. But not scottie dogs. There were a bunch of Europeans and people from other places that were all really fun to hang out with. It was cool because the place is pretty small, and you get to know a lot of people that are there during the same time you are because you keep running into them. I also met an Australian guy named Jack that works on one of the boats, and he was telling me that it is pretty great work. You get to go out a few days at a time and do your job in the islands, then have a few days off to do whatever in the Whitsundays. Sounds good to me.Day 5
Today was probably my favorite day out of the week. We went sea kayaking out to this rock, like a small island, in the water about an hour away and hung out there for awhile. We paddled around it and climbed around on it and just hung out there with the guide and a 6 other people. There were a couple French exchange students, some women from New South Wales, a British guy, and our guide that was from New Zealand. The guide was a cool guy, he was telling me to read Slash's biography (from Gu
ns 'n Roses) and we were talking about music a fair bit. He said he jams with friends in the Irish pub on the main road some nights, he plays drums and guitar. Very chilled out guy. I was in a kayak with Sydney and we got to see a green turtle pop up a little ways in front of us which was neat. We paddled back and saw some people skydive and have their parachutes come out in the sky. After kayaking, we went to use our coupons for 15 minutes of jetski use, and that was a lot of fun too. I got going up to about 68k/hour and it was definitely fun. Reminded me of jetskiing around on Lake Tahoe, which is always good times. We went out for awhile again this night, it was fun, met more people and danced some. Met a Canadian guy that is studying at Griffith on the Gold Coast. He said it's a lot of fun down there, I think I'll try to check it out pretty soon, its really close to Brisbane.
Day 6
The next morning I had to get up at about 9 because I had decided to do this deal at our hostel where you work 3 hours for free accommodation for the night plus a free meal at their restaurant. So I got up and went to work with this full time employee girl from Tasmania changing the mattress covers in all the rooms. I don't really know if it was worth it, this hostel was probably the grossest place I've stayed at. We kept hearing rumors of bedbugs and and other fun stuff like that, a lot of the rooms smelled terrible, and a lot of people were complaining about the place. However, I got to hang out with the workers there and hear about what's up in their lives, and it was definitely a different experience from hanging out with UQ students or backpackers. They were pretty young, probably my age, but had kids already and chain smoked. Different sorta lifestyle, but they were real nice and we made the most of our nasty bedsheet changing shift. The rest of the day I hung out at the lagoon because we had nothing really planned. I had my good free dinner and made it an early night.
Day 7
I got up early and went running be
fore we had to check out, I was pretty happy to be out of Koala Backpackers. We flew back home without any problems, chatted with some people at the airport and they said that I have to go to a B&S Ball while I am here (it stands for blokes and spinsters or something?). It is pretty much a redneck country person Australian festival in the outback or some other such desolate area where a bunch of people get together and make things like 'spud guns' (out of plastic pipe) that shoot potatoes up to 200 meters away, have burnouts in cars, blow up other stuff, and just party it up hick style in the desert. Sounds like an interesting cultural experience, he talked it up and said it was a pretty big Australian tradition, they started up as a way for young people in the outback to meet each other.Got back to Union and it was the 'turn off lights between 8 and 9pm' day to save energy. It was awesome, everyone went out on the oval (field) and played frizbee and soccer for that hour and then some. We should do it every week I think, it was good being back and having everyone hanging out together. I did laundry pretty immediately, and am excited to be sleeping in my own bed that most definitely has no bugs. All in all, this trip was amazing, probably one of the coolest things I have done in my life. The Whitsundays are a great place to go do adventure trips, meet cool people, and just see some of the most beautiful landscapes ever, I would definitely recommend visiting this great place.
Pictures: big croc next to the river, out with the Irish/Scottish/Australian boys, kayaking, the climbing on the rock we kayaked to, landscape pics from South Molle Island, fish I saw when snorkeling, and Whitehaven Beach.
