Whitsundays and Hervey Bay (Sept 28 - Oct 1)

After handing in our sheets and key, we gained our deposit back and headed off in search of coffee - this was a hard task to accomplish at 6 in the morning on a Sunday in the small town of Ayr. Disheartened, we left town and later enjoyed a cuppa whilst lots of people on bikes rode past us down an large main street in the town we had stopped in. This left us confused until we realized a triathlon was in the process. To me, it looked like the women where in the lead! :-) This day was mostly driving. We exchanged driving and reading and even learned who has the superior map reading skills. Yep, you guessed it. (Thanks Dad or was it really my Mum). We arrived in Whitsunday late afternoon in time to book a tour for the following day. We located a hostel for the night and took to the town for a wander. Whitsunday is a sleepy town by day on the sea with a beautiful little bay surrounded by sand and then a grass embankment where we lazed under the trees listening to a local man play music on his electronically boosted guitar. At the hostel, I met a talented young musician called Brendan Cleary. We hit it off and spent hours talking whilst I fixed his hair with lessons I had previously learned - we're just like monkeys, aren't we? We were up early the next morning to join the tour, and they kindly picked us up at our hostel. Arriving at the harbour with a few other bus loads, we headed to our catamaran (very popular boat in Oz). We enjoyed tea and coffee on board whilst we signed in. Our intention was only to snorkel, but since there was an option and a slightly proud dive master, our interest was peaked. We ended up joining the safety briefing as you can always back out after. Tyler was hooked, and I was on the bench with the rest of the morning to decide.

At our first boat stop, we enjoyed a walk to the Hills inlet scenic lookout, a fabulously changing view of the islands. We were in a deep bay and to get to the shore we had to be transferred into a small dingy, but not before several turtle sightings. This peaked my interest and I asked more about diving. "Not in this water!" was the response I got due to the amount of sharks. Recently they even heard the loud cracking of a turtle being crushed between the jaws of a shark. The little dingy ride was a little to close to the water for my liking. After our cattle tour, we were back on the boat to White Haven Beach where Tyler and I played. Not being ones to sunbath, we found enjoyment in cartwheels and playing checkers/draughts with coloured leaves in the white sand. Incidentally, if you were caught taking this sand a hefty fine you would pay. This sand is also apparently the finest, naturally occurring silica currently known.

Back on the boat, we enjoyed lunch and decided to dive; temptation was just too much as it was the Great Barrier Reef! It was sold. There was only one other certified diver. We changed and hopped into the water whilst all the people on the boat watched. Immediately things went wrong. Ty's BC was too small, my face mask glass popped out and both of the boys' goggles kept fogging up. We were not even a foot down. We all surfaced, fixed our equipment, made adjustments and headed back down. The dive master tipped upside down and headed straight down in the the very murky water. Panicked, all of us being relatively inexperienced, we followed keeping close as possible without hitting each other. You could only see a little more than a body length in front of you. Later we were told this was typical 3-8m visibility...umm, not up the coast dude! This certainly is a different world. The coral and pinnacles the size of small trucks seemed to emerge from nowhere. Very small bits of life clouded the water as we swam close to the live coral which was older than our age combined. Swimming very slowly, barely kicking, we looked up at the brain coral in awe where we surprised several turtles possibly mating. One stuck around and looked as curiously at us as we at her. Awesome!

We had some how befriended a lot of people of the boat, so upon our return, we enjoyed beers and conversation with people from all over the world, English, Turkish, Australian, Austrian and Italian. We decided to meet for dinner and drinks later on if we could find somewhere to stay. Unable to get another night at our previous hostel, we headed further into town and lucked out at Magnum's. Just to give you an idea, a double bed with shared showers and toilets runs around 50 where as a hotel runs at 150 a night.

We were joined at the Rum Bar and fish stall next door by our new friends. We enjoyed a nice dinnner and some great Aussie style mojitos while we go to know each other...perfect! We ended up meeting the brother of our fellow diver. A late night followed with a strange VB Plastic Bar Server as a souvenier!

The next day we headed to Hervey Bay with the intention of booking a tour of Frasier Island. The lateness of our arrival, our desire to sleep in and our ever shrinking budget comspired to prevent this. Instead, we lazed about town meeting interesting people and took some time to catch up on our laundry. We even bumped into the Austrian lady from the boat whom I had made friends with. The next morning we set off for Brisbane.