Land's End to John O'Groats in 2 days......

Not really of course, I'm in Australia! But its about the same distance as the monstrous drive I embarked on a few days ago, from Airlie Beach to Brisbane. After about 14 hours solid driving, a speeding fine (when I wasn't even speeding!) and a lot of coffee, I arrived in Brisbane. I met up with Rieta and Rose, who I met in the town of 1770, and we all caught up.

The next day we drove to a place called O'Reillys, at the top of a mountain in Lamington National Park. We were right up in the clouds so it was nice and cool for a change :) The area was really green and lush, with lots of wildlife and walking tracks. There was a 'tree top walk', which was a long walkway, high up in the trees. There was also a big tree you could climb, to reach a treehouse-type thing with great views. Near the carpark was an area filled with colourful parrots. You could take some grain and they'd fly over, perch on your head, hand or shoulder, and eat the grain!

We camped over that night and the next morning went to a place called Tamborine, to see glow worms. There was a big $1m artificial cave that had been constructed just to house glow worms. We walked into this pitch black cave and marvelled at the thousands of little lights on the walls and ceiling. Looking up was like looking at little blue-green star constellations!

I was just emailed the pictures of our whitewater rafting session. None of us wanted to pay the ridiculous prices for the pictures so we all clubbed together and got them on CD and one of the guys emailed them around. I'll be chilling out in Brissy for a few days then its off to Noosa!




Halfway up the mountain we came across an Alpaca (small llama-type animal) farm!



Me and my mate the parrot, aaarrrgggh!



From the treehouse, looking down at the walkway



These little wallabies were everywhere, infact I almost ran over one of them....it saw the car and ran twards it instead of the opposite way....I don't think they are very clever!



Just about to conquer the first big rapid



I thought it was a good idea to sit at the front of the boat, but found myself underwater most the time!



Our crew. The guys on the far right and left were the guides, they basically did everything when we were were going down the rapids and forgot our training!



The biggest rapid, we practically fell 3 meters!

The Whitsundays

So I finally got to do my Whitsundays cruise :) I was on 'The Mantaray', a one day cruise boat that would take us snorkeling over reefs and to famous Whitehaven Beach, with its swirling white silica sands.

This time they didn't have any sea-sickness tablets on board but luckily there was no wind at all so the sea was smooth. We pointed the boat in the direction of an island and cruised along for what seemed like forever, the island never getting any nearer..... It was actually only about 2 hours to get there and after getting into our 'stinger suits' (wetsuit that stops you getting stung by box-jellyfish), we jumped in for some snorkeling. The reef was amazing and full of fish! The captain of the boat cruised around in a little dingy making sure everyone was alright. When he came over to my group of 5 he threw some brown pellets over us....suddenly we were surrounded by hundreds of fish all jumping around to get the pellets! It was like being eaten by piranhas, without the pain....

After, we got some lunch on the boat then headed over to Whitehaven Beach. We walked through the forest to Hill Inlet Lookout for good views of the beach. We finally got to the lookout and were amazed at how beautiful it was. I've seen some amazing sights so far but Whitehaven has to be one of the best! Spent the next two hours swimming through the swirling sands of Whitehaven and then it was a long, choppy, ride home.....I just made it!



The day before I climbed Mt. Roper, this was the view!



Whitsunday Island from the boat



This boat was huge! Our boat was aboutb the size of the smallest one next to it...



A couple of the 74 Whitsunday islands



More islands



Whitehaven Beach!



The sand is bright white



And the water looks deep green to dark blue!

From 10 meters under sea level to 14,000ft above sea level in 4 days!

The next day I drove over to the Mission Beach area. The area encompasses South Mission Beach, Wongaling Beach, Mission Beach, Narragon Beach and Bingal Bay. I checked out South Mission Beach, which was beautiful and very deserted island-esq. While walking along I noticed that there were palm trees everywhere, with coconuts hanging from them. I was feeling thirsty so I knocked one down for a drink. I never knew this before but coconuts don't actually come off the tree looking like the round, hard, brown, hairy thing you see in coconut shys! They actually come off the tree in a big, smooth, seed-shaped casing. I spent ages pulling this casing apart (its not easy!) and finally got down to the inner coconut. Punched a hole in it and drank the juice, very refreshing!

For some reason I had had the worst nights sleep the previous night so decided that I'd stay in a hostel while I was at Mission Beach. I found a nice hostel in Wongaling Beach and spent most of the day lying in a hammock, reading a book, chiling out to the max! Two girls that I met at Cape Tribulation just happened to arrive that evening so we all got dinner and played some cards by the beach with some of the other guests.

Apart from completely chilling out, people come to Mission Beach to do one of two things - skydive (landing on the beach) and go whitewater rafting on the Tully River. I came to do both! The next day was my whitewater rafting on the tully river! I had to get up at 6:30am (!) for my pickup at 7am. There were 9 of us from mission beach and about 40 people coming down from Cairns, who had to pay an extra $10 for the privilege of the 2 hour bus ride (suckers!). We arrived at the top of the river and got suited up, lifejacket, helmet and paddle, and jumped into our inflatable boat! I've never done whitewater rafting before and was sure that there was no way we'd make it through some (almost all) of the rapids alive, let alone the right way up! It was an amazing day out and after 5 hours bouncing down the river I was aching all over but loved every minute of it!

The next day was the day of my 14,000ft skydive! I was supposed to be picked up at 1pm and had all my stuff packed up by 12.... the 1 hour wait was killing me but it finally passed.... So, I was waiting at the pickup point at 1pm.... at 1:30 I was still waiting. I never seem to have much luck with pickup times and when I called the company they said that I'd now be picked up at 3pm. That meant another 2 hours of waiting! To kill some time I went for a skate at a small skate park just by the hostel. I was talking to a kid who lived in the area and mentioned that I was doing a skydive. Helpfully, he told me that about 3 weeks ago some people had jumped out just as a storm blew in and missed their landing site by about 100 meters, crashing into houses, telegraph poles and even landing in swamps....and all ending up in hospital. Cheers kid!!!

So, I finally got picked up at 3pm, got harnessed up and walked over to the plane. Incase you don't know, I've done a skydive before, for my 18th birthday. I've always said its the best thing I've done in my life so was definitely up for doing one in Australia. As I looked at the tiny plane we had to fit 10 people into I began to wonder if my enjoyment of the first dive came from the fact that I was young and foolish! It seemed to take ages to get to 14,000ft....not helped by the fact that I was in a plane about as big as my car with another 9 people! I was the forth jumper out of five (all were tandem dives), and seeing the first three pairs jump out was the only bit that was really scary (up until then I had just been really excited).

Once it was my turn to go we scrambled over to the door and sat with my legs dangling out. I'm sure the guy said he was gonna count to three so I was getting ready for that when I suddenly realised we were falling out the plane! I instantly forgot to cross my arms and whatever I was supposed to do with my legs and was moulded into position by my instructor. After I'd returned to reality I was mesmorised by the amazing view all the way along the coast. There was sandy beach, deep-blue water and beautiful little islands as far as the eye could see! The freefall was only 60 seconds but it seemed like 10 minutes.... The guy pulled the parachute and suddenly we were just suspended in the air with no feeling of falling at all! I was even allowed to use the ropes to drive the chute left and right and do a few spins in the air! The tide was right in so there was only a tiny bit of beach to land on but the guy hit it perfectly. I didn't remember landing with so much speed the last time I dived, but the landing was smooth and we skidded across the sand on our feet until we came to a stop! And just like that it was over! Skydiving is so much fun, everyone should try and do one, especialy if you get the chance at a beautiful place like the beaches of Australia!

Next stop Airlie Beach again for some sailing....




The palm tree, I spent ages throwing sticks trying to knock down a coconut and got lots of strange looks from the locals



The coconut as it is off the tree!



Opening it up stage 1



Its so hard to rip it open, it must have taken me 10 minutes to get this far



Finaly got all the shell off!



Sweet coconut juice! Mmmmmm!



The inside was nice too



Dunk Island



South Mission Beach



I couldn't take my camera on the whitewater rapid trip (for obvious reasons) but this is a 'map' of all the rapids I conquered!



I climbed up a mountain in Bingal Bay, the view was stunning



The view looking over Mission Beach

Atherton Tablelands

The next day I needed to drive from Cairns to Mission Beach. On the way up I went along the coast, so I decided to drive the inland loop, through the area known as the Atherton Tablelands. This area is a collection of national parks, mountains, fast-flowing rivers and waterfalls. After about an hour of winding driving I found myself over 600 meters above sea level, looking over a gigantic valley at the biggest mountains in Queensland. Further along the loop there seemed to be waterfalls everywhere, there was even a 'waterfall circuit'! Spent the night in Tully, ready to hit the Mission Beach area the next day.

Oh and I saw a load of little turtles near one of the waterfalls. Took another video which you can see here!



Walsh's Pyramid (922m)



A rocky river



Mt. Bellenden Ker (1593m, second highest mountain in QLD)



A good view of the mountain-ish section of the Tablelands



Lake Barrine



One of the twin 'Giant Kauri Pines' at lake Barrine. This one has a diameter of over 4 meters and is over 1000 years old!



Malanda Falls



Mt Bartle Frere (1622m, the highest mountain in QLD)



The view from some lookout (the name of which I have forgotten)



Millaa Millaa Falls



Just about to dive in and cool off!



Zillie Falls (you wouldnt wanna swim at this one!)



On the way to the next waterfall I saw a white peacock....I didn't even know you could get white ones!



Ellinjaa Falls



The view from Crawford's Lookout

Port Douglas and SCUBA Diving!

On my way back to Port Douglas I went to a series of waterfalls called the Crystal Cascades. While I was walking up the hill I saw a HUGE lizard-type thing, which must have been about two meters long, just waddling along by the water!
I took a video of it that you can see here!

As I walked further up the river the waterfalls got bigger and bigger. Unfortunately, just as it looked like it was going to get really interesting, there was a big fence saying something like 'Cairns water supply, no access'. So I walked back down and jumped in at a swimming hole and slid down some rapids. The river was ice cold, crystal clear and full of fish and turtles.....very refreshing!

Got to Port Douglas in the afternoon. The place is a beautiful, upmarket, resort town (apparently Bill Clinton chills out here every so often), that has been used for a couple of films. Also, the guy who built the place apparently buggered off to Spain without paying any of the workers who built the entire town....

The next morning I got to the marina and waited to board the boat. I was praying that I wouldn't get sea-sick (I get really travel-sick, especially on boats). When I was younger I couldn't even make the Dover-Calais ferry crossing without throwing up.....hence the reason that I haven't really been on a boat for any length of time for about 12 years! Luckily, travel-sickness tablets have improved in the last 12 years and I just about made the 1hr 20min journey by sitting out on the front deck.

I'd paid for one introductory SCUBA dive, meaning that I could be taken down 12 meters maximum. I was in the first group to go and, after demonstrating the necessary 'skills' , I jumped in! We had to do two skills again under water. The first was clearing your mask of water, which involved looking up, holding the top of your mask, and breathing out through your nose. The second one was taking the mouthpiece out of your mouth and swapping it for the emergency one, then swapping back again. It was a bit weird to breathe under water at first but not to difficult. Another important thing to do was to equalise pressure by popping your ears, just like on a plane. Finally, you have you breathe steadily and deeply and never hold your breath (or your lungs could explode!).

After all that it was time to go down. We held onto a guide-rope and followed it down to the bottom. The first site was not particularly colourful, but had loads of fish. We also saw a shark, about two meters in length! Unlike the last time I saw a shark (while snorkeling), this one really did look like JAWS! All of a sudden it was already time to go up again, 30 minutes had passed like it was 5. The instructor (called Yuki) said I must be comfortable in the water because I didn't use much air at all :)

It was so amazing that I decided to do another dive at the next site! This time I could go straight down without doing any of the skills. The second site had the most amazing coral you could ever imagine! All different bright colours with lots of weird and wonderful fish swimming around. We also saw a couple of sea turtles, much bigger than I expected, that swam right up to us and let us touch them! This time Yuki took the other two people up and told me to wait, then she took me around for another 10 minutes because I had so much air left :)

I couldn't resist doing another dive at the third and final site....when am I ever gonna be on the Great Barrier Reef again! This time, when we got to the bottom, a gigantic black and white striped fish (much bigger than me) swam right up to us. Yuki held it under the chin (if fish have chins?!) and it just sat there while we touched it. This area of the reef had a pyramid of coral that stuck up out of the water and an unbelievable amount of fish. You could swim right through big schools of fish and they wouldn't even bother moving much! We saw trumpet fish, a batfish, a big clam and much more. You could put your hand inside the clam and it would snap closed, making it difficult to get it out again! Once again I got to stay down a bit longer cos I had loads of air left.

The sea-sickness tablets knocked my out on the way back (thankfully). I woke up just in time to get my certificate (yay!) and pay for my extra dives (boo!). Diving the Great Barrier Reef is probably the best thing I've done since I've been in Australia (and probably the most expensive!), can't wait to do it again one day!



A section of waterfall at Crystal Cascades



A little turtle coming up for air at the cascades



The swimming hole I jumped in at



Port Douglas



Palm trees at Port Douglas



My dive boat 'SilverSonic'



The reef, its 100 times better under the water!