The day after the dive course ended, after a lie-in till 10am (wow) we hit the shuttle bus up to Port Douglas, a pretty little sailing village with a lovely beach. After a chilled day here we returned to Cairns and got ready to head to Magnetic Island. After our first greyhound trip down we caught a ferry out to the island to our Base Backpackers right on the beach. After a stressful couple of hours sorting out our Whitsundays sailing trip and Fraser Island sand dune trip we went in the pool, cooked dinner and had a well earned wine and pool playing relaxation session, ha ha, kind of well earned anyway.
The next day we got the bus to Bungalow Bay, a resort where we shared a little thatched hut and went to the koala sanctuary next door where we got to hold a crocodile, lizard, koala and snake. Great photo opps had there. After another trip to the beach where there was no swimming allowed due to jelly fish stingers, we came back to the resort for some thai food. The next day we caught a bus, then a ferry, then a greyhound down to Airlie Beach. After arriving in Airlie Beach and waiting for an hour and a half before some bimbo from the backpackers came to pick us up (sorry to slate female kind but she didn't even apologise) we arrived at the hostel, cooked dinner, bumped into the Swedes again and then packed again.
The following morning we boarded The Card. Supposedly one of the fastest sailboats in the Whitsundays, it was big and impressive. 23 of us crammed into the boat in rather cosy bunks down below and got ready for a good 3 days sailing. The first day passed with lunch, some snorkelling, a trip to Whitehaven beach (a stunning white sanded spit of sand) and lookout, some dinner on the boat and some amazing southern hemisphere star gazing with a goon in hand (aussie word for wine in a cardboard box - we adapted it to call it our wine baby).
The second day we spent snorkelling and chilling out and doing some sailing, everyone chipped in, it was great to whip across the sea at a vast rate of knots. That evening we disembarked onto South Molle Island where we swam in their pool and spar with the help of a chocolate cocktail and then went for dinner and drinks in a bar/shack with 150 other passengers on other boats from the same company. It was great fun until a dutch girl from our group started drinking her own alcohol she had brought into the bar and our entire group got thrown out due to the license rules. Back on the boat we continued the party with some awesome on-deck dancing and then we did a night sail without any lights which was thrilling.
The next day, we snorkelled again, spent some time on another golden beach exploring the reef around it, had lunch and did some more sailing through an unexpected hail storm and then arrived back in Airlie Beach, tired but very satisfied about 5pm. This was just in time to shower, eat and say goodbye to our buds and catch the overnight Greyhound for Hervey Bay.
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