Australia Sunshine

Hello hello!
We've been so busy the last week with our trips to Fraser Island and Sailing/scuba diving and snorkeling in the Whitsundays and making our way North that there's so much to write about! I'll apologize in advance for the length of this entry :)
We're LOVING australia - the sunshine and beaches continue to be absolutely AMAZING. We're working hard on our tans, and the weather has been cooperating BEAUTIFULLY...only sunshine, with highs around 26-29 since our last day of rain about a week and a half ago.

So to sum up our escapades over the past week-ish, we took a 2-day tour of Fraser Island, and then continued North towards Airlie Beach and our Sailing trip in the Whitsundays. It took us about 3 days to get to Airlie Beach, and we stopped at Noosa and Agnes Water on the way, two cute little towns with gorgeous beaches. We arrived in Airlie Beach the day before our sailing trip, and hung out in the town (which is pretty much a beautiful sea-side town filled with backpackers and young people working on the sail boats) and enjoyed a movie night at our hostel (Vicky, Christina, Barcelona - great movie). We then jumped abord 'Spank Me' - our sail boat for 3 nights / 4 days and sailed to the great barrier reef and the whitsunday islands. Once back in Airlie Beach, we continued north to a tiny beach town called Mission Beach for a night, and then up, past Cairns, to Port Douglas, where we are now for a few nights before we head to Cairns on Monday to catch a flight to Sydney!

A few of the highlights from the last week:

- Fraser Island - a big sand island, covered in rainforest, with the most gorgeous lakes (we swam in Lake Mackenzie, which is the most unbelievable blue colour, and lake Waby, which we had to walk to over a huge sand blow, and then pooof! there was the lake). The driving on the island is all off-road 4wd type driving in sand over tiny roads, so our tour 'monster truck' (similar to the buses on the glaciers back home) raced around the island and showed us the sites. We lucked out, and our tour, which normally should have 40 people in it only had 14, all around our age, and really fun people. So a great time :)

- Sailing. Definitely an absolute HIGHLIGHT of the entire trip. The boat (which normally should have had 26 guests and 4 crew) only had 15 guests, which was GREAT, and it was a really nice group, about 6 dutch, 5 canadians and a few brits. We sailed around the whitsunday islands, got to hang out and play frisbee on Whitehaven Beach (which is beautiful - pictures to come), and we went snorkeling and diving on the Great Barrier Reef!!!! It was my first time snorkeling, and it was INCREDIBLE. We had on stinger suits (thin wet-suits to protect us from the jelly-fish that
are sometimes in the water, but we didn't come across any), and snorkeled twice for about an hour each time. We swam through schools of fish that didn't seem bothered by us at all, saw the HUGEST bat fish, and even watched a beautiful sea turtle swimming along between the reefs. Gavin and I followed it for a while, and it was sooooo beautiful! The reefs were incredible - so much coral, and bright, beautiful colours, and just so many different kinds of beautiful fish - I can't even begin to do it justice by describing it!!!! We also went diving - which was awesome.

We were taken out with a diving instructor who was one of the crew on the boat, and since it was our first time, we had to do a bunch of safety stuff (learning about our diving equipment, how to come up, breathing, clearing our masks etc.) first, but then he took us down about 12 metres, and explored the reefs, even went through some tunnel-like passages among the different sections of reef (which freaked me out!!). We saw some small sharks, and a gazillion fish, a clam that was about the entire size of my arm lengthwise, fluorescent blue / purple coral. The diving was a really neat experience, definitely going to try it again! Other than the swimming activities, the time sailing the boat was really fun - - we got to laze out on the deck suntanning and chatting with the other passengers, reading and relaxing. The skipper even caught a 2.5 footlong (12-15 pound) Mackerel, which was added to our dinner... likely the freshest fish I've ever eaten! It was delicious. So overall, a HUGE highlight to the trip! On a small side-note, the snorkeling and diving has really given me a hankering for a viewing of 'Finding Nemo' - Disney nailed it with that one...the whole time we were snorkeling I kept thinking 'this is just like
Finding Nemo - I can't believe it!! We saw a whole bunch of fish that were the model for Dory, and Nemo-like fish!)

- Port Douglas Carnival - we arrived in Port Douglas yesterday to find out that it was actually one of the biggest nights of the year for this tiny town - carnival! There was a parade in the evening with lots of floats, fireworks, a mid-way and food stalls (we had delicious salt and pepper squid,accompanied by a beer watching the parade... mmmm...). Today the festivities continued with activities on the beach and some live music, so we enjoyed that as well while we played frisbee and hung out on the beach. This town in GREAT! The beach is gorgeous, with palm trees and rainforest coming right down to the beach, hiding all of the buildings behind it, so you actually feel as though it's a perfect, remote beach! The stinger season is 'over' here, so you can swim in the deliciously warm water as well (about 26 degrees).

- Last, but not least, we continue on our search for a good sighting of a live kangaroo. Unfortunately, we've seen a lot of them as very exotic roadkill...a little traumatic. We're still holding out hope for a real one soon (well, we've sen ears in the fields as we've driven through, but not a really good sighting yet). No koala's yet either...but we're keeping our eyes peeled! Hopefully we'll see some peeking out of the banana trees or sugar canes that seem to be the standard view from the car.

From Port Douglas we're going to Cairns tomorrow night, then flying to Sydney on Monday morning, and spending a week exploring all that Sydney has to offer...and then home! I can't believe this is so close to the end of the trip - but it should be a fun-filled last few days :)

HUGE HUGS to everyone back home!

a & g