27/03/13 Rainbow Beach

After a nice short hop from Hervey Bay I had a bit of a wait for a girl at the hostel – who said she was 3 days into the job – to sort out a booking problem for the couple in front. Because the dorms were so busy they had to put me in a dorm at a unit about 5 minutes’ walk from the hostel. Another lady drove me round to it, and left me with the key. But when I tried the key out it led me into a double room. What an accidental score! I had the place to myself until early evening, but I didn’t hang around as the beach beckoned.

Rainbow Beach is so called because of coloured rocks that can be seen just along the coast. By coloured, they’re all kind of orange, but still a pretty sight and it distinguishes this beach from the many others. I walked up a bit and noticed much more coffee rock as I’d seen on Fraser Island. This indicates a forest would have been in the area a very long time ago. The trees disintegrate and mix with the sand to form this soft, dark rock…which many people had taken the opportunity to carve their name into.

I decided to stop and sit on a bigger one of these rocks and right in front of me was a rainbow! Many people walked past me and nobody else seemed to notice it. But I should have known what it meant…moments later I ran from the beach as it started tipping it down.

The next day I came back from the beach to find myself being kicked out of my accidental double room, which was to house a lovely Irish couple so I didn't mind. After a chat with them I went out for a sunset jog. The full moon looked absolutely amazing. When I got back everyone was out so I spent the entire evening self-indulgently watching the news!

The bed in the dorm was the worst I’d experienced yet in Australia, but that was probably advantageous, as I was wide awake well before my alarm which I’d set to catch the sunrise. And it was well worth rising for….

I’d have loved to have gone on one of those tag-along tours where you get to drive the 4x4 on the beach and go camping…but a shortage of time and money made me think a one day tour was enough for now. Hopefully I’ll go back one day with friends and spend a whole week camping and dingo spotting!

The bus picks you up from your hostel and takes you to the ferry terminal. The ferry over take about half an hour and then you get onto a 4wd bus which takes you to the various  points of interest. 

I sat next to a German girl called Rici who was a fab person to spend the day with. Our first stop was ‘Central Station’ which I, like most people, had expected to have ‘things’ in it. Maybe a shop. No – it’s so called because it’s the old central forestry station, so it’s basically just a clearing. We couldn’t do the nearby board walk over the creek because recent storms had helped put a tree through the walkway! 

Then it was time to drive on the beach. The weather was amazing and the beach – aptly named ’75 mile beach’ goes on as far as the eye can see. Within minutes we saw a pair of dingoes. They were much fluffier than I was expecting. But there are warnings all over the island about how dangerous they can be.

The journey became quite bouncy and Rici was scared. I loved it and I hoped it would get worse! Then – highlight of the day for me – the bus got stuck in the sand! So we all had to pile out while the driver tried to dig his way out of trouble. A group of us tried to push, but to no avail. Eventually another tour bus turned up and gave us a tow. But when we were back on the bus the driver said he had a confession to make. He’d left the bus in 2wd!

We went up to the shipwreck and we were a bit behind schedule by now so it was just a quick photo stop. Then to the coloured rocks of the Pinnacles, and finally a stop at Eli Creek which we could walk up for a couple of hundred metres. 

After lunch the final stop was Lake McKenzie. It’s what’s known as a ‘perched lake’ formed 80 metres above sea level on the top of a sand dune. The whole of Fraser is just one big pile of sand. It’s the biggest sand island in the world. Because of the ecology and acidity of the lake, not a lot lives in there. But I did, for about 40 minutes! It seemed cold at first and the sun wasn’t particularly strong, but I loved the chance for a good, energetic swim and another reason to put my genius underwater case that I’d bought in Cairns to good use! 

So then it was time to get the bus/ferry/bus back to the hostel and enjoy my final night with my old colleague Laura. We thought we’d go back to Houlihan’s in Hervey Bay, but it was closed. The whole city was closed. There were no cars and no people to be seen anywhere! We remembered another pub just along the street and lights were on but there were chairs on tables. They allowed us a glass of red but I’d only got about 4 sips into mine when they said they’d have to hurry us up! We couldn’t believe it! Even the quietest place in England we’re pretty sure you could drink until 11pm. Right now it wasn’t far beyond half past nine! 

So we sulked off home and ended our night entirely sober!

The day had finally arrived – my friend Laura Burns who is the former Suffolk Reporter for ITV Anglia was in a place that I was going to be in. After 2 months our paths were crossing!

The bus to Hervey Bay was a dream. Not only was it just a few hours compared to fifteen, but those girls I know from Agnes Water were on it so I had someone to chat to during our enforced meal break at Gin Gin. I was picked up by the man from ‘The Friendly Hostel’ which ingenious Laura had found and I was with her by mid afternoon. We managed about one glass of coke before cracking open the wine and we talked and talked until we decided it was time to go to the pub. 

As if we hadn’t talked enough for the last four hours we sat outside an Irish bar called Houlihan's to gossip even more and eventually we had a bit of a boogie to the live covers band – Sons of Jen – who were playing. It was a bit tricky to get out of the bar at the end of the night as a group of intriguingly dressed women had taken rather a liking (so Laura says) to me and were trying to tempt us onwards....we managed to avoid Hervey Bay's one and only club...we had to save some excitement for the following night!

The next day we hit the beach. It’s the first time in my life I think I’ve purposefully gone sunbathing. And I paid the price. I thought I’d put loads of screen on but I must have missed a bit on my arms. It’s no fun being ginger in a sub-tropical climate! I had a swim but then got scared because I thought there was something floating next to me. I was probably right as there were loads of dead jellyfish on the beach. 

So sunbathing was out and swimming was out, so we went food shopping. We came back for sunset and invested in a bottle of vodka. This geared us up for what has to be my weirdest clubbing experience ever. We went to Vipers and I loved the house music, but the people in there were dancing so weirdly that at times I was laughing so much I had to grip onto the wall! It was sort of wildly enthusiastic dad-dancing with some mad facial expressions thrown in and a total lack of self-awareness or awareness of others’ personal space. And we were probably the oldest people in there by about a decade! 

On Sunday there was a cultural festival in town. It was a great day. Laura had a head start on tanning while I tried to sort out a place to live in Sydney, then I got to the beach and while I was on a phone call Laura spotted a TV News cameraman who she approached. She eventually got interviewed! I had to go back by 3pm for a skype tour of my new home and then it was cider o’clock. We spent the evening having a pizza and a couple of glasses of red to celebrate a relaxing but productive day. 

On Monday I booked a tour to see Fraser Island and we then took a big walk around the ‘city’ which took us all the way up until lunch time. We had a little beach time after lunch and watched the sunset, and then enjoyed a TV dinner watching the news, followed by Home and Away. Laura had been to Palm Beach and met some of the cast so it was good for me (I stopped watching in the early 90s!) to put faces to names! 

One of the girls in my dorm at Agnes Water had warned me about Bundaberg, and specifically about the hostel she stayed in. But I thought I’d be fine because I’d read about a hostel called ‘Cellblock’ which was in an old prison. She was sad she hadn’t thought of that. I thought it would be quite cool.

But in reality it was a good kilometre from the bus stop, and absolutely choc-full of farm working backpackers. They were nice people, very nice, but their demeanour was different to your average backpacker. Many of them were quite jaded because of a lack of work, and at night they all put sheets across their dorm beds for privacy. I’d never seen that done before!

My only reason for coming to Bundaberg was for the rum. I felt like the only tourist in a town that’s absolutely NOT touristy. There’s not a map in sight, and no adverts for the distillery. I asked a lady where the CBD was and she indicated that I was kind of in it! WHAT?! A café, a McDonalds and a couple of hairdressers. This is the biggest town for miles…this can’t be it!

I walked to the bus station which had absolutely nobody in it. But there was a map in there, which told me I’d have to walk for about 45 minutes to get to the distillery. Time was ticking on, so I just went.

It was a hot walk through industrial estates and past the flood-damaged cricket ground. I also passed a river with some carpet in a tree, which the floods must have put there. I finally reached the distillery.

The tour took you to see the raw molasses, the cleaning and fermenting process, the massive casks they age the stuff in and then bottling. But it was clear where we all wanted to end up. The good old tasting session! I had a go at a rum which is worth $90 a bottle. And for my second taste I had the spiced rum, but I did have to dilute it with a little mixer. The tour was full of big burley men. One of them was there, from Sydney, to work on flood damage. I spoke mostly to a German/Austrian couple who let me share some of their samples because they were driving! There’s a tip – always befriend a driver on any distillery tour!

So nicely relaxed for my walk back I decided I was going to challenge myself to stay out as long as possible because the dorm room basically smelt like it had no air in it. After a good walk round town where I discovered something that was a bit more town centreish, a tree full of noisy parrots and some pizza to eat, I found a licensed café with wifi and started this blog! And then amazingly I slept like a log! 

Post-flooding roadworks and bad weather meant my overnight bus was even later than expected. These trips are weird. You might think ‘no problem I’ll just sleep’ but the legally required ‘meal’ breaks mean you’re interrupted seemingly every 4 hours. Annoyingly you HAVE to get off the bus. And what I didn’t spend on accommodation, I did spend on junk food. At times like 3am I lacked logic and self-control.

At first the bus seemed like it was taking every side road imaginable to pick up no one. As I went through Ayr I thought of a girl from Cork I’d met on Magnetic Island who’d recently been protected from a crazy mulleted lesbian who was chasing her by some kind but also slightly odd bar staff. And the meal breaks are all at awful BP stations. None of your motorway services like the UK. Oh no. There’s little seating. I tend to stand and read as many papers as I can, maybe buy something, take as long as I can to visit the bathroom, walk around in the dark for a bit, and the time is usually up by then. 

And it’s just like sleeping on the plane. You wake up either in unimaginable pain or with totally dead limbs. At least I’m blessed with decent sleeping ability so I actually didn’t feel too whacked fifteen and a half hours later when we turned up at Agnes Water. But it was raining. And it never stopped. I caught the first shuttle from my Nomads hostel into ‘town’. Oh my God I thought I’d been to some quiet places but Agnes Water is like one of those small and dreadful out of town shopping centres you get in chavvy parts of British Cities, but without the threatening feeling!

I tried to work out how I was going to get to see Town of 1770 – which Captain Cook had a good look around in said year – but there’s no public transport and there were no bikes available for hire and it was raining. So, er, I booked the first Greyhound out of town the next morning and thought 1770 will have to wait for another time.

One really good thing was the wonderful girls in my dorm though. And free wifi. Wooppeee! We sat in the bar together most of the night mixing computer chores with gossip. But when last orders happened at 9:30 we were again puzzled! This country seems to be two polar opposites – either SO dead you can’t even have a pint post 9:30 or backpackers getting absolutely blasted on horrible goon! My camp is somewhere between the two.

So Agnes Water, I’m sure you’re beautiful, but I had a couple of pressing issues ahead. The first of these: Bunderberg Rum. 

I’d heard good things about what appeared to be the only hostel in town, so I called them and asked if there was a shuttle. The man said ‘it’s only 500 metres’. Well! I’m not usually one to be lazy, but as a backpacker you accumulate things like industrial sized sun cream, insect repellent, Tupperware tubs and food. I can walk a good kilometre in humidity with all this but I prefer not to! Anyway, I walked there and the man wasn’t welcoming in the slightest and said the only dorm room left was sharing with one man. It had been the warmest day I’d felt for a long while and I was sad to leave Maggie and totally knackered so this was the last thing I needed. So I called a taxi and splashed out on my own room at a really quaint guest house where I had my own TV, air con, an immaculate kitchen all to myself, and wifi. I didn’t care – I had an overnight bus the following day so I would be saving money on accommodation anyway. And the proprietor was so nice, he let me use all the facilities all the next day – even keeping my room! So I was well fed and showered before getting on my bus at 7pm. It’s well worth pretending not to be a backpacker from time to time! Especially in weird places like Townsville. 

Townsville doesn’t seem to be doing very well. Every other shop is closed. It looks like your average British High Street really. I visited a couple of shops. Shops are now frankly as much of a novelty as TV, the internet and normal food! It’s a weird old life on the road. Anyway, my new-found interest in the sea tempted me to pay the huge entrance fee to Reef HQ, the world’s largest coral reef aquarium. It was pretty decent. I went to the talk about turtles and looked round the turtle hospital. I went to the talk about predators and felt some shark teeth and other scary products of the sea, I watched feeding time, stroked some starfish, and learnt about cool looking things like pipe fish, and my favourite, the saw fish. However, there are more volunteers than there are tourists and they are incredibly helpful and full of interesting information, but they obviously don’t have that many people to talk to in the day…if you catch my drift. It was sometimes difficult to enjoy the exhibitions in a world of your own thoughts. 

But one of them did introduce me to Nemo. The ACTUAL Nemo that the film producers had seen before producing the film. Apparently. So I found Nemo. There’s an achievement for the day if nothing else! 

Each bus journey so far had taken a few hours. Not much progress since my entire East coast trip will probably be in the region of 50 hours! The bus drops you at the Townsville Ferry Terminal and it’s very easy to just get a ticket and jump on the next ferry. The ferry journey takes about half an hour and at the other end I had a Rolls Royce waiting to pick me up!

I stayed at the Arcadia Beach Guest House having picked it because of what Lonely Planet had said about it. It was sort of a hostel as it had a dorm room, but it was slightly better quality and reasonably quiet. It must have been the place for people my age as during the course of the week I met four other people there who were 31 years old! I’m not sure why they’ve got a Roller to ferry backpackers around but I wasn’t complaining!

I’d come at a strange time. The owner, Craig, who lives in Brisbane, was in charge this week as the managers were taking some leave. So Craig also had a few workers in to do odd jobs and housekeeping. These were Michael from Crosby Beach, Merseyside, Celia from France and Katie from Germany. Andy and Deborah were also from Brisbane, and they were taking care of reception.

Each night we all ate together out the front. The bar was either made from an old boat or at least in the style of a boat. And across the road was the sea. It was excellent. Having found such a relaxed bunch of people in such a beautiful spot, I was quaffing my Jacob’s Creek rather enthusiastically while we poured over the map and discussed all the different places we would like to see or had seen. 

Then the conversation turned to diving. I’d always wanted to get my PADI Scuba Diving Licence but I was waiting for the right time to find me, rather than forcing the issue. I would have done it years ago if I hadn’t have been massively scared of water, depths, big things underwater like rays and shipwrecks, seaweed and choking. Other than that, getting my licence was a no brainer!

 

The very next day Craig had me signed up. There was no going back. It was Wednesday and the course was to begin on Friday. On the Wednesday I did one of my usual recces, just spending a bit of time getting to know where everything is and taking loads of photos of very attractive beaches. That night it was the weekly cane toad racing. I went into a syndicate with Craig and we won! Between rounds the host – Vern – asks the crowd general knowledge questions in which a pen is given for each right answer. I won two pens as the subject was geography….pretty much my favourite. Vern is a bit of a legend, really old, really well travelled and willing to put a cane toad’s head in his mouth. He made my winner kiss my cheek. I thought they were supposed to be poisonous! 

On the Thursday I had my dive medical – which I passed with flying colours – and then went off to Picnic bay from where I did the Hawking Boulder walk and saw some fabulous white bellied sea eagles. No drinking for me that night, as Friday was a big day and an early start.

There was only me and one other girl, Sunny, on my PADI course. She was 17 and from Alaska but living on Maggie Island with her family for half a year as her Mum’s Australian. Me and Sunny were left in a boiling room at the side of the dive shop to watch three intolerable dive videos back to back while doing a test at the end of each one. At lunchtime I had to lie down in my dark, air-conditioned dorm. It was all too much! After lunch it was time to choose our equipment and get into the pool. This is where my problems started. I hadn’t realised the compressed air was going to be so dry. I had an operation on my vocal cords a few years back so I like to have water available to me at all times in case I get the stabbing sensation I have in my throat from time to time. This wasn’t going to be an option underwater so that was my first worry. 


Secondly it was really noisy! I wasn’t expecting so many bubbles…I thought it would be peaceful! I hated the entire thing and was pretty close to panic. I even cried – which is pretty unusual for me. At the end of the session the instructor told me it was probably going to take a bit longer than usual to get me through the course. I felt like a total failure. I considered all the options: run away and lose my money, take longer to do it (and I didn’t really want to be on Maggie any longer – I was already up to 6 nights) or just man up and face my fears. I spent the evening with the family from Alaska, then had a conversation with my sister – who is also a diver – sent a few miserable texts to people to tell them how rubbish I was, then read as much as I could of the PADI book and tried to talk myself into it.

It obviously worked. The next morning three others joined us and we were straight into the pool for skills like mask removal. I spent 10 minutes underwater and when I’d completed all the tasks without freaking out I felt it was one of my biggest achievements ever! From there I just relaxed into it and by that evening I’d done a dive in the sea at Alma Bay. 24 hours earlier I was thinking that would be totally impossible. It just shows what you can talk yourself into!

The following day we did three open water dives. The first was in Geoffrey Bay where there’s a shipwreck called the Moltke. Now THIS would be a challenge. I’ve long been fearful of the thought of shipwrecks but there was no getting out of it now. Luckily the visibility was pretty appalling so the thing just emerged all of a sudden and actually because it was surrounded by coral and lovely fish I decided I quite liked it. We did some skills and I got through it. 

The next dive was very similar but with fewer skills to complete. As we approached the wreck I had a moment where it all clicked and I suddenly understood why people dive. My favourite skill was the emergency ascent, where you blow bubbles all the way to the surface. A chance above the water to enthuse to my instructor, Rob, who’d clearly picked up on my body language that I was having a good time.

The final dive was back at Alma Bay and it was lovely. Rob found a sea cucumber, and he made white stuff – similar to a spider’s web – come out of it, and he was wrapping it round people’s hands. I found a bit on my hand much later that evening by which time it was like dried glue. 

But there was still a bit of business to be done. A 60 question exam, which I passed, and finally at about 6pm I was handed my temporary diving licence. Unbelievable. I asked Rob if he often got people who made such a fuss like me, and he said he often gets couples made up of one person who really wants to do it, and the other who couldn’t care less or thinks they can’t. He says more often than not it’s the cautious one who ends up loving diving the most. So there’s hope for me in the sport I reckon!

The next day I had to leave Maggie Island. I didn’t really want to, which is probably why I ended up making the mistake of getting the sunset ferry and arriving in Townsville in the dark, which I wouldn’t recommend. 

I’d been told by various people that Mission beach was quiet and boring, which some people would find a turn off. I’m positively attracted to the idea of total boredom!

I booked for one night, but within 20 minutes of arriving I was in love with the place and extended my stay to three nights. The beach was just fantastic. Absolutely massive with almost nobody on it. The skies were blue and the breeze helped temper the humidity – such a relief after 6 days in Cairns and the rainforest. Palm trees lined the entire beach, hiding any development. If you like long, lonely beach walks, this is the place for you. 

The only trouble is at certain times of the year you can’t swim in northern Queensland for fear of marine stingers – certain very dangerous types of jellyfish. The Box Jellyfsh can kill you and the thumbnail sized iricangji can cause some rather nasty problems. There are stinger nets at North Mission and South Mission beach, but I was at Wongaling Beach in the middle and either net is an hour’s walk.

The evening I arrived, which was a Saturday, the hostel – Absolute Backpackers – put on a free barbeque. They even catered for my vegetarian ways! I sat with a bunch of Swedish people and asked them all about their travels. Their trips all seemed to revolve around getting very, very drunk. Whenever I’ve said that’s not what I’m here for, various people have said ‘ooh that’ll change’. Which it most definitely won’t unless there’s a miraculous turnaround in the exchange rate! I’m not stooping to ‘goon’: the horrible cheap wine that everyone here drinks. One of the backpackers had his working holiday visa but was about to fly home after two months. He said ‘I’ve had enough, my liver can’t take it anymore’. I was horrified! How can someone have so little strength of character that they’re willing to give up such a fantastic opportunity because they can’t say no to backpacker partying?! 

The next day (Sunday) I did a rainforest walk which took 1.5hrs. The shuttle that took me there carried the backpackers I’d met the night before up to North Mission beach where there are about 2 shops. When I’d returned having seen a monitor lizard, about half a dozen different butterflies and the most fabulous scenery I asked the guys what they’d been up to and they’d done nothing. They hadn’t even been to the beach!

That afternoon I walked to the creek at South Mission so all up at least 3 hours of walking in a day. My feet hurt a lot. Maybe I should have just sat around drinking goon?!

Monday morning I was up early because I wanted to take a bike out and go cassowary spotting. I didn’t see any cassowaries but I did ride past a squashed cane toad – the first I’d seen. It was the size of it that made me turn around to inspect the corpse….and as I did so I saw my first wallaby! It was quite far away and I couldn’t recognise the way it moved at all. I thought it was a dingo. After that I saw a good handful as I burned around the area. And I was about to see a LOT more….

That afternoon there was a chance to meet a local lady called Tanya who runs a wallaby and kangaroo sanctuary (they are two different animals. Basically roos are bigger). It was amazing – my favourite experience yet! Tanya gets called out to road accidents involving these creatures and she searches the pouches for joeys. We saw animals of all different ages and got to stroke and cuddle them. My favourite was one called Elliot who licked our legs! 

That was quite enough excitement for one day so I spent the entire rest of the day talking…and the people who run Absolute Backpackers convinced me to make my next stop Magnetic Island. It was to be a very good idea. 

I’d considered getting ‘public’ transport to Cape Tribulation as I’d been recommended a particular hostel up there, but the price of a return ticket was equal to the tour and all its additions so it was a no brainer to get on the bus with Active Tropics.

Our tour guide Leah took us up to the Daintree River for a boat ride, where the entrance to the jetty is marked by a giant open-jawed croc. The point of this boat trip is the croc spotting, but we didn’t see any. 

The next stop was a rainforest walk, which I found absolutely mesmerising. About halfway through it I felt like I’d regressed to being my 8-year-old self, who was obsessed with going to the Amazon. Somehow through the course of my life I had forgotten about that wish, but the humidity and the smell and the sounds of the rainforest were exactly how I’d imagined, and I loved it! Unfortunately the walk was over within 20 minutes and then we were packed off to our hostel – Cape Trib Beach House.

The first thing I did was go for a walk along the beach with a girl called Lucy who was from Hampshire. Cape Tribulation is where the rainforest meets the reef, and the beach there was a very good example of that. We were feeling fairly relaxed when I suddenly had the thought that this was the habitat of crocs and cassowaries (massive birds that can run 100kms an hour!). I spent the rest of the afternoon in the safety of the swimming pool. 

There was a bar, but the exchange rate prevents one consuming any more than a mere schooner (somewhere between a half and a pint) so it was a quiet night but plenty of people about to talk to. I spent my time with Lucy, Volker (from Germany), Liv (from the Faroe Islands) and Paula who was also from Germany. While I wrote my travel diary I noticed a visitor in our dorm. A mouse was warming up Liv’s bed for her, and it later transpired that she had some nuts in her bag. Food is a total nightmare in northern Queensland. You have to lock it all away. Even if nothing big comes for it, there are tiny ants everywhere. 

We slept well but the morning brought dreadful rain. It was such a shame – I wanted to hire a bike and go to Myall Creek, but instead I sat there talking to backpackers outside reception for two hours while we waited for our bus. Boo!

Today’s tour guide was Jim. The highlight of the day was Volker spotting a Cassowary in the bush next to the road. They’re so rare, and having not seen a croc the previous day this was a real treat. It was only a baby one, but exciting nevertheless.

We travelled up to Mossman Gorge for an ‘Aboriginal Experince’ where the man taught us fascinating stuff that can be done with plants. For example sarasparilla leaves, when crushed with water, turn into soap!

Some people had a dip in the river, I went off to see the swing bridge, and we fitted in a quick jaunt round Port Douglas before being dropped off in Cairns. These tours are nice, but they’re so time restricted you never get to feel the soul of a place. At least I did the overnight though – to fit all that into one day would be quite exhausting! 

So after my bag incident, Cairns had a couple of points to win back. And it did so...with fruit bats! I was just on my way to open a bank account - feeling a little jaded and jet lagged - when I looked up to see what the tremendous noise above me was. It was an entire tree of these lovely creatures. 

In the following days I started to find my feet, and discover that now I was reliant on public transport that 'tours' were the only way to see the places I wanted to go - like Cape Tribulation. Backpacking is an expensive business, and very much a business opportunity for seemingly every shop in Cairns. There are more diving offers here than there are fish in the sea. I booked onto two tours - one, a sailing and snorkelling trip to Green Island on the Great Barrier Reef, and the other, an overnight visit to Cape Tribulation - which is as far north as the sealed road goes in Australia. After that you need a 4wd. 

I based myself in Castaway’s backpackers for my trips. Because I booked through them they were able to shuttle me into town for the reef trip, and store my stuff while I was away at Cape Trib. Having got my bag back (!), opened my bank account, applied for a tax file number, got used to the climate, booked my tours, bought my Greyhound bus ticket to Sydney and spoken to my family, Wednesday 6th March was my first opportunity for ‘fun’! I was dropped off at the reef terminal at about 7am and less than an hour later we were sailing towards Green Island. As I stepped onto the boat I was flashed a lovely smile by a girl, so I sat with her. Her name was Frankie and she came from Honiton in Devon. She was severely lacking sleep due to backpacker rowdiness at Gilligan’s, and at the age of 27 she felt far too old for all this. Which is why at the age of nearly 32 I do lots of research about my hostels! 

The journey to Green Island took about 2 hours, in which time we got given snorkels and masks and got fitted out with fins. The divers had a briefing while the rest of us just chatted and enjoyed the view. Although the view was a bit worrying because the horizon was absolutely black! There was a cyclone sitting off the coast, which was the talk of the town. But I was assured the black stuff wouldn’t come anywhere near us!

When we arrived we were given stinger suits because of the risk of jellyfish in these warm waters, and off we went. I love snorkelling but this wasn’t one of my most relaxing experiences. The current was quite strong and I spent most of my time checking my position in relation to the boat. I did spot a fellow snorkeller with a shoal of fish around them and I started shouting in excitement through my snorkel. I got a snap of this, having bought the most ingenious underwater camera cover for a mere $45! It also offers sand protection so a very worthy investment I feel!

I saw some pretty cool bits of reef – ones that looked like brains, some were like trees, some opened and closed. But the best stuff was as I approached the boat towards the end. MASSIVE fish everywhere. I was surprised I coped! After I got out of the water someone said there was a shark. My highly unusual reaction (for me anyway) was to grab the nearerst mask and get straight back in. I just about saw it – a black-tipped reef shark. Totally harmless. I saw it again later, and a few more.

After lunch it was time to get a smaller boat over to Green Island. A real-life tropical island! On it there’s some sort of wildlife park, but I didn’t really want to add a further $20 to my bill and we didn’t have long on there so me and my new friends – Frankie, plus Pete and Kirsty - a couple from the south of England walked through the rainforest and back along the beach before going for a dip while we waited for the boat. The water was immense. I discovered I could just float. I guess I’ve never tried before because the sea I’ve been in has either been cold or had waves.

We caught the boat back to the big sailing boat where we had the chance for another half hour or so of snorkelling. On the way back to Cairns they turn the engines off and put the sails up. It was pretty choppy – apparently a great day for sailing. We had a glass of white wine and some cheese and biscuits and myself and Frankie felt our first shivers in the tropics! The weather was a bit rubbish and it was pretty cold on the deck, in wet swimming gear. 

That night I only had a few hours to turnaround ready for my tour to Cape Trib and even though it wouldn't be a lot for some people, after such a delightfully different and, in a way, physically challenging day I was whacked!