Whitsundays...

After leaving Magnetic Island the next stop with the Oz Experience bus was Airlie beach, this is the place for sailing and the part of my trip I was probably most excited for. Our boat was called the Boomerang which was once a racing boat and had won a fair few races. There was 26 of us in total plus 3 crew members who stayed on the boat for 2 days and 2 nights. Before getting on the boat we had to throw our shoes in a bag as we were to be barefoot the whole time which I loved. The bottom of the boat was were our beds were, it was open plan and hot meaning the majority of people chose to sleep outside on the deck at night time. We had to help out raising and lowering the sails which was fun and quite comical, especially for me and my weak arms! We sailed for a good few hours and all got talking, I got talking to 2 guys on the boat who as it turned out were also from Durham and knew quite a few people I also knew, small world. Our first stop, we all got stinger suited up and got into the water to do a bit of snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. Back to the boat we had some good food and spent the night drinking and chatting on deck until we tired ourselves out and went to sleep. The next morning we got back into the sea for some more snorkeling and found Nemo! We then set sail to Whitsunday Island where we spent the afternoon on Whitehaven beach. This place was unreal, I have seen pictures and postcards and none of them do justice to seeing it for real. This beach had the whitest sand and clearest sea I have ever seen, I think we were all in awe of the sheer beauty of the place, just a shame we could only go into the sea wearing our stinger suits...stupid jellyfish! Once back on the boat we had yet more good food, drinks and chats before we all went to sleep on our last night on the boat. Our last morning saw just a few people go out for one last snorkel before we set sail back to Airlie Beach. As I said this was one of the things I was most excited for on my trip and went above and beyond me expectations, I had the most amazing time and was sad to be back on land.