Round The World

Well, on the day of the trip, we were running a little late and thought we were gonna miss it, everyone else had gone on ahead and so we couldn't find the boat as there were hundreds of them there and we hadn't a clue what to look for. Eventually, after getting some directions (yes I know, men asking for directions, what next), we found it and jumped aboard. Running to catch the boat was made all that more difficult by the fact that we had 2 big cases of beers, and some other drinks too.

Knowing that we were slightly prone to sea sickness, we had already bought ourselves some sea-sick tablets in the chemist the day before and they absolutley worked a treat.

On the first day, we just headed out to where we were going to anchor for the night, as the boat only left about 4pm. After that, we had our dinner, and of course, opened some cans and started the party nice and early. There were two groups on the boat really, the Irish, and the other Europeans which included some Germans, French and an Austrian. The Irish girls were the first to crack open the beers, followed closely by myself and Jay of course. But the others were very reluctant and sat quietly in the corner talking amongst themselves. After a little while there was some mixing of people but not much. We didnt really stay up late that night but we had a good laugh with the girls so we still managed to have a good night.

Unfortunately, we were rudely awoken by the raising of the anchor the next morning, which literally was pulled up right beside our bed and made a frighteningly loud noise waking me up with fear at.....wait for it.......6am. This was not nice. After the noise had passed, I was looking forward to getting back asleep but the crew came around and dragged everybody out of their beds. Breakfast was cereal and toast and then at about 7:30 in the morning, the boat came to a stop at one of the islands. The place we were at was called White Haven Beach. We were told this was the 4th nicest beach in the whole world, and having seen it now, I would not try to argue that. It was continuous white sand as far as the eye could see, with crystal clear water. It being so early in the morning, after a quick swim, everybody just crashed on the beach and done a little sun bathing. We had about 2 hours there before we had to head back to the boat so it was really nice.

When we got back to the boat, we headed off for our next destination, which was where the diving was going to take place. We were doing another intro dive here. The beach they dropped us at was all stoney and not the most comfortable for hanging about on so we got our gear on, and got into the sea pretty much straight away. The dive was pretty amazing again, not quite as amazing as up in Cairns but we did see a lot of cool fish there too. I had a couple of panic moments on this one though as my mask filled up a few times and blinded me causing me to rush for the surface.

After the dive, we done some more snorkling, which I think is my preferred method for seeing the reef as its a lot less scary. It was cool there again and we saw lots of fish. There was a guy in a boat there throwing food around us so that the fish would come in really close to us.

After this, we set off again to where we were going to anchor for the night. Again, the Irish girls were the first to craic open the beers along with us. We had a couple of hours before dinner was served and then after dinner, the other group began to break out their beers. There was still a lot of segregation so the crew decided that drinking games was the way to sort this out. We all moved inside for a bit to the table and played a few different drinking games there. What they involved was everybody giving out a certain number of drinks to everyone else, depending on what cards you held in your hand. At first, their group kept making us drink and so we got revenge when we could, but eventually everyone warmed up to everyone else and we all got along great in the end.

Back out on deck then, the crew had a game for us to play which involved picking up a box from the ground with your mouth without using your hands at all (not even to touch the ground). Jason fell on the first attempt, and I only lasted a couple more but the crew being experts kept going for a long long time and were in the end, picking up a tiny bit of cardboard from the deck and still not even falling over. It was hilarious.

The captain had a guitar with him too and he took that out for a little while and played a few tunes for us all to sing along to. I think I probably did most of the singing, being drunk and all, I didnt really care how bad it sounded. But they all cheered in the end so it was great craic. The Irish girls had some crazy drinking songs too, some of them even had actions and they had us all up doing them, even the crew. It was so funny, boat moving, everyone pissed, and trying to do some crazy dance that we were learning for the first time.

Eventually people began drifting off to bed, it must have been after 1 at this stage and we were to be up by 7. But of course the trusty Irish didnt start wilting until about 3 or 3:30. The captain came back on deck then to see that we were ok and when he found out we had run out of beer.....no, he didnt send us to bed, he got us some more. So J went off to bed about 4 and myself and one of the other girls managed to make it until 4:30 before the eye lids got too heavy. The captain had let us put on our iPod through their speakers toward the end of the night so we got to choose whatever music we wanted to listen to and that was great too.

The next morning, we were all woken up early again, not by the anchor this time but by the crew as breakfast was served again. The weather that day was terrible. It was pouring down and the wind was really strong too. We were not looking forward to being left on a beach for a couple of hours but the crew would not let us stay on the boat as they had to clean it with acid and stuff.

So they ferried us over to another stoney beach that morning, and we all sat there hung over, with our towels wrapped around us, really not wanting to be there. A couple of people were doing another dive that day so they didnt mind as much, but the rest of us looked none too happy. Eventually, after about 40 mins, the crew began to feel sorry for us and brought us back onto the boat and into the comfort of our beds.

We headed back for port, had a spot of lunch on the boat again, but the weather was too bad to enjoy anything else that day. We got back about 2pm and everybody went their seperate ways. I then realised, I had caught a bit of a cold on the boat so ran to the chemist again before checking back into Magnums.

There was an Irish bar in Airlie Beach too of course and we drank in there a couple of nights. It was in there that we got to see Dublin throw away their chance at an All-Ireland final. The bar was pretty good and was open until 3am every night. After that it was across the road to Mama Africa's which was even later and stayed open until 5 or 6 in the morning.

This was great for us as we had been staying in quiet places before this and we really wanted a good night out. While we were staying in Magnums, we booked our trip for the Whit Sundays. It was a sailing boat called New Horizon, and it was for 3 days and two nights on board. We found out just before we left that our room mates (2 German girls) and 5 other Irish girls that we had bumped into when they were very drunk on Maggie Island were gonna be on our boat so we thought it should be good craic.

It was leaving on the Tuesday and so we had another night in Magnums where we went out with the American lad who was in our room, and got seriously smashed drunk as he was just buying and feeding the drink to us all night. After that, it was off to the Whit Sundays.

So off we went towards Airlie Beach. It was a 300k drive so we made a small stopover in a town along the way. It wasn't quite as backward as the last one we had stumbled across though and its main feature was a huge Mango, which we got a quick pic of while driving past.

I was very tired on the next leg of the trip, so it was time to call in the Stand-by driver. That's right!! It was Jayo's turn. He'd never driven before and had no licence but I was simply falling asleep so I called on him to drive. The car being automatic and the rodas being fairly wide and open, I knew he'd manage it no problem.

He drove for 120k and while he was driving, I managed to get some sleep. Unfortunately, the car overheated towards the end of our journey and we had to drive the last 20k at about 30k an hour. This annoyed quite a few motorists who had to overtake us on the way, but sure we had no choice so we just kept going.

We arrived in Airlie Beach and headed for Magnum's backpackers, which we got from the Lonely Planet book. They had rooms available and so we checked in to an 8 bed cabin with en-suite. These rooms were pretty cool, as they were fairly large and came with a fridge and own bathroom. unfortunately again, I only managed to get a top bunk...this had been a pain in the ass in the other hostels as it meant climbing up a stell ladder which really hurt, and the beds would always make loads of noise when you were trying to get into it. Thankfully though, these bunks were nice and low and you could just hop up onto it from the floor. Our room mates were two German girls and an american lad who loved Irish people because he was such a big drinker and they were the only ones that could keep up with him. We were fairly tired then, so it was off to bed for a quick nap.

So after the thrill of the jump, it was back in the car for our next trip which was to a place called Townsville. From there we were getting a ferry over to Magnetic Island. Can't even remember how long this drive was, think it might have been about 4 or 5 hours but I managed to do all the driving on this trip. We did manage to make a quick stop off on the way though for some food and we were in a small little town with some crazy people, especially the woman who served us our lunch.
On the way, we passed a National Park so we drove in there for a look. The main feature was a rock pool and waterfall. We got some cool photos in there, alas, gone forever, but we also had to put the car through some tough terrain tests. Every so often there was a ruffle in the bushes too but we werent sticking around long enough to find out what the hell was doing it. We managed to see a few small animals in there which was cool though.

We got to Townsville without any problems, it looked like a really nice place but we weren't staying there, we were just parking up and getting the evening ferry. The town was focused around the marina and there were pklenty of impresive yachts docked there. We were going to be on Maggie island for 3 nights so we were parking the car up for a while, the parking meters only took coins though so we hadn't got enough. We left a little note in the window to say we hadn't got enough coins and we begged them not to towe or clamp the car and that we would pay when we got back. A little worrying but it worked and the car was safe.

Maggie island was a really quiet place too, and the nightlife didn't exactly last long. The place we stayed at was called Base. The rooms were huts with 8 beds in them and they were fairly squashed too. The showers and toilets were communal here, and there was lockers provided in our room. We shared the room with an English couple, a Swiss girl, German girl, and some annoying Israeli people but they left on our second day. The view from the bar was pretty amazing to be honest, like something you would only see in the movies.

At night, there was always something happening in the bar, but it was never really that busy and there wasnt much else on the island to do at night. We were fairly cut off from everything too with a 30 minute walk to the nearest shop. We ventured out on our last night to see a football match in a sports bar on the island, which meant getting the bus there. We watched Liverpool beat West Ham and even picked up a Scouse season ticket holder on our way there. We knew the last bus home was 11:50 which was just as the match was ending so we ran out to get it, and it was just after pulling away. We didnt know at this point, but it was Saturday night, which is the busiest night on the island for taxis, and the best part......There was only 4 of them on the whole island. We began the long walk home on roads that were completely pitch dark, but eventually, and thank god for this, we saw a taxi picking up a couple a few hundred metres ahead of us on the road. Luckily enough, he waited for us and we all shared the cab back. The night before in Base, was a Karaoke night so that was pretty cool, but again, it all finished up relatively early by our standards.

As part of our trip we had booked snorkling gear and a kayak so we managed to kill some time on the island with these activities. The snorkling was nothing like it had been before and the reef looked colorless and dead when we were out. It was still pretty cool to be snorkling in clear water with some cool fish still on view.

After the three days, it was back on the ferry to Townsville, and off on our next adventure to Airlie Beach, 300k from where we were.

The next morning when we were checking out of Scotty's Beach House, the girl on reception asked us if we would like to do a Sky Dive as there were some places available for that day. We were planning a bit of a long trip that day so we asked her how late we would have to stay there. She told us we would be back on the ground, having already completed the jump within an hour and a half, and that a bus would pick us up in 30 mins. We couldn't believe it would happen that fast but we decided to go for it.

The bus picked us up, and after about 20 mins, we were at the airstrip in Tully. There was a 5 minute training course on how to position ourselves during the jump, and that was it. I had heard that in Ireland you have like a half days training to prepare for this but not here. The jump was a 14,000ft jump with a 60 second freefall. While we were there, we bumped into the guy from our room in Gilligan's. He had booked his jump over a week ago, while we were staying with him in Cairns, and here we were, about to jump before him!

We were getting the whole jump filmed so that we could get it all on DVD at the end, so the whole time, the instructors had Camcorders in our faces, capturing the nervous looks, and grins. We were brought out to the plane, and I was shocked at how small it was. There was no door on it, and just about enough room for the 8 of us to fit in. There was 4 instructors and 4 jumpers.

After the plane took off, the instructors kept showing us the gauge showing us how high we were at each stage of the climb. The view from the aeroplane was absolutley amazing. Somehow, I hadn't quite developed a fear of jumping, I guess I hadn't had enough time to think about it. Eventually, we were at the required height of 14000ft. After that, it was literally a few seconds before the first girl had jumped, Jason was in the doorway getting his countdown of 3..2..1......and he was gone,just like a concrete block, I was told to cross my arms and put my legs out the door...The force of the wind against my legs was really strong, and as I awaited some sort of a countdown, I felt a push from behind and I was already gone....I went spinning out the door, upside down, and around until finally, I was in the correct position facing the ground with the wind hurling up at me as I fell. I cant explain the sensation, it was unreal and the fact that the ground was a dot in front of me, didnt even enter my head at the time. During the 60 second freefall, my skin was forced up on my face and my mouth was blown open wide as I gasped for a breath. The instructor tried to get me to wave at the camera but I was in awe of the whole thing and didnt quite pull it off correctly as you will see from the DVD..By the end of the 60 seconds, I was beginning to feel a bit nautious, so I was relieved when he pulled the chute open.

There was a tug upwards as we slowed right down, and my body fell back into a virtical position. We had fallen 12,000ft in 60 seconds. The view from here was even more amazing, and I had a complete feeling of weighlessness. It was great. The instructor pulled on the chute a couple of times to make us do circles and that was so cool. The weather was amazing that day too so it just made the whole thing even better.

The landing spot was on Mission Beach and I could see it below me. Another couple of turns and we were coming down on it. I lifted my legs and the instructor landed us on the beach with just a little bump. It was over....and it had only just began.

We got the DVD a couple of days later and I have to say, they are absolutely hilarious. I will be getting it copied and will send a copy to you.

It took me a little while to stop looking for a clutch in the car, just out of habit. Eventually, it was too easy to drive as there wasn't much to do on the big open roads. The trip to Mission Beach was about 200k so was gonna take a little under 3 hours.

On the way there, the car was beginning to overheat so we had to make a stop and fill it with water, this happened a couple of times after that so we realised we couldnt keep doing 180k per hour in it or it would just burn up.

The Australian roads were in great condition though, much better than any of the roads back home, and the scenery was absolutely amazing so driving there was an absolute pleasure. Every few mins we passed over a creek, each with a different but unique aussie name. The rainforest was our horizon for the majority of the trip, and we had a ball getting down there.

We arrived at Mission Beach and went to a place called Scotty's as it had been recommended to us. Lucky enough they had a room available so we checked in and had a look around. The whole place was completely relaxed and there was only a small bar and cafe in the place. There was no nightclubs or anything in the area so it was just a complete chillout zone. We bumped into some girls we had met in Cairns and we had a few bottles and then went into the bar. It closed at 11 though so we literally only had a couple of drinks and then it was off to bed.

The next day, we went shopping for a car. There was one place that was recommended as a garage, and that was Travellers Autobarn. They were looking for quite a bit more than we had planned to pay though, about 3.5k. There was a buy back scheme where they would guarantee to take it back from you but we felt that was already added to the price so we headed back to the hostel to have a look at the notice board instead.

As we were reading through the notice board, we saw a Ford (Millenium) Falcon advertised for 2.2k with its NCT equivalent done in July. As we were looking at it, a voice came over our shoulder saying we should buy it cos its a great car. Needless to say, it was the two gorls that were selling it. They had originally put the wrong phone number on the ad and so had come back to change it. We put it all down to fate and went round to take the car for a test drive. The car was running smoothly enough for one that was 16 years old. It was a 3.9 litre estate. It had electric windows, mirrors, air con and it was an automatic. There was a little graphic of some girls face on the side of it too but we didnt care to be honest. We bargained them down to 1.8k and agreed the sale.

We couldnt get all the money out in one day so we agreed to pick the car up the next day. we had to pay to register it (like taxing it) and then that was it, we were away down the coast. Our first stop was going to be Mission Beach.