'We're Baaack...'

Wow - 3 glorious days sailing around the Whitsunday Islands. 74 Islands off the coast of Northern Queensland - in and around the Great Barrier Reef. Can't begin to describe it other than to say that if you ever do take the plunge and tour Australia, we well recommend it.

We ended up on the ship called 'Whitsunday Magic'. It is considered the deluxe cruise ship around the Islands and we can certainly attest that the efforts made in the meals and to make us comfortable certainly took it into the 'deluxe' category.

Our cabin was small, but perfectly formed. Karen graciously took the upper bunk - and allowed Lei the comfort of the lower berth. We did a couple of bush walks, one was a 2 1/2 mile hike up to the top of the South Molle Island so that we could look around and see almost everything the world had to offer. Another was to a lookout over the amazing white sands of Whitehaven beach. This sand is so fine that you can use it to exfoliate or clean your jewelry and because it is so white, it reflects the heat and you can walk on it in the middle of the day in comfort barefoot.

We also managed some snorkelling in and around the reef. It's Jellyfish season, so you need to wear stinger suits to go into the water which we can attest to are very flattering and OHHH so much fun to put on. Imagine 100 degree heat with 95% humidity and you are trying to put on a skin tight RUBBER SUIT - Oh yes - it was fun.

The only downer for the trip was the fact that 1 day into the cruise, Lei started to experience the discomfort of an abscess tooth that just went from bad to worse. By the last night, her face was swollen the size of a basketball, and agony doesn't even begin to cover how she felt. We were lucky in that on our return to where we had parked the caravan, we noticed a large advertisement - DENTIST - and his phone number. Karen called them immediately and after some serious pleading managed to get Lei an appointment that instant. So believe it or not, we got off the boat at 1pm and by 2, we were stocked up on antibiotics and pain killers and on our way to Cairns. We needed to make the 650 Km trip and turn in the Van by 4pm on Saturday - so that meant Karen had to step up to the task and take over the driving - which she did like a trooper -

So here we are - in Cairns, minus the Van and staying at a great B&B - tucked quietly away in a small rainforest, overlooking a waterfall. We're going to take tomorrow to check out Cairns and then Monday morning we are off again - this time for the centre of Australia. We'll keep you posted...