Diving in Koh Tao!!

Our flight to Bangkok was early the next morning and the heat hit us with a bang when we stepped out of the airport. A crowded and tiring trip on the MRT to the train station seemed to take forever but we finally arrived and booked our tickets on the overnight train to Chumpon, where we were to take a high-speed catamaran across the sea to our next destination, Koh Tao. A delicious pad thai costing 35 baht (less than a pound) was a refreshingly cheap meal, slightly different to the prices in the previous countries we have visited! 

After a long slow journey of trying to sleep on the surprisingly comfortable fold-out night train beds we finally arrived on sunny Koh Tao and dragged our bags to the 7-11 where we met one of the guys from Roctopus, the dive school where we were booked in to do our open water diving course. We hopped on a taxi which took us to our accommodation (out here taxis are pick-up trucks with benches on the back for passengers, much more exciting than taxis at home!). We quickly checked into the dive school next door and were told to be back for a short introduction at 5pm. On arriving in our room we were asleep before our heads hit the pillow, due to the lack of sleep the night before, and pretty much slept for the whole afternoon! We then headed back to Roctopus where we met our instructor Jay, who had been recommended by Matt and Sophie who did their course a few weeks before, fellow students Meg and Anders, and Jessie who had completed the academics online but would join us for the confined and open water dives later on. We had a short introduction on what the next three days would entail and watched two videos covering the first two sections of the course. After pad thai at "Mint Kitchen", the delicious restaurant next door to the dive school where we ended up eating the majority of our meals, we headed back to our room where we completed our "homework". We drifted into a deep sleep, excited about finally learning to dive, something both of us have wanted to do for a VERY long time!

We awoke to the loud noise of what we thought was the air-con and quickly got dressed, ready for breakfast with Jay, Andes and Meg. As we rushed out the door, we were greeted by a very familiar site…rain. Luckily, in Thailand it doesn't usually rain for very long so we were positive that it would subside by the time we were ready to get in the water that afternoon. Our morning was filled with a breakfast of bacon, toast and eggs, a review of our homework and an introduction to the scuba-diving kit. By lunch time, the rain still hadn't subsided so Jay decided we would crack on with the academics and get the exam out the way so that we could have a long, water-filled day tomorrow, hopefully in the sun! Three Dvds, three section reviews and one exam later, we had completed all the academics and understood the theory of diving. We had the rest of the afternoon to relax so went for a stroll along the beach (the rain finally stopped), a dip in the sea which was more like a bath and watched the beautiful orange glow of the sunset whilst sipping a cocktail/beer at our favourite beachfront bar, Sairee Cottage.

The next morning, we made our way to the dive shop just before the heavens opened and everyone huddled together in the shop watching a film on sharks, waiting for it to pass. When it finally did we headed down to a brand new hotel where we were to learn the basic skills in their dive pools. After a brief explanation from Jay of what we had to learn before heading out into open water we kitted up for the first time and hopped into the pool. In no more than 1.5m we spent half an hour underwater copying Jays demonstrations of the skills and when we surfaced again we had all mastered taking out our regulators, taking off our masks underwater, de-fogging our masks underwater and sharing air when our buddy had run out of air, which hopefully will never happen! It was then time to jump into the deep pool where we repeated these skills, as well as learning how to equalise our ears and sinuses when descending under the water and how to swim to the surface with a buddy when one has run out of air. Back to Mint Kitchen to grab a quick lunch to eat onboard the boat and we were heading for Mae Haad where our boat was waiting to take us for our first two open water dives! 

We scrambled across a few other dive boats on the busy pier to get to our boat before we set off out to sea. On arriving at Twins dive site and after a thorough briefing from Jay, emphasising all the key skills we had learnt that morning, it was time to set up our gear and do our final buddy checks. All checked and set we giant-strided off the boat into the sea, not forgetting to inflate our bc and tap our heads to show we were OK. We swam along the surface to the buoy line ready to begin our descent in to the magical underwater world that awaited us. We slowly sank down, letting out air from our bc holding on to the buoy line all they way down, continuously equalising to release the pressure in our ears. Once we reached our target depth of 12 metres we left the buoy line and began our underwater adventure/obsession. We followed Jay as he guided us round the Twin rocks admiring the beautiful reef fish as well as some hunting trevally. We were completely taken by the deep blue with sprawling neon corals and the endless list of new and exciting creatures to admire and search for. We were lucky enough to spot blue spotted stingrays, angel fish, banner fish, butterfly fish, three protected clownfish and the territorial head-butting titan trigger fish before it was time for our "big skills session" which included having to take our masks completely off underwater, which we were both dreading! After 40 minutes our time under the sea was up and we headed up to the surface after our 3 minute safety stop at 5 metres. After a decent surface interval it was time to jump back in and we both could not wait! This time it was the nearby dive site called White Rock and the dive was a chance for us to cruise around getting used to neutral buoyancy, practising swimming only with our legs and just getting our movement underwater more fluid. With a maximum depth of 11.8m, we saw many of the fish spotted on our previous dive as well as reef cod, yellow-tailed fusilier, a large school of swirling yellow-tailed barracuda and a large puppy dog-eyed porcupine pufferfish. Exhausted from our exciting first day of diving, with a total time of 2 hours and 15 minutes spent underwater, we headed back for an energy-replacing yet civilised dinner before a well deserved nights kip.

We awoke ready for our 7.45 am meet, excited by another days diving especially as Chumpon Pinnacle (our first dive site) is known for the possibility of being graced by a visit from the illusive whale shark! The aim of this first dive was to reach a depth of 18m in order to complete our open water dive course. Accompanying us on our two dives of the day was Chris, a professional underwater videographer, who was there to capture our day and everything that we saw. We were immediately met by a couple of scribbled filefish as we descended down to our target depth, hovering above the pinnacle base another 16m below us. Jay guided us on a route around the pinnacle, pointing out creatures using his exaggerated hand signals. We saw batfish, a juvenile undulated moray eel, a white-eyed moray eel, rainbow runners, a couple of giant groupers and more schools of yellow-tailed barracuda. We then began our ascent passing over the field of anemones swaying in the slight current, dotted by pink clownfish, and finally reached the surface. On returning to the boat, Jay said that he was disappointed by the amount of fish as it is usually a much more impressive dive. We then moved on for our final dive of the open water course at White Rock where we were graced with 20m visibility. Instead of the usual giant stride entry, as a bit of a show for the upcoming movie, we performed a forward roll entry into the water. We were able to dive to a deeper depth (14.1m) than the previous day at the same site and due to the size of the site we explored new territories. We saw a number of blue-spotted stingrays hiding under the cracks and crevasses created by the white rock as well as some more giant grouper, a number of hunting trivially, a moray eel, angel fish and a very large titan triggerfish. The completion of this dive meant that we were officially certified open water divers and we were also informed that we both received 100% in the extraodinarily "difficult"...not, exam. Time for a nap before our celebration drinks and movie-showing at a local bar which had a huge air-conditioned cinema screen with giant sofas! Chris certainly made a great movie filled with fantastic memories, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. However, it was not time to say goodbye yet as we, along with Meg and Andes, had decided to undertake the advanced open water course which would give us much more flexibility and confidence for diving in the future. 

We used our day off to have a nice long lie-in and met Meg and Andes at the Mint Kitchen for lunch as we were planning to go snorkelling with reef sharks at Shark Bay. However, we were advised not to go as the rain that morning would have affected the visibility in the shallow waters and it would not be worth the journey. Instead, we headed down to the beach where we spent the afternoon sitting in the shallow water surrounded by moored long-tail boats enjoying the sun. That evening we enjoyed a scrumptious takeaway pizza and a movie back at our bungalow, in preparation for another couple of fun-filled days of diving.

Our first dive at Hin Wong Pinnacle was the "deep dive" and the main aim was to reach a maximum depth of 30m, a compulsory requirement in order to become an advanced diver. Down at 30m you breathe a lot more air, especially Charlie, so we reached our maximum depth before moving back up the pinnacle. With lower light levels and sediment in the water there was not much to see at 30 m apart from a couple of razor fish. As we moved closer to the pinnacle, we began seeing more fish including large porcupine pufferfish, the familiar yellow-tailed barracuda and more of the peculiar scribbled filefish. Our next dive was a fun dive, a little treat to ourselves as we couldn't bare the thought of sitting on the boat whilst others were underwater. Here we had a bit of freedom exploring the coral gardens of the lighthouse dive site where we saw sweetlips, nudibranchs, hunting trivially, baitfish and the evil-looking needle crocodile fish swimming at the surface above us.

After a quick lunch back at the Mint Kitchen, it was back on the boat for our next two disciplines. Our first dive of the afternoon was the mandatory navigation in which we learnt how to navigate around dive sites using both reciprocal headings with a compass and natural navigation by observing our surroundings. This was made easier by the incredible visibility we were fortunate to have. We were lucky enough to see a huge green turtle with a shell length of over a metre, as well as a giant barracuda, a strange ruffled flatworm, a close encounter with a titan triggerfish and three squid as we surfaced. During our surface interval whilst mooring at Twins, Charlie spotted a turtle on the surface so we all jumped in with our masks to see if we could spot him. Laura spotted him chilling out at the bottom as he slowly swam around. Two turtles in one day…what a treat! The final dive of the day was a bit of fun, the perfect buoyancy course, consisting of hoops, tunnels, swimming sideways/backwards/upside-down and generally completing an underwater assault course and practising new manoeuvrability techniques. As this was away from the reef we saw very few fish, but we did catch sight of clownfish and angelfish. That evening we both felt like completely different meals so Charlie has a yummy burger whilst watching the other Roctopus open water course video (which was nowhere near as entertaining as ours) before going to get Laura a yellow prawn curry at Nong. 

Our final day of diving on Koh Tao was perfect for the both of us as it was combined Photography (for Charlie) and underwater  naturalist (for Laura the biologist). The first dive was at Chumpon Pinnacle where we able to dive down to a maximum depth of 26m in search of the larger pelagic fish where we saw a GIGANTIC giant grouper, a large dark snapper, schooling chevron barracuda, a chilled out camouflaged bearded scorpion fish, a couple of moray eels, a school of one-spot snappers and a pair of scribbled filefish to complete the dive. Our return to Chumpon was much more impressive and exciting. Our final dive in Koh Tao was another new site called Green Rock (very original with their names hey?!). A site known for its swim throughs, it was time to put our buoyancy course to practise. The first part of the dive was dominated by schooling yellow and chevron barracuda that almost surrounded us in a sliver blanket. We saw six-banded angel fish which was last spotted in Australia, some durban dancing shrimp hiding in a crack, sweetlips who were not in a mood for a photo, a sad looking pufferfish, clownfish, nudibranchs, hundreds of christmas tree worms and a yellow boxfish right at the end of the dive. The afternoon was spent looking through the groups photos from the day (which we were extremely pleased with and as a result, craving an underwater camera with housing) before heading back to Sairee Cottage for a few sundowners and our final meal on the friendly Koh Tao.

Early the next morning we were picked up by our taxi and began the long, boring journey on a VIP coach back up to Bangkok. We weren't too sad as we knew this would not be our last visit and we were also extremely excited about luxury-living in the City of Angels.  

Hong Kong and the Rugby Sevens!!

After a long journey via Taipei, we finally arrived in Hong Kong the morning of the start of the Rugby Sevens, with only tickets for the friday. We found the company organising our shuttle bus to the hotel and they kindly upgraded us to the "limousine", which was actually just a people carrier with a crazy driver! We reached our hotel in Kowloon pretty quickly and checked in easily. Upon arrival Laura got an email from Philip Woolf, Kate's friend from school saying he had tickets for the whole weekend at standard price and we were over the moon! We went to go and buy a Hong Kong sim card so we could contact Philip and Tom Morgan-Harris, Charlie's house mate from Uni who is currently living in Hong Kong with Immi Miller. We got hold of Philip and arranged a meeting time to get the tickets, and wandered around Mong Kong and the Ladies Market where we purchased some needed bargains such as Charlie's "D&G" shoes and Laura's bag. (At last I didn't have to carry everything around for her!). We went back to the Hotel, got ready for our evening of rugby and found a bus that would take us to the Hong Kong Football Club to meet Philip to get the tickets. We met Philip, had a quick chat, got our tickets and headed straight to the stadium. This was the beginning of a weekend filled with rugby! We found a good viewing spot, bought a 2 litre jug of beer and soaked in the atmosphere. After a few games and some epic rugby, Fiji giving a good beating to their trembling opponents, Tom and Immi arrived, we caught up with them for ages, chatting about travelling and how everything was going for them in Hong Kong, drank more beer and headed to the top stand to watch some more rugby, including a narrow victory for England at the end of the night. We then headed on to a local sports bar to chat some more, eat "monkey nuts" and nachos and have a few more beers. We decided to head home after this as we were all shattered from either work or our long journey. 

We woke up the following morning definitely feeling the effects of the beers the night before, but battled on and headed to the stadium for a full day of sun and rugby, but not before heading to Laura's favourite bakery, Panash, for some ham and cheese croissants. We spent most of the saturday in the stands watching the rugby with Laura claiming she was enjoying it more as Charlie was feeling a little worse for wear and staying quiet, until England came on! After a long day of rugby, we both decided that it would be best to head home and have an early one to try and be on form for the next day of rugby.

We woke up on the Sunday bright and early as the best games, the quarters of the cup, were first. Some quality rugby was played, not necessarily by England, with Fiji looking like the easy favourite and Laura deciding that if England didn't win she wanted Fiji to win. Just as the good rugby finished Immi and Tom arrived with Immi's Uncle. We found them by the entrance and chatted, drinking beer and basking in the beautifully warm sun for a while before deciding to head up to the stands, in which no alcohol was allowed. After a while Tom decided that Immi's designer hand bag was big enough to smuggle a jug of beer in with so he emptied her things out and sent her off to get some beer. This was a great success and the beer began to flow again. England lost in the semi's and subsequently lost in the 3rd/4th play off, but it was great to see Fiji take on the team of the moment in sevens at this current moment, New Zealand and beat them comprehensively to take the most prestigious cup of the World Sevens Series. After the rugby we head to the Valley Rugby Club Tent after bumping in to Charlie's friend from school, Ciaran, who was dressed as a sheep. After more beer in the Valley Tent, we headed to Wan Chai, to go to the legendary Carnegies Bar. By this point we had lost Tom and Immi and found ourselves both with random hats on, Charlie's a sombrero and Laura's a chinese hat and hung around chatting with randomers and dancing before heading back to the Hotel. 

Most of Monday was spent in bed nursing our hangovers, but we decided to make the most of our time in Hong Kong and we hopped on the MTR to TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) where we enjoyed a stroll in the fresh air and took some photos of the great view across the harbour of Central. We then headed to Harbour City Mall, recommended by Ron, and had a delicious dinner at Pizza Express, with probably the best view from any Pizza Express in the world (again, looking out over Central).

Tuesday was spent at the Ladies Market, this time for a proper session whilst we browsed all the stalls yet didn't make any purchases (rare for us) and then headed to Mongkok Computer Centre which was an eye-opening experience into the world of the asian technology market! We decided to head back to TST in the evening to see the rather touristy Light Show, with synchronised green lasers and multi-coloured lights being shot into the sky from the various buildings over the water in Central, in time with some rather strange "music". Laura persuaded Charlie to try some of the local food so we headed to the cheapest, decent-looking restaurant where Charlie had pork and noodles and Laura had prawn dumplings with noodles and bok choy. We both left the strange soup that we were given that smelt very similar to pet food (not very appealing). We walked home from TST rather than catching the MTR, via the Temple Street Night Market where we haggled for a fake rolex for Laura and also bought a new wallet for Charlie. Satisfied with our purchases, we headed home.

On Wednesday we decided to have a lazy morning and get some much-needed washing done. We had a delicious and cheap lunch at the restaurant at the hotel we were staying at (Thai fried rice and sweet and sour pork) before arranging to meet Philip for a drink later at the Football Club. On our way to meet Philip we had a call from Ron Tsang, one of Charlies best friends from school, who lives in Hong Kong and had landed earlier that morning. He kindly agreed to come and pick us up after our dinner and take us up to The Peak to have a look at the view over Hong Kong. After a few drinks and a yummy burger and pizza at the football club (thank you Philip!), we headed to where Ron has told us he would pick us up. The rest of the evening was spent catching up with Ron and his girlfriend Katie, taking in the stunning view at the top of The Peak and meeting Ron and Katies friends over a few drinks in Lang Kwai Fong. 

Early on Thursday morning we headed to Esprit in TST, where Laura had booked a hair cut. After arriving nearly 45 minutes late, the hairdresser finally arrived and after two hours the haircut was complete (longest haircut EVER). Ron then picked us up in his yummy white Scirocco and drove us over to Lantau where we spent the afternoon visiting the Tian Tau Budda, the monastery and lighting some incense and saying some prayers. After our cultural experience, Ron decided our Hong Kong visit would not be complete without a quick snack of sushi so Charlie braved the unfamiliar and slightly crazy Hong Kong traffic  and drove us safely back to Central. Laura tried some sea urchin and salmon roe sushi whilst Charlie, who "doesn't like sushi", loved the tuna nigiri and the prawn tempura sushi. We then headed upto Katies house, and sipped champagne whilst looking out over the incredible views of Central from her patio (from the other side this time). Our evening was spent eating a delicious meal in a lovely candle-lit restaurant at the top of The Peak (thank you SO much Ron) with steak for Charlie and king prawns for Laura, followed by a dessert of chocolate fondant. A few mojitoes later at a bar in Kowloon and we were feeling very merry and ready for bed as we had an early start the next morning and still hadn't packed!

Goodbye Australia!!

The next morning we woke up a little worse for wear after a considerable amount of goon was consumed the night before! Well Charlie did, as Laura wasn't drinking! We had a quick breakfast and laughed about the night before heading to Eli Creek for a refreshing walk down stream. Half way down the creek a few people ahead stopped and shouted "SNAKE!" as a snake was swimming up stream towards us all. Our guide, Rango said "watch out guys, thats a red bellied snake, its poisonous" as everyone fled to safety. With hangovers, well and truly shaken, it was revealed that it was in fact a toy snake attached to someones leg by some fishing line. The greatest prank we have both witnessed in a while, it certainly tricked us both as well as our whole group! After the shock of everyones lives we got back in to the trucks and headed to the famous Maheno shipwreck, an old scottish ship and drove inland to Lake Allom , a tea coloured lake full of little fresh water turtles. The colouring of the lake was due to the oils, mostly tea tree, deposited in to the lake by the surrounding trees. We then convoyed back to the coast to visit the pinnacles, or coloured sands, a sacred sight for the native aboriginals, which is layers of different coloured sand showing part of the process of the creation of Fraser Island. We then finally stopped for a much needed lunch, consisting of more ham, lettuce and fake cheese. After lunch we continued further up the eastern coast of Fraser to Indian Head, a huge rock outcrop standing tall out of the sand. A short walk up was well worth the incredible views, both up and down the coastline, inland and out to sea, a very special place and we were lucky to spot a white bellied sea eagle. After a big group photo we carried on to champagne pools, a number of rock pools famous for their champagne bubble appearance when waves crash over the rocks in to them before heading back to camp via Eli Creek to have a fresh water rinse. On our way to Eli Creek Archie fell asleep, this was a prime opportunity for a bit of fun! We quietly co-ordinated that we would all scream and Joel would brake on the count of three. This worked perfectly as Archie was startled as we woke him, his face was priceless! To top off the long and amazing day we were pleased to see two dingoes on the beach and as we drove back they followed along side for a while, just messing around like domestic dogs! 

After an evening of bbqing and more drunken antics, we awoke after a comfortable nights sleep in the car. Well, slightly more comfortable than the previous night in the tent! We freshened up and headed to Eurong for a quick breakfast before heading to the beautiful Lake MacKenzie to conclude our Fraser Island experience. Even in the rain the colour of the lake was still amazing and we spent an hour or so playing games in the water as it drizzled. After a quick lunch surrounded by kookaburras we caught the ferry back to the mainland and made our way back to the hostel on tarmac roads. The evening was spent washing the sand off all of our clothes and stuffing ourselves with the "all you can eat" pizza deal. A comfortable bed was much appreciated as well!

We were booked onto the night bus up to Airlie Beach for our Whitsundays sailing trip so had a free day to chill in Hervey Bay with Archie, Chris, Will and Harry. It was a lovely day so we sunbathed, played in the sea and had a delicious lunch at a beach bar. Laura had a prawn and mango salad whilst Charlie enjoyed a steak sandwich. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting around, it was finally time to get the bus. It was a long, uncomfortable twelve hour ride all the way up to Airlie Beach and our hopes were high as we pulled into the bus stop to clear blue skies. We checked into our hostel to catch up on some sleep before heading into town to check in for our sailing trip. On our way back we bumped into a very hungover Neil who had been out the night before until the early hours. That evening we found Archie, Chris and Will for dinner before heading to Cold Rock for a yummy treat. We decided to get to sleep early as we had to be up bright and early to meet our skipper, but, at about four in the morning we were awoken by the noise of….RAIN!

The rain was still falling when we met our skipper Matt, chef Rod and the five other fellow sailors at the pier, ready to board the Iceberg. We were delayed by about an hour as one of the couples kept changing their minds about whether to come or not because of the weather. In the end we set off, with everyone on board wearing very flattering yellow rain coats. As we made our way in the light rain, we spotted an extremely long sea snake slithering along the surface of the sea. Finally, the rain eased off and the clouds began to part. The sails were raised but after a while Matt shouted that he thought we were about to get a little bit wet. This was the biggest understatement we had heard on our whole trip. From this moment, the rain barely eased off for five days. We huddled together on the deck of the boat, shivering as our faces were stung by the ridiculously heavy rain. After what seemed like hours, we reached our destination and they dropped us off to go for a wander along Whitehaven Beach, voted one of the top ten beaches in the whole world. We walked up to a view point where we could see the whole stretch of the beach. It was amazing to see the brown murky river water being beaten back by the powerful flooding tide. We took a long stroll along the beach, spotting many stingray and a couple of baby lemon sharks swimming in the shallows. Unfortunately, we couldn't venture in as we were not wearing our stinger suits, crucial for this time of year. Back aboard the boat, we headed to a quiet and calm inlet where we spent the night being rocked to sleep in our private cabin.

The following morning we poked our heads above the deck to see a low-lying mist that eerily hung over the channel that we had seeked shelter in for the night. We shared travelling stories below deck as the skipper Matt sailed us to our first snorkelling site in the pouring rain. The rain eased off for our snorkelling and we were astounded by the colourful and thriving corals. We met Elvis, a Napoleon Maori Wrasse nearly the size of Charlie, as well as parrot fish, zebra fish, fox-faced rabbit fish, rock cod, butterfly fish and jellysh galore! After a farewell from a school of batfish we headed for our second snorkelling site where we were guaranteed to spot a turtle or two or we would all receive a free chocolate bar from the skipper. We were dropped off half-way down the length of a sand bar and swam along with the current to the end, before walking ashore back along the sand to start all over again. Here, we spotted blue-lipped clams, six-banded angel fish, barracuda, bright purple and pink corals and, as promised, two turtles who we glided along with and got some great photos with! Laura's favourite moment was when she made friends with the elusive yellow-spotted box fish who hovered around amongst the coral. Once we were back on the boat, Charlie got some great videos of some batfish that he befriended. The journey home, as you can guess, was spent below deck as the rain continued to fall. Despite the hammering rain, not experiencing anything remotely dry for 36 hours and a moment of near-madness for Laura, it was definitely a trip to remember, not only for the weather but also the great times had. We only hope we can return and repeat this trip in the sun.

The morning after our sailing trip we woke up to…rain. We checked out of our hostel and locked our backpacks away in a locker for the day as we had to wait around until 2.30am to catch our overnight bus up to Cairns. We met up with Archie, Chris and Will in Maccy D's to catch up and share stories about our sailing trips. As expected, their's had been as rainy as ours. The boys were booked onto the bus before us (8pm) and so we spent the whole day crawling from bar to bar trying to stay out of the now torrential rain and pass the time. Several times, we rang the bus company Greyhound to check if the buses were still running and rumours that the roads could close were spreading like wild fire. They insisted all the buses were still running and so, after dinner, the boys headed off for their bus. We headed back to our first hostel where we found the password for the internet so passed the time by time-wasting on Facebook and watching Bad Boys 2. We celebrated as it was finally time to get the bus! However, as eight of us and our luggage huddled in the shelter trying to avoid the flooded floor, there was no sign of the bus. Three hours later and several phone calls insisting the bus would still run and that it was just delayed, it eventually showed up. The joy at seeing the red of the greyhound bus was indescribable! We grabbed our bags eager to jump aboard but the driver jumped down the steps and said "your not getting on here, not unless you want to get to the next stop (15mins down the road)". After greyhound insisting the buses were running, the drivers route was blocked by the flooding rain and he could go no further. We were gutted and not knowing what to do we asked the driver questions about our options, and to be honest he was the least helpful person we have met on our travels, pretty much rubbing it in our faces that we had been waiting so long and that we weren't going to get to where we wanted to! Rant over…We then headed back to our first hostel where we had previously camped out before going to get the bus but we had been locked out. After phone calls back home to our parents to let them know of our sticky situation and an hour or so kip on the streets of Airlie Beach the hostel finally opened. We found some flights from a nearby airport down to Brisbane, where our flight to Hong Kong was from in only a couple of days so decided to book that. We checked in to the Hostel and were upgraded to an air conditioned en suite. Due to lack of sleep, all we did was sleep, and watch films, trying to pass the time, praying that the rain would stop so that we wouldn't be completely cut off. We also felt rather lucky that we couldn't get a place on the 8pm bus as the boys got stuck in Townsville and ended up having to live on the bus for 72 hours!

After a strange 24 hours we eventually checked in to our flight to Brisbane. We found a Hotel near to the airport and passed time as best we could, looking forward to getting to Hong Kong. We had a delicious curry and amazing toblerone, mars and kinder flavoured ice cream that evening and spent the next day trying to entertain ourselves without spending to much money. A trip on the city cat to south bank passed the time, with an extra special treat spotting a dolphin along the way. We treated our selves to a visit to the cinema and it was soon time to head to the airport and check in for the next chapter in our adventure, a week in the lights and big smoke of Hong Kong! 

Sorry this post took so long!!