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Ahoy there! Sorry I haven’t posted in a while but we have been out in the middle of the ocean, far away from civilisation, mobile phone networks and internet connections for the past 2 days. Since we left Cairns on Wednesday night, we’ve had quite an adventure. We hopped on a bus to Townsville on Wednesday night, arriving at the eerie hour of 5AM. Did a bit of hanging around waiting for the day to start and made our way to the hostel where we would be staying. We had to wait for reception to open at 8:30AM, so we plonked ourselves down and surveyed our surroundings, weary from the lack of sleep on the overnight bus. The hostel looked pretty run down, or as Orla put it ‘Ballymun flats before the revamp’ We had a bit of a head to head and couldn’t think of any valid reason for staying, so we hightailed it out of the hostel and out of Townsville! A couple of hours later we were back on a bus to continue our Southward journey to Airlie beach.
Good decision! We arrived in the lovely seaside town of Airlie beach, checked into a lovely hostel and booked a sailing trip to the Whitsunday islands for the following day. All was right in the world of Orla and Clare once more and we had a good sleep that night, dreaming of the pleasures that awaited us aboard our sailing trip the following day. I had visions of us lying on deck sunning ourselves and was looking forward to some proper rest and relaxation. Oh how my expectations differed to the reality!
We boarded the SV Whitehaven on Thursday afternoon and set sail into the unknown, Now, when I say the boat rocked, I mean it rocked to the point where there were times we were at dangerously close angles to the sea. We rocked on out into the ocean, the waves getting rougher all the time. It wasn’t long before a wave crashed over the side of the boat, drenching us from head to toe. I was beginning to wonder if this was such a good idea. Anyway, we made it out to the islands, a little green but glad to be in calm waters again. We docked up close to one of the islands and the group went snorkelling. I opted for some ‘paddy snorkelling’, which involved sticking what looked like an orange traffic cone into the sea from the safety and comfort of the dinghy.

photo credit: Rob & Jules

From here on in, the trip was really enjoyable. We spent some time chilling out on the beuatiful Whitehaven beach (one of the top 10 beaches in the world apparently), did more snorkelling, had some lovely meals and watched the sun set before docking for the night underneath the stars. The crew were good craic and we hooked up with 2 nice Scottish girls who we had a few drinks and a laugh with in the evenings. Overall it turned out to be a great trip and a good adventure. So, we’re back at the hostel now after a pretty rough journey back to the mainland. Let’s just say I’m glad to be alive and on dry land again

photo credit: Stephanie Costa