Round the World

So, as some silly person hasn't been doing his travel thingy, i'm gonna do an immediate update then work backwards for Malaysia and Singapore.

Arriving on a very spacious plane (4 seats to myself after a while) where me and another Brit abused the 'complementary drinks' (offering them to English guys is a mistake!) i touched down for my first taste of OZ experience on May 3rd. Now travelling alone, at least for a short while, meeting people in the Dreamtime hostel was a piece of goon (what the ozzies call the 4 litre wine boxes) and the immediate thoughts of 'Why are there so many Irish in OZ', 'I've definitely picked the right hostel' and 'I'm moving to Sweden' were apparent.

Within a couple of days we had a party train going again, enrolling the services of the party people in the hostel to prop up the bars or goon tower at the hostel and met some cool people including some Maltese guys and girls and a few people i was sure to meet traveling down the coast. After a few days chilling by the side of the Lagoon, built due to the lack of safe sea to swim in (mainly stinger jellyfish and that a romantic young couple late one night had a close encounter of another kind...with an alligator!) where all the young people chilled, it was Saturday and that meant it was ULTIMATE PARTY night. This involved a giant pub crawl on a open top bus, starting at 6, with free shots, offers on jugs of ale (it took a while to get used to schooners, pots and the likes) and rude drinking games similar to 18-30 holidays!

Scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef was spectacular as the name suggests and 3 in a day was tiring, but i saw hundreds of fish and different types of coral and loads i haven't seen before.

After an Irish mate called Will wasn't able to buy a camper to drive down in, we headed down on the Greyhound buses, firstly to Mission Beach.

Missionary beach was a nice smallish place, where we soon got to know lots of people including 2 sound Leeds lads, Rich and Ian. On one of the first nights we played ring of fire (a drinking game) which ended up in Will crawling around the grass falling over things and then falling of the top bunk of the bed, he had some bobby dassler bruises the day after! Jogging down the 19 miles of the scenic beach on my own was quite breath taking, but so much so i definitely couldn't finish the lot! Met another friend from Thailand there which was quite nice, Emily Nailher is her name, quite an interesting one! Also met the Maltese girls from Cairns, big shout out to them.

Magnetic island was the next stop, and at a massive hostel called base. I soon become a celebrity with Will preaching about my nipple hair being 2 mm of the Guinness world record. Talking about celebrities there actually was 2 stars from Home and Away there. On the first night we met back up with the Leeds lads had a beer or 10 and then won just over $100 by me pretending to be suffering of beer and Will and Ian getting people to put money in if i could climb a palm tree to the top. After all bets were in i jumped up and waddled up to the top, Mowgli stylee (good old marquee practice!) then started throwing branches down at people!! We then rented some bikes out again and although they were slower then in Thailand we still had a riot tearing up the concrete (and the local skate park!) and visiting the lovely beaches and taking time to snorkel around a ship wreck.

Next was Airlie beach and we spent about 5 days socializing with me Will, the Maltese girls, Rich and Ian, and whoever else was up for it. Rich and Ian's choice of power cocktails (cocktails without lemonade, but white wine instead, with added shots in the top!) made sure we had a laugh as did their card tricks!

We finally got on the Whitsunday Islands trip and had an amazing time! Our Clipper boat housed 40+ people which was like a big disco, and it combined the beauty of the pure silica sand beaches, crystal clear waters and scuba diving in the day, and drinking games at night.

Next stop on the Greyhound tour of fun was 1700..............

to be continued...