Dude...

Knocking the scuba course on the head gave us 3 days of our holiday back, so we seized the moment and booked our selves onto an 'Ocean Rafting' tip out to the Whitsunday Islands.

This turned out to be one of the best things we did the whole holiday!

The Ocean Raft was a semi-inflatable (semi-rigid?) speed boat which shot off with a dozen or so of us on board out to sea. The captain gave us a good ride, swing around all over the place and break neck speed, before admitting that he'd run out of fuel if he kept it up!

Our first stop was one of the Whitsunday islands, where we were able to go snorkelling in a little sheltered bay. In queensland, and particularly at this time of year, they have a LOT of jellyfish ('stingers' if you're an Aussie), including a couple of really nasty ones - the Irukandji (very small, nearly transparent and very nasty reactions such as cramps, nausia and (I quote) ' a sense of impending doom')), and the box jellyfish ( really REALLY bad news!).

So before we went into the water, we had to get into what can best be described as a Tesco Value Wetsuit to stop the stings contacting our skin!

Swimming around, we were immediately in amongst some little tropical fish - all very pleasant. But then we met this chappy (pictured).

I have never seen a sea turtle before, and instantly fell in love with them. Unlike fish, they're not afraid of you. Instead, they take their time, finish what they were doing, give you a long examining look, normally decide that you're not interesting enough to warrant any more attention and goes back about its business.

But it's that appraisal that it gives you which I found so fascinating. You got a real sense that it was letting you stay here on its terms, just don't put your feet on the sofa...

Unfortunately we had to move on to a new bay where the wish was much bigger and the water clearer. Here we saw 100s of electric blue fish with bright yellow tails, a massive lumbering GT, zebra fish and all sorts of funky looking creatures which I couldn't begin to guess at their names...

After the second swim, we all headed to Whitsunday Island for a walk through the rainforest and over to Whitehaven Beach.

It's as perfect as the pictures suggest.

White sand which squeaks when you walk on it, turquoise blue sea as warm as a nice bath, and herds of little soldier crabs running around the beach and diving into the sand!

Then it was back to the mainland, but not before a spot of wake surfing in our boat, and an inter-boat food fight with the left over lunch!

That evening, we headed back to Banjos for a drink and flick through the days photos. Sophie realised that they did cocktails and decided to pick on the new guy to make them! Poor lad had to ask for help each time!