The last trip in Australia took place cruising round the Whitsunday islands and snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef over three days and two nights. After a day in Airlie beach, we rose to beaming sunshine, departed our hostel, and lugged 30 beers and our rucksacks down to the marina where, with around 25 others, we boarded our boat, Apollo. We were last on the boat, which brought with it a stroke of fortune as we each managed to grab double beds in the communal cabin(everyone else had a single or shared double with a friend).
We motor sailed for 30 minutes till we reached our first destination, Luncheon Bay where, after kitting up in a jelly suit(wet suit which stops jelly fish stings) and the usual snorkeling kit we were taken ashore in batches by a launch. The underwater scenery was spectacular, weaving through literally hundreds of fish of all shapes and sizes and daintily swimming under coral shelves so as not to damage them. The eye was always scanning for yet more exciting creatures-sharks, turtles, rays and larger fish. 
Snorkeling meant time raced by each day as we followed the route in the picture, pulling up on different, forest covered islands and seeing new creatures at each site. The only interlude to our daytime snorkeling, aside from the brief journeys between each site(mainly by motor as there was barely any wind the whole time), was a trip on the second day to what is according to lonely planet is the second best beach in the world. We felt something spectacular was awaiting us, and, whilst admittedly it was beautiful, I felt ive seen better on my trip so far.
In the evenings, everybody sat around relaxing with a few drinks, a nice change from the ‘lets get smashed’ attitude of all the tours we have been on thus. Yet again blessed with sunshine for the whole trip (we have been so so lucky- others we have met coming down the coast have had both their Whitsunday and Fraser Island trips ruined by heavy rain), we were able to see this wonder at its finest. The trip must also be remembered for the food, the few days being my best consecutive days of eating since living in Melbourne. Every meal was lush- be it chicken with gammon, salad, stuffing and potato salad or creamy chicken with rice and salad- it was always hot, healthy and very tasty. We all ate on the deck above. The other trips have had nice food but this was quality, the staff were really good as well, being cool and friendly when needed, yet discreet when not (no one in your face!).
We met some nice people on board, two English lads Aly and Simon from Leeds who we met briefly canoeing a few weeks back, some exaggerated Americans, an Irish girl Jill who we had a bit of English Irish banter with, a fanatical Norwegian Man United fan, and dangerous Dave(a friendly but very lightweight(hence the name) English bloke who let me take the underwater pictures he had taken above).
We went out on our final night in Airlie beach with everybody, barcrawling around and bumping into some familiar faces we met on the way up the coast. An irritating 11 hour coach journey took us to Cairns the next day where after a deep nights sleep we spent our last day on the internet (I actually just wondered around trying to save all my photos from my virus infected laptop) and swimming in the free public pool.
