Airlie Beach and on to the whitsunday Islands on a tri-maran

Madelaine, Linus and Rito
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Headed up from Hervey Bay  (Fraser Island) to Airlie Beach for the Whitsunday Island part of the trip.  Booked into Magnums Hostel which turned out to be the party hostel of the town.  There was an Irish couple and a gang of sydney lads in the hostel.  They were a good laugh.  the Irish couple came there for only 3 days and ended up staying 3 months!

Met up with Simone (who was in the jeep on Fraser with us) for dinner and we went on for scoops.  I also bumped in Leo and his girlfriend Sinead/Siobhan.  They were really nice couple from Cork... sure why wouldn't they be nice being from Cork :-).   We all headed for a few beers in Moroccos club and Beaches.  It was busy.  We bumped into the chilean girls from Fraser Island.  They were a bit weird to us.  Got back to hostel and there was a big sing song outside the door of our chalet in the hostel.  joined them for a short while and went to bed early about 2am.  They kept going till 5... mad lads.

Andi, Maria Jose, Teri and Eddie from holland
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Up for whitsundays early and down to dock for 9am.  We are on the water by 9.30am.  26 of us on board and the boat is fab - a tri maran with loadsa space for all of us.  There were two groups of people - the cool ones and the super trendy who thought they were cool.  These wanna-bes were rich dutch dudes.

Anyway, the remainder were super cool.  There were 3 lads from switzerland - Rito, Andi and Martin. They were brill craic - they were always on for a few beers and a laugh.  The swiss are a great bunch.  Same as in the fraser island trip I got on the best with the swiss people.  The stereotype isn't really true for the swiss... they really are good fun... or maybe I just have a crap sense of humor :-).

Linda and Linus from sweeden
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Rito was telling me he was in the oldest pub in ireland in a place in the midlands called athlone.  Turns out it is my local bar "Seans" when I'm back home.  That was a mad coincedence.  There has really been so many concidences so far in this trip it is unbelievable!

The other cool ones were a couple from Holland (Melanie and Eddie), a sweedish couple (Linda and Linus), a s. korean guy (Jae Sang) and a 30 yr old dutch girl, Willemyn, travelling around the word.

Jae Sang from south Korea
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Every day we went snorkling in the afternoon, sunbathe and talk and in the evening we'd all sit about the boat chatting over a dose of beers we brought with us.  The beaches we visited were fabulous ... white and sandy.  There was a nice breeze on the first 2 days but the third day was dead and humid but we survived ok.

The swiss lads (all the lads really if I'm to be honest) were glued to the canadian female chef on board.  That added another dimension to the trip.

I had an underwater camera and got some good snaps - will upload shortly.

The gang
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we got back to land and all went to beaches for beers in the evening.  I got on much better with the chileans this time around.  They weren't too bad in the end.  Maria jose scored with the Robbie williams lookalike that was on board.  In the Africa night club later the dutch girl scored with 2 english guys that were on the boat.  They were best mates and she would go from one to the other.  I think it freaked them oput too much - they left shortly after without her.  Andi the swiss guy was disgusted and said " What is it with you dutch girls?".  She just walked off saying "Hey, I'm a girl and I'm horny".  she's a pretty cool girl I have to say.  She remided me of Donna in Athlone - cool as a breeze and got on with everyone.

The good guys
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I bumped into Wil again the next day in magnetic island ... another mad coincedence.  I was just walking down the road and there she was  feeding wallibies who were eating carrots from her hand.  You can read that in the next installment.