We arrived in Airlie beach at some unknown hour of the morning, We had a little brekkey then went to check-in for our sail the next day, we were sailing on a Catamaran called Wings, the owner is a total boat nut and just spent AUD $2 million on there newest boat. Wings takes 24 people and 3 crew, there were 23 in our group.

The next day we packed up and bought some pink goon before heading to the boat. We met everyone and did the awquad hellos before boarding and getting our rooms sorted out. Rach and I ended up with a quality double bunk with curtains, very comfy.

We set sail... well, motored for a few hours out and around some of the islands, we stopped in Blue haven bay and did our first dive, we went down in a group of 4 and saw some cool stuff, to be honest I think the snorkelling would be just as good as we didn't dive much deeper than 7m. There were these huge fish that live in the bay and would swim right up and kiss you, the leader was called precilla and she was going through a sex change at the time.. crazy things.

We then headed further south and did some more snorkelling before stopping for the night. Our cook CJ was Canadian and she fed us so well, loads of food and it was all really tasty. The evening was spent drinking cheap wine, playing guitar and chatting.

The 2nd day was an early start with us being dropped on the beach around 7:30, we spent a few hours messing on the beach taking stupid photos then headed up to a lookout where you could see this crystal clear bay with little sand islands, it was quite a sight. I'm starting to think we may become beach snobs as we've seen some of the worlds best, Felixstowe just won't be the same.

Once back on the boat we headed north and found Mackerel bay where we did our next snorkel / dive. I was minding my own business as this shark swam up from behind me and passed beneath me! It was over 1m and shocked me a bit, they're harmless White tip reef sharks but you are still a little cautious. That evening as we were sitting around waiting for dinner, the under boat lights were on and attracting loads of fish, then a dolphin showed up and started splashin around and chasing the fishicles, it was pretty crazy as he arced out of the water for air then dived back down, they are really agile and the little fishies had to work hard to avoid being eaten. The stars that night were amazing too, with very little land in sight and no clouds the sky was a mass of dense stars, a sight you can't believe until you have seen it yourself.

The 3rd and last day we were up early again, this time diving before breakfast, unfortunately the snorkelling was pants and I still haven't swam with a turtle which I am desperate to do! It seems like everyone but me saw them.

On return to dry land most of the group met up that evening and had a lil party with some drinking games at a bar. We did our goodbyes but we'll bump in to them again at some point on the trip.

Next day was a fabulous bus / ferry up to Magnetic Island.

We arrived in Agnes just after 6pm and made our way to Beachside Backpackers hostel, it's about 200m from the beach and is a brand new hostel built by some people that own the yuppy resort next door. This hostel is definitely the nicest we've stayed in, we had a double with ensuite and aircon - check us out!

Everyone we have spoken to about 1770 said you have to do the Scooteroo tour so we booked ourselves on to that for the next day and settled down for an evening of Scrabble and Masterchef.

Next day we took a stroll along the beautiful beach and into Agnes for some food shopping and a lil explore. It was a very little explore as Agnes and 1770 are tiny tiny places consisting of about 10 shops.

We got picked up for the Scooteroo tour in the afternoon and it was awesome fun, this old biker dude takes everyone out on mini Harley Davidsons and you cruise around,, going 80km/h on a little bike is exhilerating to say the least! Although I did feel a little fat as we went up hills and my bike was spluttering to do 40. During our drive we stopped at the side of the road to see a load of Kangaroos. We rode up to 1770 and sat at a pub eating wedges as we watched the sun go down.

The next day we borrowed some push bikes and headed to 1770, there's a national park atop a cliff and it looks pretty cool, although the journey wasn't far it took us probably over an hour, a mixture of laziness, hot sun and bikes with broken gears slowed us down. When we eventually arrived the view was pretty amazing, you can go out on the cliff and view up and down the coast, Rachel and I jumped off the path and climbed down to this rocky area that would have looked more at home on Mars. There was a little beach there too that we had a short chillax on before heading back, pushing our bikes half the way (apparently that's why they are called push bikes).

Our 3rd and final day we spent lazing around on the beach and generally being bummy before a had to catch the overnight coach up to Airlie beach to go sailing.

As always the overnight bus was heaving and this time had a lovely aroma of piss and dampness the whole journey, our driver was a yank with an odd sense of humour, such fun!

Yup we've finally made it to Australia, we had a short 9 hour flight from Bangkok and arrived in Sydney airport just after 6am. We caught a minibus to a hostel called Wake Up which everyone has recommended to us and got ourselves checked in to a 4 bed dorm room.

After a short nap we joined about 30 other people from our hostel on a free walking city tour, this guy Joe took us to all the major sights in Sydney, we ate lunch on the steps of the opera house looking out to the Harbour bridge, it's a pretty cool place here. We also walked around the botanical gardens and saw a load of historical places and facts you're never normally get to hear about.

The weather had been alright - around 20c which is good for this time of year but freezing compared to the 35-40 we've been accustomed too.

After an earlyish night we were up and ready to do some exploring ourselves. We jumped on a short bus ride to Manly beach (a big surf spot with lots of yuppy apartments) we sat on the beach for a while and watched some very good and some very bad surfers do there stuff, I can't wait to try it myself!

That evening we were all over the place, we went to meet a man who was sailing up the coast for 12 days and was taking a load of backpackers with him on his 32ft Yacht, we were going to go but changed our minds after a nights rest, we wanted to spend a while longer exploring Sydney, and being all cramped on a little boat for 2 weeks didn't impress Rachel too much.

So after all that we decided to head to Bondi beach the next day, now don't get me wrong it's a very big, very nice beach, but I thought that Manly was nicer.

The next day we stayed closer to home and decided to visit the Aquarium on Darling harbour, there were some pretty amazing fishicles in there. Eels coming out of drain pipes all lit up was like a bad dream and the Crocodile was pretty mean looking, the sharks were amazing... You do not wanna be in the water with one of those fellas!
We also saw the Gougons, there are only 1000 in the world and 3 of them were in this aquarium, they are the animals thought to have been mistaken for mermaids by the drunken sailors years ago, how they could be mistaken I do not know but it was pretty cool to see them anyway.

Next day was the beach walk, we joined a load of people and Joe (from the hostel) for another walky tour type thing, we walked from Coogee beach for a few miles to Bondi, it was really good to start with then poured with rain towards the end and we got completely soaked. We met a nice Scottish couple who had just been in Thailand too.

The day after I hunkered down in the hostel and watched films and ate cookies all day, it was raining and Rachel had gone shopping so I just chillaxed.

1st May was Rachels birthday, 22 - so old! We got up late then caught the bus to the Botanical gardens for a picnic on the grass, I had bought tickets for Rachel and I to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge that evening so we headed over there about 4ish, climbing that bridge was pretty crazy. We had chosen to do the Discovery climb which means you walk between the steelwork with the road visible between your feet, the views of the city from the top are amazing, the city all lit up at night is something you have to see to believe, it's huge! looking into the harbour with the opera house and all the boats is cool stuff. It took about an hour and a half to get to the top, take photos, sing happy birthday to Rachel, then get back down again. So after that we were pretty hungry.
We headed to an area called The Rocks and found a nice little Italian restaurant where we sat outside and eat so much food we thought we may not be able to walk home, we had a fair amount of wine to drink too so that may have been the real reason.

On our last day I managed to get man flu somehow and woke up feeling pretty shitty, we headed out to another park for another picnic and I got myself a little nap on the grass. We snuck back in to the hostel to cook some dinner and hang about for our bus that left at 9. We have bought a ticket for Greyhound which is like a national express that you can hop on and off or up to 45 days, we're planning on travelling up to Cairns taking about a month to stop at places in between, we have also booked 2nights / 3days camping and 4x4ing around Fraser island then another 2 nights / 3days sailing on a Catamaran around the Whitsunday islands. It cost a bomb but sounds amazing so we're really looking forward to that in a few weeks time.

It's been a busy day already, we arrived at the station 3 hours late and
hopped into a tuk tuk, our hostel was a bit of a shock to begin with, it's
like a student house with people and stuff everywhere, as we arrived a group
of rather loud girls were leaving and making a right fuss and we wondered
what we were walking in to.

We got chatting to Hayley and Ryan in the living room and decided we'd all
head out for a full body Thai massage they had heard about at a womens prison!

After a very long and confusing tuk tuk journey (driver got very lost -
twice!) we arrived and oh my god it was amazing, I've never been felt up by
a female Thai prisoner before but I sure can recommend it. The little thai
lady (about my age) laughed because my body kept cracking so much, I thought
I was falling apart when she put me in all these random positions and pulled
me about, it was really good, digging elbows in and finding nerves I never
knew existed. Lastly she lay behind me and picked me up backwards on top of
her with her knees! I swear your body isn't meant to do that, my back was
making the oddest noises.

Try at home tip: pull your toes (in a pull my finger type way) it feels so
odd!

After that unique experience we headed to a little local restaurant nearby
and the 4 of us had a cooked meal and a drink each for a total of 173baht.. you can live like a king here!

We've booked ourselves onto a trek tomorrow and Thursday (camping over night
in a forest somewhere) we'll be riding elephants and water rafting as well
as lots of scenic walking and what not.

Think we'll spend a while chilling at the hostel then head to the night
bazaar tonight for a wander and some food.

It's nearly 7pm and we have made it on to our train, currently "speeding"
our way to Chiang Mai. So far it has been incredibly bumpy and noisy,
thankfully the iPod keyboard is really good at guessing what you are trying
to say. I really hope it flattens out a bit through the night.

We should be on this train for over 14 hours (there's been a delay), luckily
we have a nice American guy next to us called Evan. He's a bit of a geek web
developer with an ipod touch too so been chatting away to him and drinking a
few bevvies. Dinner will be arriving shortly, I'll let you know how (or how
not) to eat soup on a bumpy train!

...1 hour later...

Ooook then 2 interesting experiences, soup was rubbish so eating it was not
neccesary, the majority of the rest found it's way ok.

The other was the little squatty loo whilst on a moving train. I now have a
new low for toilet hygiene comparison purposes.

Our bunks have been set up and Rachel is on the top (I convinced her top was
best, muhahaha). They are pretty comfy but the train is still bumpy as
anything. I really hope that Rachel doesn't spot the cockroaches before we
go to sleep! Tonight will be interesting!

... In the morning...

Ok well sleeper trains suck, they should be renamed try and sleep but fail
miserably trains. Managed to get 3 or 4 hours sleep but like a half hour at
a time. Rachel spotted a cockroach but we were pretty much up by that point
anyway, was rather funny and she's paranoid now LOL.

On the plus side the view from the window is pretty amazing, heading through
large farming plains with mountains in the distance. Banana trees and tiny
kids riding mopeds to school.

Just been informed we have about 30 minutes left which means we've now been
on here 15. Not sure what we are going to do in Chiang Mai today, maybe go
temple hunting, will ask at the hostel when we get there to drop our bags
off.

Today we've walked a marathon and more. We started off by heading to the
train station and what looked like a 10 minute walk on the map turned out to take us over
an hour.
We've booked ourselves a sleeper train up to Chiang Mai tomorrow, they were
all sold out of first class so we'll be roughing it, luckily air conditioning is still
available - it is so hot here you can not believe.

We then caught the underground train up to the north of the city where the
largest market takes place every weekend, the scale of this place is amazing, we were
totally lost the whole time, dodging in between street vendors and huge shanty areas with low
roofs and no ventilation, packed with everything from paintings to cookware to clothes to puppies!

After all that rushing around we headed back to the hostel via the sky
train. We grabbed a bite to eat this evening at the night market at the end of our road. We
went to a real locals "restaurant" where nobody spoke English very well, we were coersced
into ordered some pork and rice - the old "waitor" was hilarious, I doubt they get many
westerners in there. The food was gorgeous as we have cone to expect, even though the
plastic stools were half broken and there were bugs on the table lol.
I should point out now that our meal consisting of 2 soups, 2 mains a large
beer and a sprite came to 190 baht beat that Tesco!

The Thai are fantastic people, everybody is friendly and they are always
smiling and laughing, very accompdating to is us backpackers, England would never be
like that, they hate the Welsh let alone people from the other side of the world, I don't
feel too bad about invading this country as there seems to be a mutual understanding that
we will be touristy and they will do there best to sell us as many novelty lighters and
laser pens as we can carry.

We've now returned back to the air conditioned haven of our hostel, Rachel is typing away
about something so check her blog too.

We finally landed in Bangkok after our 10 hour flight, it was nothing
special but we both managed to get some sleep. I think we were both so nervous about coming away
for so long, but once we were at the airport it was obviously the right thing to do.

We got a taxi to our hotel without being totally ripped off which was good.
Was very sleepy and dehydrated when we got to the hostel so just crashed out for a
bit. Room in the hostel is really good, if a bit out of the action.

We got talking to a guy in the lobby who had been traveling for 7 months, he offered to
show us around a bit so that evening we headed into the Khoasan area (on a tuk tuk - so
fun) which is where all the backpackers hang out.
We found a little outdoor restaurant and had a decent Thai curry, the 3 of
us ate with multiple beers for under 10 - bargain, the night progressed with many more
beers which helped us sleep through til 11ish.

Next day we caught the sky train and a taxi ride to the grand palace (the
largest temple in the area) it was so hot about 2pm I nearly passed out, an ice lolly
helped the situation. From there we walked to the river side and haggled ourselves a
boat trip around the canal waterways (still think we were ripped off), it's amazing
how some people live on wooden huts suspended over the water.

We then walked over to the khoasan area we had been before and grabbed
ourselves a bite to eat and a few beers.

Now back at the hostel and we're ready for bed, think we're heading for a
few markets 2moro and to book our train to the north.

Night y'all