Entries about snorkelling

The next couple of parts of my trip were on organised tours. I had been informed that I simply couldn't miss either the Whitsundays or Fraser Island.

For my Whitsundays trip I booked with Wings. A sociable boat with a knowledgable crew, without the clipper boat's intense party atmosphere. There's not a whole lot of space on these boats so it's fairly important to find one that is likely to attract your kind of people. I think I got mine right.

This trip consisted of a lot of sunbathing on deck, plenty of snorkel spots, and a visit to the paradise like Whitehaven beach. Throw in great company and some cheeky evening ciders, and you have the recipe for a good old time. I felt like I was living a glamorous lifestyle, without any of the actual glamour on our boat of course.

I knew I was on the right boat when we met another group's crew member who asked if we were having a good time and swiftly told us we couldn't be having that much fun if no one had had sex in the jacuzzi yet. Wrong crowd buddy.

Anyway, I'd say the Whitsundays are a must-see, providing you're not prone to sea sickness. It's beautiful, unspoilt and relaxed.

My next leg of the journey was to Rainbow Beach ahead of my Fraser Island tour. Rainbow Beach is a small and somewhat charmless town that really is a stop off for Fraser Island tours.

I stayed at Dingo's hostel where the rooms and reception area were nice, but I was seriously unimpressed with the kitchen. Not only was it small, but severely under-equipped for the number of guests, and a lack of washing up liquid (combined with lazy backpackers) meant what little they had was truly disgusting.

I was therefore quite excited to head off on my Fraser Island tag along tour. These consist of groups of jeeps, one of which has a tour guide, the others are driven by participants.

Fraser Island is a huge sand island with natural lakes, rock pools and such like, but not a lot else. The beaches are roads and subject to the same, if not stricter, road laws as everywhere else. This meant that some party animals missed out on driving opportunities, especially over the Easter Weekend, following some intense partying each night!

There are genuinely beautiful parts of Fraser Island, Lake Mackenzie for example, and it's an unspoiled spot, despite the number of visitors. The Dingo tours are big on their partying so this was my first and only real experience with goon (cheap, rubbish wine in a bag!). I had great people in my car, our Fraser Family as we liked to call ourselves, and I think that really added to the trip. As with so many things, it was as fun as the people I spent time with, so really very fun!

I found Cairns to be a slightly odd place. Not not nice, just a bit odd. It seemed like no one was from there, they just moved to work there, but I suppose I just might not have met the born and bred locals.

My first night there was St Paddy's day so I found myself in the infamous Gilligans for a celebratory beverage. Gilligans is a big hostel with two large bars and a larger reputation for parties. People were really dressed up in there, it was the first time in ages that I was conscious of my backpacking attire, or rather, just my lack of high heels, body con dresses and false eye lashes. It didn't detract from a fun time though, I really enjoyed the outside bar with live music.

The following day I set off nice and early for my Uncle Brian's rainforest trip. As would suit our location, it absolutely poured at intervals during the day and we did pass through the wettest town in Australia (why would you choose to live there?!). Our tour guide 'cousin Brad' loved to chat incessantly and loudly, and allowed no sleeping on the bus at all. Brad was weirdly flirty with everyone for 7.30am, and the eyebrow wiggle was frankly too much.

Despite this, I actually enjoyed the trip a lot. We went swimming in various lakes and under the Mila Mila waterfall (home to Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl video - yes there was some hair flicking). And for all the weirdness, Brad had an excellent playlist that excused the eyebrow wiggle, just about.

The next day was my most exciting in Cairns as I went for my first trip on the Great Barrier Reef, and contrary to the forecast we had a beautiful day! On the boat they made us fill in medical forms and took us through the safety briefing for first time scuba divers. I felt fine about it so I got stinger-suited and flippered up for my first snorkel.

Now I've seen Finding Nemo, I went to the Natural History Museum Coral exhibition and I've watched the telly, but seeing the Reef for the first time is pretty cool. They weren't wrong about the different kinds and colours of coral, and they were fairly spot on about all the fish.

Oh and I found Nemo. Several times actually, I'm not really sure what all the fuss was about.

I wasn't nervous about my dive until I was in the water itself. I remembered all the tests I had to do under the water and it was after that that my unconscious took over and I struggled to breathe properly. It's odd really since the big instruction is to breathe as normal. It was as though my brain screamed 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING FULLY SUBMERGED IN THE OCEAN?! COME TO THE SURFACE AT ONCE!'

We came to the surface, I regulated my breathing and we went again. Weirdly, pinching my nose helped me to distract me so I wasn't overthinking the whole breathing thing. As you can imagine though, holding on to the instructor, pinching my nose, breathing and trying to take photos with my rented underwater camera was a bit of a performance but I managed it!

I'm really pleased I tried it, but I'm not in a massive hurry to dive again soon. I absolutely loved snorkelling though, and it was a relief to get back in the water to snorkel around, and find Nemo again.