Deutschland

We're in Airlie beach! This is very exciting. Airlie beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, meant to have some of the most stunning beaches in the whole of Australia. Better yet, we see them from a boat, on which we stay for 2 nights. The package deal includes all meals onboard and snorkel equipment. I can't wait!
We got in at 7 am this morning, after a 10 hour night bus journey. We slept through the whole thing. We were pretty tired since we were kayaking for a couple of hours yesterday. It was meant to be "kayaking with dolphins", or at least that's how they sold it to us - but we only saw a tiny fin in the distance. Apparently the waves were too rough, and dolphins prefer calm waters. But it was nice anyway - I just wish they weren;t so cheeky in their marketing schemes. So we kayaked in the sea, stopped at a beach and went up to a lookout. It was very pretty, and timed so as we could see the sunset. i.e. 5.30 pm. We had some wine (or goon, as they call it here - it's a special kind of cheap wine that a true backpacker should experience) and some cake. The guide was an English guy dressed up as an Aussie: Billabong swimming trunks, a shirt, long blonde hair and a straw hat. Crocodile Dundee we called him.
After that we got invited to a free barbeque at one of the bars in town. There was barely anyone there so we had about 6 sausage baps, good times. We were also dragged into some dubious games.. I think they were meant to spice up the very dead atmosphere. So 5 guys sat on a chair each, in a row, with a balloon on their crotch. The aim of the game was for their female companion to try to burst said balloon without using hands or teeth. For some reason I got picked out as one of the girls, and apologetically continually sat/jumped onto the balloon as hard as I could. To no avail. We lost, somebody else had a sharper ass.
So then we just got onto the bus and fell asleep!
Our hostel here is pretty nice, it has balconies that look onto the beach. This morning, very early, we had breakfast by the beach. We have some cereal that we've been carrying around and just buy milk each time and as for paper cups in cafes to act as bowls. It was great. Because it was so early there was no-one around - except for the always present exercise freaks who jog bright and early (there's a lot of them around here - including my sister). And I feel like finally I'm seeing the Australia I was waiting to see. Palm trees by the beach, turquoise waters, sail boats... and when you see the green parrots chilling on the palm trees, you know you're nearing the tropics.
We're heading out for free pizza in a bit, and looking forward to having a few drinks in the first lively town since Brisbane.
Cheers!