The Homestretch and an older LT

Ola!!
We left our canadian team in Airlie Beach to visit Jessica, a friend of LH's, who's living and working in Townsville. Townsville is a few hours north of Airlie and we spent 2 nights there and got to celebrate Jessica's birthday with her. Once again, having connections pays off...it was fantastic to stay in a house with a kitchen and TV and MOVIES all to ourselves!!! For free!!! Then we jumped on the ferry to Magnetic Island - and us being used to Canadian ferries (slow and easy) did NOT expect the launch from the dock across to the island in a mere 20 minutes! Like seriously...no standing allowed!
We were pumped to stay on the island because it is one of the sunniest places in Oz (300 days a year on average) but arrived to the isolation that was our hostel!! Don't get us wrong, the hostel was sensational - super clean, huge, right on the beach, pool, bar and fantastic music all day. At night it turned into a bar of sorts, which was cool. However, the "strip mall" (grocery store, liquor store, coffee shop) was a good 15 minute walk on the one main road! Needless to say, we got some walks in ;)
LT got to spend her 23rd birthday on the island..reunited with team canada, we decided to rent a "topless mini" car for the day to do some touring!! LT didn't mind being the only driver :) The only inconvenience was that you're only allowed 4 people in the car at a time so we had to do a few trips for everyone to see everything. We DID get a chance to do one of the many hikes on the island - it took about 2 hrs but had perfect weather and got some really pretty views! That night, all the girls got together and bought LT a birthday cake (with candles!!) and some paper maskd to celebrate the occasion :) For a change, we got to enjoy some Aussie-made Bundaberg Rum instead of our typical "goon" (remember the boxed wine?). The free "hangover" breakfast was a good treat the next morning ;) We also managed to fit in a kayak, and some sun bathing by the pool.
Zooming back to mainland, we headed up to Mission Beach, famous for its skydiving and white water rafting. Our bus driver, Trigger, for this part of the trip suffered, we think, from severe ADH...H...H..HD. We've never heard somebody talk so much into a microphone!! Aussies aren't very good with road signs either...the "attention to wildlife" signs were a little different than at home...
Mission beach was a little bit like Magnetic....fantastic hostel, but not much around. Our hostel had a bar attached to it so we managed to keep ourselves busy - I think we like our shirts too much :) We DO have to brag about the beach here though, because it was one of the prettiest we've ever seen! We're going to go through beach-walk withdrawal when we get home!!
Homestretch!! Only one more stop on the OZ experience - onto Cairns for diving!!! Eeeeeeee!! We have a good 8 days in Cairns..hopefully a trip up to Cape Tribulation (the rainforest of the north) and then our dive certification course and then we fly back to Sydney!! We will for sure update you with some diving pictures!
Misses from Oz!!
Love the Ls