Airlie Beach turned out to be a great little town set on the seafront, and with the sun shining once again we soon settled in. Although the word ‘beach’ is in the name, Airlie actually doesn’t really have a beach to speak of - except for a grubby half-moon of sand that the council don’t recommend you step foot on, due to the (rumoured) presence of crocodiles, jellyfish and other nasties. Instead, like in Cairns, there’s a lovely man-made lagoon with plenty of space for the general public to splash around. Airlie’s lagoon is in a more natural setting than the one in Cairns, surrounded by grass and with a few sandy areas for a sort of faux-beach effect.

Although the town itself is quite sweet and has a few nice shops, you soon run out of things to see and do since it’s so small. Airlie really is mainly a stepping-stone for visiting other places, especially the Whitsunday Islands. Matt had done a trip before with a local family-run company, Whitehaven Xpress, so we decided to visit the islands with them. As it turned out, the staff were incredibly friendly and kind, and rustled up a mean Aussie barbecue for us to have for lunch. Although the boat was a little old and weathered, it had a sort of charm about it

The Whitsunday Islands themselves are a real tropical oasis of white sands and azure ocean, brimming with many kinds of plant and animal life. Matt and I spotted several hideous spiders of ridiculous proportions (bigger than my entire hand), some hairy, some brightly coloured, and all terrifying. Fortunately the views from the lookout point on one of the islands were so stunning that it was worth treading carefully through the wilderness and dodging spiders for about twenty minutes. The viewpoint also proved to be a wealth of interestingly-presented information on the formation of the islands, and the aboriginal perspective on the way that the Whitsundays came to be.

Arriving in Cairns, I have to admit that I was a little nonplussed. Tired out from all the travelling, I was ready to dive in the shower on arrival at our hostel and have a long overdue nap. Fortunately the hostel that Matt had booked for us, Tropic Days, was very cosy and welcoming, and our double room was clean and comfortable. As a family-run place, Tropic Days is decked out with the owners’ souvenirs from their travels, and has two cute resident Staffie dogs - Chilli Pepper and Pepper Dingo (although sadly during our stay there we didn’t have much interaction with them). After we had freshened up a bit, we decided to venture into town using the hostel’s free shuttle bus service. I was a bit disappointed to find that Cairns itself has very little going on other than a high concentration of hostels in a small area, resulting in a lot of crappy bars and not much else. If you’re a backpacker who wants to get drunk and eat takeaway food it’s an absolute haven - as that’s not the reason I came travelling, it didn’t really appeal to me that much! We did take a walk down the esplanade however, which ends up at a nice man-made lagoon frequented by locals and tourists alike. The atmosphere at the lagoon is family-friendly, and lots of children were playing in the shallow waters; a welcome respite from the afternoon heat. Matt and I dipped our feet in one end and found it to be cool and refreshing, although since we were still quite tired we decided against getting changed into our swimwear.

Sadly on the second day and several subsequent days, the weather turned from gorgeous sunshine to torrential rain of a kind I hadn’t witnessed since we left England. As our hostel made a nice base, we relaxed and watched television, and I took the opportunity to spend a lot of time reading. We did venture out to Cairns Central, the local shopping centre, however there was little there to look at and we soon found ourselves heading back to the hostel once again. Matt booked himself into a snorkelling trip on the Great Barrier Reef, but when the day of the trip came around it was still pouring with rain so he decided not to go. We tried to wait until the weather improved, but after about four days realised that we’d better head south to Airlie Beach in search of some sun and to visit the famous Whitsunday Islands.

It’s been a while since I last posted, sorry! Everything was a bit manic with leaving Lanta and heading to Singapore. We’ve been in Australia for a little while now, but thanks to the severe lack of free internet I’ve only just managed to finally get this post up. Stay tuned for a separate post on our travels in Australia so far.

On Valentine’s Day, Matt and I decided to be a little more adventurous and headed out on a snorkelling trip of four islands near Ko Lanta, organised by a company called Opal Travel. The excursion cost the princely sum of £20 each, which turned out to be well worth it! We were collected early in the morning and driven to a point on the beach where we were to be collected by our speedboat. The boat was pretty much brand new and fully equipped with everything we would need, including a limitless supply of mineral water provided free of charge. All the staff were very friendly and great fun, laughing and joking with us and the other passengers. Having never been snorkelling from a speedboat (and not being a huge fan of swimming/the sea in general) I was a bit unsure as to what to expect from the trip, but fortunately it wasn’t as scary as I’d anticipated. Matt and I both donned snorkel masks, flippers and life jackets and splashed around looking at a multitude of different types of fish and coral. Admittedly we were both very far out of our depth, but the boat crew were attentive and kind so nobody ever felt unsafe. After our first snorkel we were taken further along past other islands to view their fantastic landscapes - we weren’t allowed to stop and snorkel there since the areas were protected - and skimmed along the clear waters for a while before stopping for lunch. The Thai fare was delicious (no surprises there) and there was plenty for everyone, including curry, fried chicken, steamed rice, vegetables and fresh fruit for afters, topped off with a soft drink. The spot we stopped at for lunch was stunning, with far-reaching views across the ocean and the softest sand underfoot. Like everywhere we had experienced in Thailand, it was all picture-perfect.

After lunch we headed back out to sea for the next snorkel, where we encountered even more brightly coloured fish of all different sizes. The crew even handed out a few bananas for us to feed the fish with! I never would have dreamed it, but these fish absolutely adore fruit - they were swarming towards us in schools and flip-flopping over each other to get at it, and nibbling our fingers at times in the process. Somehow it was very surreal to be completely surrounded by hundreds of tropical fish all vying for food.

The final stop on the trip was Emerald Cave, which is famed in the area of Ko Lanta and its surrounding islands. I was a little tired out by this time and didn’t particularly fancy doing any more snorkelling, so I left Matt to it - and I was quite glad I did, as the only access to the cove hidden in the cave is via a pitch-dark tunnel that you have to swim through. The thought of being crammed into an unlit tunnel with around twenty other people and having to swim for several minutes before seeing light again didn’t sit well with me, so I remained on the boat with the crew, who kept me entertained for the fifteen or so minutes that Matt was gone. I was handed more fruit to feed the fish, so I took the opportunity to take a few photos on Matt’s camera of them scrambling around next to the boat. One of the crew even got into the water (no equipment of course) with a large slice of watermelon and balanced on the anchor rope for some time while all kinds of fish darted around him nibbling away at it. In what seemed like no time at all he triumphantly held up the remains of the melon, which had been reduced to nothing but the green rind; all the flesh had been stripped off and not the tiniest shred of red fruit remained.

A photo I took using Matt’s camera of the fish!

All too soon it was time to return back to the resort, and the boat did an about-face to take us back to the beach where we’d been dropped off that morning. The ride back was lovely though, skimming along the waves and admiring the crystalline blue of the sea and vibrant green of the islands we passed. It was a really memorable way to spend our time, and the value for money was just incredible - not to mention that it changed my mind about snorkelling.

Sadly our time on the island was coming to an end, as we had our flights booked from Singapore to Australia just days later. Leaving Ko Lanta was a sad experience for both of us, as we’d grown so fond of Fevrier Resort and its owners, as well as their three resident dogs. We’d met so many wonderful people on the little island and made many great friends that it was quite heart-wrenching to have to say goodbye - especially to the lovely volunteers and dogs at Lanta Animal Welfare. On our last day, Matt and I took our favourite dogs - Pepsi and Lanta II - out for a final walk. It was a sad moment since we’d each grown very attached to them both; in fact I still think about Lanta II now weeks later, and I know Matt thinks about Pepsi a lot, too. Maybe one day, in an ideal world, we’ll be able to adopt the two of them… And hopefully sooner rather than later! It’s a dream I suppose, but maybe not an unrealistic one.

Lanta II

From Lanta we flew to Phuket for the night and stayed in a friendly little cottage before catching our flight to Singapore the next morning. As usual everything went without a hitch, and before we knew it we were disembarking in the cool, modern and huge Changi Airport. From the airport we caught the MRT (Singapore’s underground railway line, like the tube only much cleaner, more efficient and cheaper) to Chinatown, where we’d heard that we could find some decent accommodation at a reasonable price for a few days. After inquiring at a few hotels, we realised that we wouldn’t be able to find a double room for less than around $90 and accepted that this part of our trip was probably to be a bit pricier and quite different from both Thailand and Vietnam, which was hardly surprising. The hotel room unfortunately turned out to be very disappointing, with no window and strangely an overly large bathroom furnished with little other than an old toilet, wet-room style shower and a lot of mould… Not to mention a few token cockroaches. We deposited our bags and vowed to find some nicer accommodation for the following evening.

Excessively mouldy bathroom

Fortunately we came across Keong Saik Hotel, which for only $10 more per night guaranteed us a nicer, more sanitary room including a light breakfast and free wifi, something which we soon realised is quite a rarity in Singapore. In fact, in order to use wifi hotspots around the city, you need to be registered with a Singapore-wide service that requires you to have a Singaporean telephone number. Once we’d sussed this detail out, we purchased a cheap sim card to register to the service with and proceeded to abuse every wifi hotspot we found nearby - mainly McDonald’s.

Sadly Matt was struck down with a mystery illness soon after we arrived, and was out of action for most of the few short days that we were in Singapore. I suspect it was a 48 hour bug that somebody breathed/sneezed onto him somewhere on our journey, and unluckily it meant that we weren’t able to visit half of the places we had planned to go to. Still, we managed to do a little shopping and sightseeing, and even met up with our French-Canadian friends from Fevrier Resort, Jean and Valerie, who came with us to Singapore Zoo. The Zoo in itself was a fantastic day out, although the weather was very humid and I think we were all a little tired (not to mention that Matt was still recovering from his sickness) so I’m not sure that we enjoyed it to the best of our ability! Nonetheless we saw lots of wonderful animals, including several white tigers. A friendly Zoo employee even spoke to us for some time, and gave the resident leopards some meat out of usual feeding hours so that we could personally see the way they eat. In actual fact he dropped the meat through a grille over part of the leopards’ enclosure that was filled with water, so they had to swim to retrieve it. I think we were all surprised at what good swimmers they are, and loved watching the way they hold the food between their paws to tear at it with their teeth.

I picked up a few cute bits and pieces in Singapore, as it’s pretty much shopping heaven! They have whole stores there dedicated to Sanrio and Hello Kitty - I could have spent hours in them. As Matt was a bit under the weather again after the Zoo, I decided just to go out for a couple of hours and pick up a few things; luckily I was quite restrained and didn’t spend a fortune or add too much weight to my luggage.

The new face of Chanel? Probably not.

Sadly on our last night in Singapore (after my shopping spree) disaster struck! Matt woke up at around 4am in a cold sweat and frantically snatched up our travel documents to check the flights… As it turned out, we’d missed our flight from Singapore to Australia by not checking the date correctly (we were one day out). I’d mainly been leaving poor Matt to organise our travel plans, so he blamed himself largely for the mistake we made; really we both should have been keeping an eye on it, so it’s taught us a lesson for next time! Fortunately Qantas customer service were very helpful and organised for us to get on the next available flight and change our connecting one to Cairns from Sydney as we would have missed that as well. There was an extra charge but it was very minimal, and a whole lot cheaper than buying a whole new flight which would have been in the region of around £500 each. We packed our bags in record time, grabbed a small bite to eat for breakfast and caught the train to the airport to start our Australian adventure.

Everything at Singapore airport went smoothly, although as we’d cut everything quite fine we didn’t have a chance to look around at the airside shops (probably a good thing as I would have bought even more tat). Within just a few hours we’d arrived in Sydney - obscenely tired as usual - and set about trying to find a room for the night within easy reach of the airport in preparation for our early flight to Cairns the next morning, which proved a lot more difficult than we’d anticipated. Finally we managed to catch a train to Sydney’s Central YHA hostel, where we promptly fell asleep at around 11pm.

Rising early the next morning, we dragged our luggage back to the airport from the hostel (which had proved fairly comfortable although an utter ripoff) and took our national flight to Cairns. The check-in process was easy and convenient, and within no time we were on yet another Qantas flight. Thanks to having managed to scrimp about four hour’s sleep, we both pretty much passed out as soon as we boarded the plane, and arrived in Cairns in what felt like no time at all. We’d already booked our hostel, so it was just a case of waiting for their free courtesy bus, depositing our bags there and starting to make the most of the famous Australian sunshine.

More to come on our Aussie travels very soon!

Isabella x