Crikey!

Hullo again to you all. We are now safely located in the Whitsundays and will be boarding our boat in T minus 3 hours. It was absolutely peeing down when we arrived yesterday - so much so the pilot had to take two goes at landing. The airport itself was one small building and baggage claim was just that; they drove the trollies round to the side of the building and you had to go and find your own bag in amongst everyone elses. But I get ahead of myself. I must first tell you of our trip to Australia Zoo which was an absolutely fantastic day and I can't wait until I can put some pics up to show you.
We set off from Brissie at half 8 and drove north for about an hour to get there. Sarah's friend Debbie was our driver and we are very thankful to her for that. Surprisingly there were no queues to get in and though there were plenty of people about it never felt crowded. We made it just in time to see the tortoise show and then proceeded on to the croc show in the aptly named crocoseum. The rest of our day involved feeding the roos and elephants, watching the tiger and bird of pray demonstrations and wandering around to see any of the animals (or indeed keepers) we fancied. The animals were all really well cared for and (except for the crocs) all had really good relationships with their keepers. If you ever find yourself over here I highly recommend you go. The zoo does an amazing job and any donations you give go directly out of the zoo to conservation projects, not back into the zoo itself which you might expect. All in all I have to say well done Steve and co. You beauty!
So, back to the Whitsundays. As I say, we arrived yesterday in very wet conditions and were told this was the forecast for our entire stay. Thankfully today the sun has been out so far (apart from a wee shower) and hopefully it will continue that way. Our overnight accommodation was the YHA and we were pretty shocked with how basic it was. Our room looked more like a cell and faced out onto the main street so wasn't exactly quiet. We soon decided not to come back there on Saturday night and booked into another boutique backpackers a little out of town. We then had to go and check in for our boat (which was news to us as we'd received no information after booking) and despite a minor hassle that was relatively painless. Last night was uneventful due to the rain, we just spent the evening in our cell reading (thankfully I'd decided to purchase a book at Brissie airport).
Now we find ourselves killing some time in between our checking out and our boarding. We will be back on land on Saturday and I shall hopefully be able to fill you in about our boating adventures then. Anchors away!