Cape Hillsborough NP and the Whitsundays...

Hi everyone...I am sitting in an internet cafe in Airlie Beach...faster using broadband here. The past few days since I last wrote have been fun, despite a run of bad weather.

We stayed at Cape Hillsborough NationalPark,which is just near Mackay for a couple of days...a really stunning spot- quite a rugged stretch of coastline,with lots of rocky cliffs down to the beach and a real mix of vegetation, with everything from gum trees,to pinesand palm trees (something iswrong with the spacebar on this keyboard,so sorry for any lack ofspaces!!) . Went for a couple of lovely bushwalks...past top lookouts,andin some cases through the mist and rain...the low lying cloud hanging eerily around the beach and the cliffs. Saw some unusual types of wallabies right on the beach too, which was pretty cool. The rainy times we just read books...or put on rainjackets and kept doing things!

Airlie Beach is a nice,busy kind of place,full of backpackers! Yesterday we took a gamble on the weather(forecastwas for clearingto sunshine) and took a boat trip out around the Whitsunday Islands. Sadly the weather didn't exactly cooperate...it was windy and cloudy and pretty chilly! Nevertheless it was great to see the islands- very beautiful andheavily wooded. We stopped at Whitsunday Island which is all National Park and saw famous Whitehaven Beach with its pure white silica sand and went for a walk there. I also went for a scuba dive...saw some lovely fish- visibility not as good as it could have been owingto the weather though.

Off to Bowen from here....and soon we stay at Hinchinbrook Island- a treat to ourselves which we bookedbeforewe left!

Hope all's well at home. Love Emma and Adam.