In this post, I was looking forward to extolling the virtues of scuba diving the SS Yongala shipwreck, billed as “one of the world’s top ten dive sites” (curiously, we’ve already dived fifteen of the world’s top ten…) but I’m sad to report that I can’t: the forecast adverse weather conditions forced the diving company to cancel our trip. Worse, the longer range forecast showed no sign of improvement over the next week and, as much as we enjoyed our stay at Airlie Beach, we had little appetite to extend our stay.

Upon hearing the news, we spun our car around a hundred and eighty degrees due south and began our journey towards Brisbane, our departing port. A couple of newly created “free days” meant that we could stop in at Ray and Gillian’s pad in Hervey Bay along the way and so, prior to arriving, we celebrated our last night of camping by really roughing it: a AUD$15 (£7.50) camping pitch amongst some rather insalubrious tenants in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t even bother to “make the bed” (i.e. move our bags out of the boot, fold down the seats and inflate the air bed), choosing instead to adopt the old “Nullarbor position“: Squiffy stretched out across the back seats whilst it was economy class aircraft style in the front passenger seat for me (with a towel instead of a blanket, obviously).

Thanks again to Ray and Gillian for rescuing us from another couple of nights of camping and their hospitality. It was a real shame that we didn’t get to dive the shipwreck as we’ve met quite a handful of people who’ve experienced it and said great things (apart from how strenuous it was!). We’ll add it to our list of things to do on our return to Australia (along with the Ningaloo Reef dive during the Whale Shark season).