Once we were reunited with Sonic, we set off on our journey to Ayr. Matt did the driving this time and it took about 2 hours to get there, although this did include stopping for petrol and ice creams! We had to turn off before we really got to see Ayr and headed along the beach road to a little village called Alva, which seemed to comprise of about 4 rows of houses!

At about 5pm we pulled into the driveway of the Yongala Dive Centre and the boys set about filling in all the paperwork ready for their dive in the morning . There had been a mix up with the booking which meant that rather than just Gareth having a room in the lodge, all 3 of us did! Whilst I will try to get used to sleeping in the van, it was lovely to think I didn't have to until tomorrow! So we all checked in and headed up to our room.

The lodge is actually a converted house which has 2 dorm rooms sleeping 6 in each in bunk beds, a couple of private rooms, kitchen, lounge, dining area, bathroom & toilet upstairs and the dive business downstairs. It was really lovely for the boys to meet the people they would be diving with before they went and they were relieved to hear that many of them had a similar level of experience! With apart from 2 of them who had done 83 and 100 dives the rest had done just 7's and 8's. This ment everyone had the same concerns and worries about doing the dive as its quite a dangerous one to do apparently. We spent time chatting to them, discovering most were from England with just a couple from Greece, Germany & Australia . At about 7pm, we popped down to the cafe to treat ourselves to burgers and then at about 9pm, made our way to bed ahead of their big day!!!

Everyone started getting up around 6am so they could shower and have breakfast before having to check out at 7:30, as I wasn't diving I didn't have to check out until 10 but I still got up to have brekkie with the boys! They had already packed their bag so at just before 7:30 they nervously made their way downstairs for their briefing at 8:10 and to meet the rest of the divers who didn't stay overnight! At about 8:30, I heard the engines start up on the truck carrying the boat so I guessed they were on their way! For me, the rest of the day was spent writing the blog, planning the next part of our route, looking into campsites for the next 3 nights and reading my book! The boys, however were being much more adventurous, so this is where Matt takes over to tell you all about the dive...

We left Lauraine nicely tucked up in bed as we headed off . During our briefing we were told about how to descend and ascend to and from the wreck as there's usually very strong currents, with the water being 28m deep, so it's vital to use the guide line or you will just get taken with the current. Also we were warned about not touching or entering the wreck as it's protected by the government now and there's an instant $5000 fine if you so much as stick your camera in somewhere. There's lots of marines life to look for like massive sting rays, 2m long groupers, bull sharks and an octopus called Oscar. Oscar has lived on the wreck for a while and has a habit of collecting items off the boat and displaying them in his "garden". These items even include human bones! With 72 crew, 49 passengers, 1 race horse and a prized bull dying on the ship there would of been a lot of bones for Oscar to collect but people had started posing for pictures with skulls and stealing bones for souvenirs which is when the government stepped in and put the fines in place and moved all the bones they could find to a safe room on the wreck . this being to show some respect and to let them rest in peace

The Yongala dive company's claim to fame is that in the whole world there's only ever been 5 videos made of the eagle ray as its so rare, but they filmed 2 of these videos. So this was quite impressive. Beat that David Attenborough!! (Unless he's got the other 3 of course!). Learning all this didn't exactly ease our worries but it did add to the excitement.

As we set off it was a 5min buggy ride to the beach then on to the boat. The boat journey took around 30 minutes. It was a small ish and rather quick boat so it wasn't very choppy at all. All now a bit wind swept we soon arrived and had to gear up. As it's nearing stinger season we even had to wear head gear to protect us. We entered the water with 200 bar of air which should get us about a 3o minute dive but we were warned that if you come back with less than 50 bar you had to buy everyone a beer for every bar you were under . This is just a silly way of doing the safety stuff as generally you should never go under 50 anyway. We were soon in the water. This being the first time Gareth and I had done a entry where you have to fall backwards off the edge of the boat, it didn't help our worry of getting to the safety line quickly as we'd heard with the current being so strong if you're not on the line quick basically you'll miss it and then you're just floating off to sea. No sooner than I was safely in the water and heading for the descent line, I did my first look under the water. Although I was praying for no sharks I was suddenly being stared at by about 6 rather large groupers even though these aren't dangerous they're pretty huge so just makes it worrying. Soon realising they weren't interested we all started our descent. It takes about 8 minutes to get from the surface to the sea bed. This was the deepest all our group had been but was amazing at how calm and clear everything was down there. It turned out we had been lucky with the current as it was fairly calm so there was no chance of being swept away today . Once we were settled at 28m we started our tour. The ship is about 109m long and was such a beautiful sight as it laid on its side. There were so many fish of all different types; the biggest I've ever seen. We soon saw a large ray and a huge turtle, our instructor also pointed out the engine rooms, the toilets and the storage deck which you could see all of through the big holes in the roof of the ship. Also we saw Oscar's garden and bone collection, he wasn't home today so that was a massive shame. As we swam round in sheer amazement we soon only had 80 bar left on our air so it was time to get out. Getting out is no quick process as you have to avoid getting the bends - a very serious illness caused by nitrogen bubbles forming in your body. So as we swam back along the boat and up the ascent line we had to do a 2minute stop at 10 metres and a 3 minute stop at 5 metres to let the nitrogen get out of your body. I kept a close eye on my air, as it was basically on 50, and it turned out Gareth's was lower than mine so it was a tense few minutes as we tried to surface before we had to spend a fortune on beers!

No soon were we out of the water did I feel quite sick as sometimes the air can expand in your stomach . I held it off and we had dinner during which we talked about our amazing dive as people had seen so many different things, including sea snakes, huge rays mating and the 2 metre long grouper they'd talked about. We also got to hear the story of how the ship sank in a cyclone in 1911 because it didn't have a radio yet and wasn't warned of the storm coming as it set off. It was not even found until 1958 and the only things ever washed up were some fruit and veg and a half eaten race horse! After an hours break we were getting ready to go under again. I managed to be sick off the edge of the boat just before diving so I timed that well. I certainly wouldn't fancy being sick 28metres under water. We dived back in and only descended to about 2o metres this time to explore to top of the ship. This seemed like a better dive to me. We saw so many more fish this time, including the sea snake, the 2 metre grouper and a couple of massive rays swimming together. There was also this coral that looks like a flower. The 30 minutes soon ended so we headed back to the surface to head back to shore. Once we got back to shore and sorted all our gear out and dive books they laid on big burgers and chips for us all. Lauraine was very pleased to have us all back after waiting on her own all morning for us, worrying about how dangerous the dive can be. Everyone agreed that this was an amazing dive, even the experienced divers loved it. We had been very lucky with everything except Oscar the octopus. It was such a shame not to see him.

I personally feel that this was possibly the most amazing thing I've done in my life. As much as the Kinabalu climb was good this beats that purely on how incredible it was to see such a well kept ship wreck giving home to so many fish and coral.

Come the mid afternoon we were back on the road as we had a 4-5 hour journey to do to head inland before it got too late so we could go explore some dinosaur excavation sites and museums.