...Not Quite the Bee's Knees

G'day from Mission Beach, Australia. Weather's taken a bit of a turn for the worse as I haven't seen the sun in an entire week! Tomorrow, I depart for Cairns, my last stop in Australia. Terrible.
Right now, I'm travelling with two Italians: Marco and Alessandro. I've been travelling with Alex for a week now, and we met up w/ Marco a couple days ago. They're both real good guys, but a bit of opposites. Alex likes the fine things in life. He's the only backpacker I've met w/ a Rolex (and not the fake kind Greg gave me when he was in DC) and everything to him is broken into 2 categories: beautiful and not beautiful. Marco's more laid back. They're good company, and I've definitely been eating well since travelling with them. Last night we had a little Bruscetta and pasta. We all have our responsibilities cooking. I usually boil the water while they work on making the pasta sauce. We get along well, with the sole argument arising last night when the two Italinas were trying to decide on a wine for dinner (we compromised and bought both). I'll travel w/ them all the way to Cairns, where we'll watch the USA vs Italy game together, and maybe this time the US will actually try.
My Whitsunday trip was OK. We had had good weather up until then, but it was rainy/cloudy pretty much the entire time we were sailing. Luckily, we stayed on South Molle Island so we weren't constantly rocking on the waves, but the scenery and sailing weren't as good as they could've been. I snorkeled twice, and the water wasn't too cold, but the visibilty was poor due to clouds and wind churning up sand. I still was able to see some nice fish and coral, though. Hopefully, the weather will be better up in Cairns, and I will see more there. Also, they did allow alcohol on board the boat, so the people who chose to have a couple cocktails before the sea got rough were bending over the side saying hello to Uncle Raaalph.
From the Whitsundays, we took a bus up to Townsville and immediately caught the ferry to Magnetic Island, since Townsville isn't much. Magnetic Island was nice. It has wild koalas and wallabies (only saw the latter), and we rented a car and drove around the island seeing the sights. It was really scenic when the sun was out, but that didn't happen too often. Our hostel was great: right on the beach, with a bigscreen to watch the soccer. That's where I saw US get destroyed. The Italians cant stop laughing everytime I mention the words "US" and "soccer" in the same sentence.
Well, I'm getting the bus up to Cairns this afternoon. Just got word from Valerie that she is there as well, so it looks like we'll be able to meet up for a cheeky pint or two at the token Irish bar!
Hope everyone is doing well. When is the trip to Ireland?

Cheers,
James