1770/Agnes Water, Hervey Bay, Fraser Island,

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After the crazy amount of drinking that was done on the Clipper, we really needed a few days of R & R. And 1770 was the perfect place for that. We pulled up to our new hostel, "Cool Bananas", still following the recommenadations from our Cairns mates, and this was another excellent call! Talk about Chillaxed!Hammocks a plenty to rest the day away, a huge tv room filled with comfy sofas and bean bags, not to mention the DVDs galore to chose from! Each night, we also had the option of chillin by a camp fire with a nice cup of Goon, or Free Tea!!! As we said this whole area is super chilled, but one of the main things that people come here to do is the Chopperoo Drive!! This takes you on a tour around the nearby sights, showing you Kangaroos, Walibees and a beautiful sunsetting over the sea, all from the comfort of your own(miniture)Chopper! The day we went to do it, turned out they were fully booked, which ment there was nearly 50+ of us on the road at any one time!! CONVOY! After kickstarting off, the nerves were pretty high, but a few minutes on the open road,with the wind in our hair, it was hard not to picture yourself in a leather jacket sometime in the future!! Turns out we are bikers at heart!!

The rest of our time in Cool Bananas was spent either on the beach, or round the campfire chatting to other backpackers! Not sure what it is, but every group we tend to click with is flippin Irish!! In Cool Bananas we met four irish girls and spent a fair bit of time chatting with them swapping stories and drinking cups of goon (or tea, depending on what mood we were in!)!!

From Cool Bananas we headed South the Bundaberg where we stayed for a night, just to stock up on supplies such as hoodies, trackies and long sleeved t-shirts for the Fraser trip-- we had been well warned that it gets pretty freezing at night time!!! We also wet to visit the Bundaberg distillery- the place is home of Bundaberg Rum which is pretty famous in this neck of the woods!!!

Then it was time for the Fraser experience, we headed to Hervey Bay and checked into our hostel early enough in the day- we had an orientation session at 3pm where we were going to meet our group for the trip so we had to be there for that! So a quick 'safety on fraser island' dvd and chat later we were assigned our group and told to do the shopping for the next few days! This is where we made our first (but not last) mistake- letting a guy who doesn't have the best English write the list! Madness...and later it turned out that the dude in question was actually pretty crazy, hense the nickname: Crazy!!The rest of our group was great, everyone got on pretty much straight away.We were clearly the more lively of the two groups too.The shoppin was a bit hecktick, no one really wanting to take charge and organise everything!But I think we all know someone who LOVES to Organise!Soon Sarah had her band of shoppers whizzing round the aisles.And then it was on the the beer store( which by the way is a drive through, Genius!)Collectively our group had an impressive 36 Litres of Goon, as well as a large selection of beers and other alco drinks!We decided itd be a good idea to have a fews drinks that night in the local pub, just so we all got to know each other.The Group consisted of two German lads, Nicco and Mathew, Jason a Welsh fella, two English girls, Kate and Beccy, two French girls (one with very little English), Sophie and Elodie, an American guy, Nick and lets not forget Crazy Dutch guy, Michael.

Wake up nice and early the following morning, get a quick, terrifying , talk on the dangers of driving on the beach in the 4WD.Hear a few horror stories of past trips, broken bones, paralysed people.... and then are were asked "So who wants to drive first?"
Unfortunately the weather was pretty pants on our first morning, not really raining, just very cold , windy and wet!So it meant the few sights we saw that day were pretty rushed as no one wanted to be outdoors.Crazy was one of the first to drive on the sand,and even after seein the videos of accidents that morning , still proceeded to bomb down the beach, having the passangers in the back bounce around like........i cant think of anything that bounces around alot, but you get the idea!Hence the name crazy!Down along the beach we get to see the awsome sight of the Maheno shipwreck.The ship was washed ashore in a huge cyclone years ago, and now the rusted remains still sit on the sand.We also passed some thing called the Pinnicles, no one really knew waht there were, and cause of the bad weather, no body even bothered getting out of the car.

We arrive at our campsite about three o clock, and all work together to set up our tents and camping gear.The darkness of the night quickly falls, and you couldnt see a few feet infront of you.Luckily we brought two good lanterns, another score for our team, as the other team had to make there dinner in the darkness.Speaking of dinner, that night we had a pretty delicious BBQ.Burgers, sausages, and potatoes (that just wouldnt cook!)After feeding time, comes drinking time!!But first we needed a fire to chill beside.The other team had given it there best shot, but got little more then a smoldering pile of tissue paper.So the German boys stepped up, surely there army training could be put to some good use...No.So Ed took the reigns, we needed good kindling to start it up, so he sacrificed himself for the group.He began tearing the pages from his current book.Luckily, it was almost finished, so he was able to leave himself the final chapters!James Patterson, I could kiss you!!But even after that, we still had to call on the assistence of real campers to get it going!We than gathered round the fire light to play our first game of Ring of Fire.An Excellent drinking game.It works like this, you set out a deck of card, in a circle, in the centre of the ring sits an empty cup.Each card has a different meaning.Each player randomly choses a card, and follows the rules for that card, taking care when picking up a card , not to break the ring, for there is a penalty of downing your whole drink.There is also a continous rule, of not being allowed use anyones name at the table, or to point at anything, doing either results in a drink.Not being able to name any one meant everyone soon got a nick name.Ed was Irish No.1 and Sarah was Irish No.2 for the rest of the trip. Excellent game, will take a while to type the rules, put if ya really do want them, let us know.Unfortunately, the campsite we were stating in had a 9 O clock"quite time" rule. Breaking the rule would incur a fine, so once our drinking game was over, we headed to the nearby beach, where we could make as much noise as we wanted. Chilled there for a few hours, and of course the manditory sing-song was had.

Waking up the following morning, were delighted to see that the sun is finally shining. After a rushed breakfast, of crappy tea and toast made over a bunson burner, we climbed aboard our 4WD and hit the beach again. Now that the weather was brilliant, the trip was much more enjoyable. We climbed to the top of a mountain top, called Indian Heads. From here, we could look into the sea front and see whales and sharks and stingrays. And the view from here of the 75Mile beach was amazing. Our next stop was the "champagne pools". These natural warm pools of water on the edge of the sea, fill with the foamy part of the waves as they crash into shore. Hence the name. Most of the backpackers hung around near here, but on our way down to this sight, we spotted a completely deserted beach. So after swimming in the pools, we made our way across the jagged rocks to the beach which hadn't a single foot print on it!! So while Nicco and Mathis ( Germany No 1 and No 2 ) , Jason ( Welshie) and Dave played some football on the sand, Sarah and Kate and Beccy ( England No 1 and No 2 ) laid back and tanned themselves!The next part of our trip, was slightly off the map, abandoning the plan that had been laid out for us to follow, we went truely off road! One way ,narow , roads where we weren't sure if we were actually going the right way. But fun times!

Before darkness kicked in, we made it to our camp for the night, "K'Gari Aboriginal Campsite". This place was what set our trip apart from the normal Fraser trips! We had payed a little extra to stay here, but in this campsite we would be taught to play the digeridoo, watch a tribal dance, have our face painted in an ancient aboriginal style , all while we sat round a huge bonfire! What a great idea...or so we thought! Instead, we saw one aboriginal, and all he did was tell us all the things we WEREN'T allowed do, and then that was it! He left! Actually no, that's not true, before he left, he told us not to go near the bush, as they had recently killed several Death Adders out there. He then went on to say that we'd have to build our OWN fire, so if we wanted one, we could go collect some fire wood....from the F*cking Bush!!
The kitchen was pretty crowded with both groups in it , (also there was sightings of field mice running along the rafters)but we still managed to throw together some dam tasty pasta and chicken! While the other group sat round the fire ( don't know who got the bleeding wood ) our group started another game of "Ring of Fire"! Cathal and Donna (Irish No 3 and No 4 ) from the other group( they became honourary group 1 members ) joined us for our second game! One of the game rules, is that each time a King is drawn you can put whatever your drinking or whatever you want ("Except piss" shouts Welshie) into the center cup, and whoever is unlucky enough to draw the final King, has to drink the entire thing!And so Germany No1 was the lucky drinker of a mixture of Goon, Beer, Marsallows and Salt and Vinegar Crisps! Tasty!! England No 1 got off a bit lighter with just a concoction of white goon, red goon and beer! The night was played out to the beautiful sound of German No 1 and No 2 and Dave singing all the versus ( plus some of there own) of Old Mc Donald!

The following morning Sarah went to the kitchen to tidy up our bits and pieces, and to her horror, she found dingoes had ravaged everything! Sitting on the table ,eating our left overs! Whoops! They soon left, and then we hit the road once again! We traveled south along the coast to Lake Wabby, our final stop on Fraser.After an agonisingly long walk of forty minutes (its been a while since weve excercised!!!!) we made it to this beautiful lake, surrounded by massive sand dunes on one side and a huge forest on the other.After a while of hanging around, and rolling down the sandy hills, we headed on back to the car, and off on our way to the ferry.

On arriving back on the man land, and back to our hostel, EVERYONE was knackered, smelly, and starving!So all we wanted was to pass out on our beds and veg out until that night( The group had arranged to see the new Batman film later that evening.)But nothing can be that easy for Sarah and Dave, instead we came home to find Sheila had been broken into and the stereo had been stolen!Luckily that was all they had taken, but there was still plenty of messing to do with police and insurance companies, in order to ensure our bond on the car wasnt affected.Pretty sure its all sorted now though, and more importantly we still managed to make it to the cinemas that night!!GO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT!!

The following morning we headed for Noosa, with our new passanger Nick (Captain America).Nicks job involved alot of singing as he is our temporary radio for the rest of this drive.

Thats all for now...check in soon!
Dave & Sarah
xxxx

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Photos

Can't get enough...
of that lovely sunset!!

Oooo....artistic Sarah!!
Probably shouldn't have taken the pic while driving, but it was worth it!!!

Goon city!!!
We were only going for 2 nights-- and thats just the goon! There was a shed load of beer & some party pop too!! Seriously- 11 damaged livers will be coming home!!!

Group 1
Ready to hit 75 mile beach!! With Crazy in the Drivers seat...can anyone spell MISTAKE!!!!

Woo woo, the tents are up!
Lets hit the Goon and get the fire going!!

Another night....
...another round of Ring of Fire!!

The Kings cup....
...complete with Salt & Vinegar crisps, Marshmallows, red goon and white goon!

Lake Wabby
Check out how high up the dune we are....they are people down below!!

Group 1!!
We rock....and we knew it!! LOL!!!

Whats that Skip??
Our first LIVE Kangaroos!!

Sunset!
Here we go again.....

Sunset 2
We love these damn things!!!