Brisbane to Magnetic Island

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I left Byron Bay on a 3 day slog to get to Frasier Island which took me firstly to Surfers Paradise. This town was a cross between a cheesy European beach resort and a poor mans Las Vegas with horrible looking steak restaurants and seedy nightclubs all over the place. Thankfully we were only there for one night and chose to just get a good night sleep. The next day I headed back to Brisbane for one night where I said my goodbye to my mate John and had an interesting night in a club which as it was ladies night offered girls clothes for all the blokes to wear in order to get cheap drinks which certainly made for an interesting evening. We headed the next day to Noosa Heads which is a picturesque area 80 miles north of Brisbane. This was the first place in Australia where I wished I had more time to spend as there was a national park where you could Kayak in and camp for 3 nights and also you can visit Australia Zoo (made famous by Steve Irwin) both things I would very much like to have done.

So after three days and nights in three different places we arrived in Rainbow beach which was our springboard to Fraser Island. Fraser is a world heritage site and is essentially one giant island of sand stretching about 120km. It has numerous freshwater lakes, is home to some of purest breeds of dingoes and the surronding seas are un-swimmable due to the rough seas and high levels of Tiger sharks that are in the waters. You need a 4wd vehicle to visit the island so through a company called dingoes we were sorted into groups of 8 by our hostel and then the following day provided with Toyota land cruisers equipped with food, camping and cooking gear and whatever booze we deemed necessary for three days (90 cans of beer and 22 litres of goon in turned out for our truck). You had to be over 21 to drive so that only left me and another guy named Chris to do all the driving. I got the short straw to drive first which I was straight away regretting once the guy from the car rental company explained the numerous dangers of driving on Fraser and just how easy it is to crash the car and likely injure or kill yourself and everyone on board if you drive stupidly. So after this lovely safety briefing I was just a little worried and feeling very responsible for the 7 other people on board. We headed down to the beach switched to 4wd and headed to get our ferry to the island. Once off the sand was very deep and it took some serious revving to get the cruiser onto the dirt road. This track could only be called a 'road' loosely as it was extremely uneven and bumpy and any speed over 20km would create quite a ride for those in the back! After 40 mins of this delightful track we hit the beach and I immediately started thinking of all the ways I had been told I might crash or flip the vehicle as a result when the beach driving started getting pretty bad such as big divots and the car sliding across the sand my stress levels rose a little bit! We got stuck a few times which forced the other guys in the van to get out and push as I revved us out but eventually reached the track which would take us to Lake McKenzie. This was a more fun road to drive with a narrow path and constant changing track it required a lot of concentration as so by the time we arrived I was happy to hand over the driving to Chris for the rest of the day. Lake McKenzie is a truly beautiful spot with the clearest water I have ever seen. The water is so fresh that you can even drink it - this Lake is so protected that only 2 companies are allowed to send their vehicles there fortunately we had gone with one of them!

After Lake McKenzie we drove down to see the wreck of the ship Maheno that had washed up on the beach it was not really that fascinating but made for a good photo. We then headed to our camp site and soon discovered that compared to the other 3 cars on our group we had a pretty efficient group as we arrived last but had our tents set up and cooked and ate dinner before any other group. After dinner we settled down to the real business of the evening drinking. Unfortunately for me this did not go well as after losing pretty badly in a drinking game with goon (truly lethal stuff) I was very drunk beyond that my memories become a little hazy but as it goes I threw up then wondered off for a little while only to return with my arm covered in blood claiming that a dingo has attacked me - this turned out to be complete rubbish and I still don't know why I said this I guess probably because I had fallen over drunk and cut myself and was too embarrassed to admit it! Obviously my camp mates were in a panic and cleaned and bandaged my wound then decided to call the emergency services to see if there was anything else that needed doing. The phone call cut out half way through so they sent an ambulance to the island to find us but were unable to do this.

I awoke the next day to a terrible hangover and even greater shame. My group obviously made numerous jokes at my expense but in the end were good sports over it! Due to my hangover Chris saved me from the driving and we headed to Indian Head which is the end of the island where you can climb to a lookout point or head to the Champagne pools. It would have been a great day but it rained most of the time and was generally pretty miserable. We headed up to the top of the head where you had a great view of the end of the island seeing both sides. We were also able to see more dolphins swimming by the coast. After lunch we headed to see the champagne pools which turned out to be a 40 min slog up the beach. The pools are essentially a flat rock area where the sea crashes over filling several places with water to create the pool effects. The fun of the place is to stand by the edge and let the sea crash over you - some brave souls ventured down but due to the cold no one in my group was in any mood to follow. After this we headed back in a rush to get to our camp for the night as we were pretty close to our time deadline to get off the beach before the tide came in. However leaving a little late ended up being a good thing as we were able to go pass the Maheno again and get some great sunset shots. Yet again we arrived at camp last but somehow seemed to set up our camp, prepare, cook and eat our dinner way before everyone else. We dubbed ourselves the Fraser family and I was given the title (not unsurprisingly) of the drunken uncle. After the excesses and dramas of the night before we were happy to have a quieter evening just enjoying a few beers and getting an early night. The highlight of the night for us was when the rangers turned up just to check we were ok and make sure no one was lighting any fires or attracting any dingoes especially as someone had apparently been bitten by one the night before (namely me). I then sheepishly stepped forward to tell that they were talking about me and that there had been no dingo and that I was just a drunken fool. Thankfully they were impressed by my cut and so were not too bothered by the call to the emergency services. They even took my picture and name most likely to add to the Fraser Island tourist dickhead wall!

The next day I took the driving seat again and now that I realised that death was not over each sand dune I was able to enjoy the driving a lot more. That morning we headed to Lake Wobby which is green coloured lake at the bottom of some massive sand dunes. It is famed for the catfish which if you stay very still in the water will come and exfoliate your skin by eating the dead bits. We tried this but perhaps due to the freezing water temperature we were unable to entice the fish to have a nibble. We left Lake Wobby in a bit of rush as we had only 40 mins to do a 50-55 min drive to get our ferry. So I pushed the car to the maximum safe speed and headed on a very fun drive through the sand. By the time we hit the dirt track back to the ferry pick up I felt I had mastered the beach driving pretty well! On the first drive up the dirt track I had been nice and gentle rarely heading over 20kph however with the deadline fast approaching I pushed the cruiser up to 30-40kph which meant a pretty uncomfortable ride especially for those in the back which led to a few curses being thrown my way. We hit the ferry beach just to see it pull away so it had all been for nothing. In the end it did not matter as we just sat there and enjoyed until the ferries return 30 mins later. On returning to the mainland to drop the vehicle off we held our breath as the mechanic gave it the once over and thankfully there had been no damage. So ended three great and eventful days on Fraser. It is a remarkable place and definitely one of the best experiences of my trip.

After one more night in Rainbow beach we headed to get our next bus to Airlie beach. This involved a rather tiresome journey as we had to get a 3 hour bus then stop and wait for 3 hours for our next bus which was a further 12 hours. We arrived at Airlie beach where we would be sailing the Whitsunday Islands on a boat called the Atlantic Clipper. We were both a bit jaded from our long journey to get there but we had to book in for our boat and then drop our big bags off at the storage office before heading down to the boat. We did not leave the boat to 3pm so the first day was simply sailing to where we would spend the night and then getting to know everyone on board. There were 50 people on our boat which was a large number for the size of the boat. It was a shame that we did not have another night to recover after the bus journey as Caz was feeling a little run down after Fraser and I felt very tired after having very little sleep over the past few days. As a result neither of us felt like being sociable and ended up getting an early night.

The next day we were woken by the ship alarm clock which was an English guy named Paul singing Sex Bomb by Tom Jones and he was pretty good as well. After breakfast we headed to Whitehaven beach which has the purest sand in the world it was raining but this barely retracted from what was a truly stunning place. The sand is so pure that you can clean your jewellery there and even brush your teeth with it. It is illegal to remove the sand and has only be taken away once to be used in the building of the Hubble telescope. After returning to the boat I straight away went out to do a dive which turned out to be pretty disappointing as the visibility was pretty appalling barely more than 2-4m. However the rest of the afternoon was enjoyed jumping off the top of the boat or going down the boats slide into the sea.

That evening we knew we were in for some fun activities as a wild night had been promised by the crew. After an hour of so of chatting and drinking the crew brought up a fancy dress box and told us to get dressed. The fancy dress boxed essentially meant guys dress as girls and vice versa. Then after we had all dressed and thoroughly laughed at each Matt the dive instructor came up in a full spandex suit and cape and Lucy the chef joined him in a pink cowgirls outfit. We then assembled in front of them on a stage and proceed to play a mad game of Simon says as they slowly eliminated people. Once we were down to the final 32 we then split into 4 groups of 8 for a the classic boat race my team came through. The next challenge asked each 8 to choose a leader (which ended up being me) then each team giving their leader as many items of clothing as possible and each piece of underwear counted as 5. This led to me wearing numerous shirts, shorts, bras and boxers and after they had all been counted we lost by one item - galling! After it all turned a bit extreme with the crew breaking the groups into 3's and shouting out sexual positions for each to imitate before eventually three people were left. These three had to do a dance off the first girl went up and was pretty good even breaking out the 'worm', the only guy left was pretty drunk and not much of a dancer so he had no chance. The final girl obviously decided that the only way to win was to go wild dancing crazily and then finally taking most of her clothes off. As the crew asked everyone to cheer for the winner naturally the girls cheered for the first girl and the guys for the second eventually the crown was given to the first girl! After this hilarious 2 hour competition most of us were exhausted and I headed to bed knowing I had another dive in the morning.

The dive the following morning was much like the day before with very poor visibility however this time it was saved by the fact that we saw a massive turtle that swam within one metre of us - it moved very quickly so we did not great much time to admire it but it had to be at least 5ft long if not more. After the dive I settled down for the sail back to port. We arrived back at midday but all met up again in the evening for a reunion/farewell. The next morning we headed on a bus to Magnetic Island for Australia's version of the full moon party. We discovered that a lot of people who had been on our boat were also heading to the party and further north so it seemed the Atlantic Clipper party would keep on rolling!

We arrived on Magnetic Island following a short bus journey (in terms of Australia) and a wet ferry ride. We then got onto a crazy bus ride to the hostel which managed to take 20 minutes to go a 1-2km journey as the driver dropped all the local passengers at their front doors but would shout at any tourist who asked him a question. The hostel was very basic with metal shacks for dorm rooms and very little room considering there was 8 people in each room. Considering some of the places and attractions we had missed to make the full moon party I would say it was not worth it but we did have a lot of fun and it was great to see so many people who we had met travelling up the coast again. Next stop Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef for some diving, rainforests and the east coasts major attraction more partying - oh and hopefully some sun and heat!

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Photos

Photo 16
The family

Photo 10
Lake McKenzie

Photo 35
Whitehaven beach