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Published: February 1st 2007
Hello everybody, and welcome back. Much has happened over the last few days, and to do it justice I'll have to tell you about it when I get back, as it requires telling with an irish accent.
We arrived in Hervey Bay's Koala hostel at around 2pm, and went pretty much straight to the meeting about the trip to the Island, and to meet our groups. The trip was 3 days, in a 4x4 containing 11 people, and all our camping and food stuff (and booze) for the trip. It was quite full. Our group consisted of us, a Canadian and Danish girl who were in our room and quite nice, and 7 irish people, of whom three of the girls who were essentially rough as they come. The two guys were quite nice, but permanently drunk, and the other two girls were nice as well, however they were outshone substantially by Donna, Debbie and Sam. The photos will do them justice. Donna and Debbie also had their names tattooed on their arms, presumably to remind them if they were under stress. Our first group task was to buy the food for the trip for everyone, which actually went quite well, and it turned out that Sam loved cooking and hated other people helping, which was pretty much ideal. That night was brilliant actually, had an all you can eat BBQ (it was actually all you could eat, so I ate until I just couldn't carry on) in the hostel and a beer, and was in bed asleep by half eight. Fantastic.
The early night wasn't just becuase I'm old and grumpy, we also had to meet at 6.45 the next morning to pack the stuff and get sorted for the ferry across to the island at 10. To be entirely honest, I packed the van by myself (all the stuff went up on the top) and have never been so hot and sweaty in my life. Once we were packed up, drove the jeep down to the ferry, and became aware that the irish girls were going to become ferry (hahahahahaha) annoying.
Once on the island we were supposed to follow a suggested itinary that was given to us back at the hostel, which started with a little dip in Lake Mackenzie (huge freshwater lake with white sands and ridiculously clear water) and a journey across the island, which was the bumpiest track in the whole world, throwing everyone all over the back of the jeep, to get to the start of 75 mile beach. Don't know whether it was actually that long, but it was certainly pretty big.
Drove up to where we were supposed to be camping, had sandwiches for lunch, set the tents up, etc (not DDS, they were smoking there own bodyweights in cigarettes, which bearing in mind the size of them was no mean feat), and then they settled down to an aggressive drinking session that started about 3 o'clock and lasted pretty much 12 hours. I didn't, and went with one of the other groups (there were 4 on our trip) to Lake Wabby (the green one on the facebook photos) that was the tea tree oil one, and stayed there for a while as the walk there and back was a killer in the heat, came back and Sam (who was now hammered, like everyone else) was indeed making burgers for dinner, although she kept setting the stove on fire. Idiot. After dinner, which was actually pretty good, we sat around in a huge group having a few drinks, and getting eaten alive by the giant horsefly monster things, before retiring gracefully to our crap tents, and starting the worst sleep in the world, as there was no mat or anything to lie on, and at around 5am the sun comes up and turns the tents into esentially a 3 man oven. Coming out from that tent after a terrible and short sleep and that heat to find Donna asleep outside with a bikini top and a thong on combined to put me in the worst mood in the whole world ever. Once we (I) had packed all the stuff into the van and picked up all the fag butts and rubbish from around the camp, we piled into the van (no showers or washing facilities where we camped) with all the rubbish and dirty plates etc, and tried to find somewhere to put it. Also we needed to stop at a shop to by ice for the eskies and fags for the irish, who had smoked all 40 each of the ones they'd brought with them. We then headed to lake Wabby (the rest of them couldn't be bothered the night before so we had to go the next morning instead, as opposed to doing what the people had recommended, the lazy people), which was another half hour walk there and back in the blazing sun. By about 11 o'clock I thought I was going to kill someone, and we hadn't had breakfast so I was starving. What saved me (and in turn them) was arriving at Eli creek, the coldest freshwater creek in existance, which was amazing. Felt so much better after that, was cooled down and less sandy.
Ok, new internet place, carrying on where I left off, made some sandwiches for luncheon (I had ham, cheese, cucumber and mayonnaise on brown, and then cheese and ham on white) and headed off to where we were supposed to camp for the night, as you can only drive at certain times when the tide is low enough. On the way we passed the shipwreck of the "Boat whose name began with an M that I'll remember later" which was good, although it didn't really interest Karl the Irish guy, who looked at it, said "Bored of the shipwreck" and went to sleep, which entertained me for some time.
Also, we were trying to get rid of the litter from the night before which by now wasn't smelling lovely, so were looking out for signs for dingo-proof bins. We happened upon a sign that looked as follows...
<---500m No fish cleaning or offal disposal 500m --->
It's not that clear (I suppose) straight away what it means, however Sam the horrendous one (as well as most of the others to be honest) thought it meant:
1) We could camp there
2) There were bins in 500m, and most amusingly
3) That they had misspelt "official" on the sign.
It took five painful minutes of the most circular conversation in the world before I gave up trying, agreed that the sign was flawed, and was suitably shocked when no bins appeared. Honestly. 3 days. Tricky.
Camping proved eventful again, although maybe if I am prompted later I'll discuss Debbies charades and Donna's exciting trip with a head torch on. Not suitable for here but very funny.
Next morning, hangover a bit, and waking up in the hottest tent in the world sweating like you wouldnt believe, I exited to sweet fresh air, and the sight of Donna, in only a very small bit of cheese wire sleeping face down in front of me. I genuinely gagged and got back in the tentoven. Spent the next half hour picking up fag ends and packing the van, before we headed to Eli creek again for a wash and a cooldown. Went from there to Indian Head, which is supposedly where you can see lots of Tiger Sharks. We didn't see any, but view was amazing. Donna and Sam didn't find the view amazing becuase half way up Donna was being sick and Sam's tar-addled lungs were failing spectacularly, so she sat still and fixed the problem by having a smoke. Karl proclaimed he was "Bored of the view" and went back down.
I was driving then all the way back to the ferry, which involved beach and bumpy road driving, which was brilliant. I waited for the biggest bumps to speed up a bit so Donna hit her head. When I say sped up I was of course going at a very cautious pace all the time.
The ferry back was dull, but we did see a cool crab with one big orange pincer (photos on facebook) so that was nice.
Very pleased to get back, and have a very cold shower after unpacking all the stuff. MAnaged to beg a room with actual air con instead of a fan. Ideal. Following shower and cool down, decided to have actual nice food, so headed to restaurant next to hostel, where had actual steak which was huge and good and cheap. Few glasses of red, some cheesecake and coffee, and I felt much better again, especially after a very good sleep with no flies or heat or Irish people.
We did actully get on with two of the Irish girls, Pauline and Siobhan so dinner was with them and Charlotte the Danish girl.
The next day was absolutely brilliant. Good sleep night before and nobody else in our room, meant that we had some tunes on the speakers, it was nice outside, we even had new shower gel, and we got a text from Pauline saying that the Irish had left loads or wine and beer in their room by accident, did we want it? We did. Upon collection of the free wine (and beans actually) we went shopping. First however, we managed to find somewhere that did very cheap bacon, Eggy toast and beans and good coffee. Amazing. Up until now, I'm going to be honest, I haven't changed my swimming shorts. I've had the same board shorts for a month, and that's just silly. We went to two shops, and I managed to find one of them having a 'half price designer boardies' shop, so am now sporting some lovely fresh togs. After our successful shop we were very tired, and it was very hot so we went for a beer to prepare us for our long bus journey to 1770, furhter up the coast. Got the bus up around 4pm with Jessica and Mark, a Canadian couple our age, and seeing as the bar we were in did take out, we took out a little bit. Just to help us relax. Long story short, by the time we got to 1770 we'd been the participants of the worlds first bus disco party. By this point we were having a brilliant day, and were in a brilliant mood by the time we got to 'Cool bananas', our next hostel. It should've been at this point we realised there was nothing in 1770 at all, however we were told the best place to go for a night out was the other hostel. Weak. Anyway, we went there and met with quite a few people we'd met up the cosat, 3 of whom I'd actually seen everywhere but had only spoken to on Fraser Island- the girls who were on my journey from Sydney to Byron when one of them put the seat back! They were actually quite nice in the end and apologised a lot for that. We stayed for quite a while, but to be honest I was asleep on a chair for most of the time. Made it home almost by accident as we had no idea where we were, as we'd got there in the dark. Hey ho. Onwards to the worst day in the world...
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Mummy
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Finding yourself!
Looks like you are finding the things you like and the type of people you like are pretty much the same where ever you are in the world! At least you know how Dad feels when he is packing the car for one of our famous 'self catering' hloidays!Have fun! Mum xxxxx