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So we arrived at our hostel in Hervey Bay rather excited about Fraser Island - we had one day to kill and we spent most of it chilling at the hostel watching DVDs and getting pizza, as there really was not much else to do! That evening, we had our group meeting, which was one of the longest and most boring meetings I have EVER sat in... It basically consisted of the guy telling us that we would be charged if we did anything to the 4WD car (even if it wasn't our fault!), and 'You WILL be charged' became our motto for the whole trip!
Early on Day 1 we headed out to pick up the 4WD and all of our camping gear, and then followed the guy to the barge pick-up point. We were a little early so we decided to go grab some breakfast, however almost-disaster followed as we almost missed the barge and ended up running down the hill to catch it in time, being thoroughly told off by the arrogant Aussie who was in charge of getting all the cars onto the barge! Oops! Our first stop was Lake McKenzie, where we spent a good
couple of hours just lazing on the white sands and swimming in the pure blue water. Since Fraser Island is a sand island (the largest in the world), all of the lakes on it are freshwater, and we actually bottled the water up to drink as it tasted so good! We then drove across the rest of the island, up onto the beach (we had to stop for an aeroplane that was landing!), past the Maheno Shipwreck (which we visited later on) and arrived at K'Gari campsite to set up camp for the night. That night, we were so knackered, we were all in bed by 9!
The next morning, we drove up the beach to Indian Head, where you are supposed to be able to see sharks, rays, dolphins and whales from the lookout (the emphasis is on the word 'supposed' - we didn't see anything except a sheer drop onto the rocks below and the waves crashing against the cliffs!) Since we had left a little late (we were supposed to be following the itinerary), our next stop was the Champagne Pools, which was a 4km return walk. We all decided that there was no way that
we would make this and get back to the car in time to drive on the beach (you cannot drive 2 hours either side of high tide), so we took the dangerous decision of driving up there (it said specifically on our itinerary that our insurance would be invalid if we drove up past this point as the sand was very deep!) However, nominated driver Wayne made it up there, and we spent 15 minutes there - it was quite nice as whenever a wave came up all the little rock pools filled up with water, but probably not worth the damage we would have done to the car if we had rolled it! We stopped at the Maheno Shipwreck on our way back to investigate and for some photos, and then headed on down to Eli Creek (totally ignoring our itinerary) where we spent about 4 hours frolicking in the sun, playing ball games, drinking beer and floating down the creek all the way - what an achievement! I drove the 4x4 for a bit down the beach too - it was rather intimidating with 10 people in the back driving on sand with no road markings but I
managed it! On our return to the campsite, we cooked our dinner and sat round the campfire drinking until about 10, where we promptly headed for bed, anxious to enjoy our last day there (and leave on time!)
Day 3 we awoke to find our vehicle blocking the path into the campsite, and with 4 chairs on top of it! The other group had had a little fun when we had gone to bed, and we had also left the keys in the ignition...doh! After packing all of our stuff up, we drove to Lake Wabbi, which was a green version of Lake McKenzie and had large sand dunes around it which people were sandboarding down and then landing in the lake - it looked so much fun! We managed to make it back to the barge on time this time, and although we were terrified that we would have salt water on our engine and that 'we would be charged', all we got charged for was $10 for our broken torch! That evening to celebrate that we had made it back in one piece, we all ordered a pizza feast - a nice goodbye to everyone we had
spent our fantastic 3 days on Fraser Island with.
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