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Published: July 18th 2009
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Everywhere I’ve stopped going down the coast other backpackers told me how much they loved camping on Fraiser Island, and now I know why. Yesterday I got back from my trip to the island and it was the best time I’ve had in Australia so far.
After a really long bus ride (16 hours) down from Airlie I got to Rainbow Beach. This is a really small town, but it’s kind of nice. It reminds me of little towns up in cottage country back home. I got off the bus on this little street where all the hostels are. When I say all the hostels I mean three in a row. There was no sign of a beach though, which I thought was kind of weird considering the town is called Rainbow Beach.
I walked over to my hostel, Pippies, which has a completely different feel from any of the other hostels I’ve stayed in. It’s kind of more like a really small summer camp, and it kind of weirded me out at first, but as I hung out more at it I got a much better feel for it and it’s a great place. The lady who runs
the joint, Heidi, is a crazy Australian lady and she’s hilarious. She’s a big kid, just like me, so we got along great. After I checked in she directed me down to the beach, which was about a 10 min walk away, but wound up being really nice.
That afternoon I had to attended a meeting about my trip over to Fraiser Island and I met all the other people that were going to be on my trip. There was a couple other Canadians, four French people, a Dutch girl and a German guy. They all seemed like nice people, and they were. We did a big shop at the IGA for some food for our trip the next day and hung out in the evening.
The next morning we woke up early and got all set up with a crazy 4X4 that seated all 11 of us and some camping gear. By 10:30 we were on the road on our way to catch the barge that takes you from Rainbow Beach over to Fraiser Island, which is only about 15 mins across a bay.
People who had told me about the island made it sound like
a small place where some people just go to camp out, but it turned out that the island was huge and a lot more crazy than I ever imagined. The island is really just a big pile of sand, so you don’t expect much from it, but once you’re there you see how insane it is. The island has its own eco-system that you would never expect. There’s giant forests everywhere and even little fresh water lakes that super beautiful. The island is also inhabited by a lot of dingoes, which really just look like dogs, but I’m sure are much more dangerous.
The driving is kind of crazy on the island. You have to drive along a beach, but having 4-wheel-drive makes it a lot easier than I thought. You just can’t go too fast, or else you spin out.
Our first stop was a place called lake Mackenzie. You had to drive inland from the beach to get there along this super crazy off-road track. It makes you a little nervous doing these, but we handled it fine. We got to the lake entrance and had lunch on some picnic benches and then wandered down to
one of the most beautiful lakes I’ve ever seen. The water was a great blue colour and had a nice beach also made up of silica sand. Not as pure as Whitehaven Beach, but still really nice. We went swimming and played Frisbee on the beach for a while before leaving to set up shop for the night.
We decided to take a camping sight on the beach that night. It was super nice there, but a bit cold. It is winter here after all. The weirdest part was that you’re not allowed to have campfires on the island, so we had to make dinner and spend the night in the headlights of our truck. Aside from no fire, we still had a great meal we made on a little burner we were given and then spent the rest of the night drinking and looking up at the stars. We heard that dingoes come by and try to steal your food, but we only saw one dingo that first night and he was more scared of us than we were of him.
The next morning we woke up super early to watch the sunrise, which was gorgeous. We
then packed up the site and took an hour and a half drive up to a spot called Indian Head. Indian Head is a giant rock formation that you hike up and can look out over the ocean. Everyone had told us that it’s whale season and you should be able to see a lot of them from up there, but we didn’t see any. Just my luck with the whales down here. It was still really nice there anyways and I got some nice sun.
That afternoon we went to a smaller lake called Lake Allom. I decided I was going to do the driving there. This was my first time driving on the wrong side of the car, first time driving off road anything and even crazier my first time driving a stick shift. I stalled the car twice when I was first getting started, but then got it down and did a pretty good job if I do say so myself. This lake reminded me of a small lake in Algonquin Park. It was kind of dirty looking with algae and such, but we saw a million little turtles swimming around in it. We spent half
an hour trying to catch one, and the French guy on our trip finally grabbed one. They moved pretty fast in the water for an animal that’s supposed to be slow.
We then headed to our camping spot for that night which was a piece of land that belonged to Aboriginal people. Because it was their land and not the governments were able to make a fire that night. This place was amazing. I met the two aboriginal people who ran the ground, Daniel and Jojo, who were super nice cool guys. They told us some aboriginal stories and taught me how to play a didgeridoo. I got it on my first try. I still need some practice to figure it all out, but I now have the basics down, so I’m considering buying one before I leave Australia. They also have 2 dingoes that live on their land that are tamer than the wild ones on the island, but you still don’t want to mess with them. We spent the night drinking around the fire which made it much warmer than the night before. In the morning I hung out with the aboriginals a little bit more while the
rest of my trip was making breakfast. They gave me some sweet bush berry they eat and we talked a lot about the life on the island.
After breakfast we had one last stop to make a place called Lake Wabby. This is a small little lake that’s surrounded by sand dunes. We were given a boogie board to take with us and we boogie-boarded down the sand hill right into the lake. It was crazy fun. After that it was time to get back to the barge and head back to the mainland.
I can’t even begin to express how amazing the trip was. I loved it so much that I’m going to try to convince the girls I know from school who I’ll be meeting up in Sydney with to do the trip again with me hopefully in late August or early September when it’s a bit warmer. (If you girls are reading this, prepare yourselves)
Anyways, take a look at the pics because they’ll show you more than I can say.
In half an hour I’m going to catch my next bus, which thankfully is only 2 and a half hours down to
a town called Noosa where I’ll be doing a canoe trip into everglades. Should be fun.
Till then….
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james Marshall
non-member comment
pink!
LOVE THE NEW LOOOK SHELDON ! I ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU LOOKED GREAT IN PINK!!... Looks like you're having a great time keep it up.. BTW nobody chills with me now that you're gone!