Part 11: Bruised 'Roo & Fraser Island

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Ian has reprimanded me for not including a very important phrase we learned from our surf instructors: "Yuuuuuu!!!", followed by a hang-ten, is supposed to accompany every wave you catch. Never forget.



We decided to tour Fraser Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Island), which is a pretty awesome place. The weather was not particularly great for it, but it's one of the Top 10 Places to See in Australia, so we had to hit it up. More on that after a quick story...



On our drive out to the ferry that leads to Fraser Island, Alison and I were discussing with Ceanna and Ian how we had not yet seen a kangaroo. They had definitely seen wallabys, but not a roo. Not five minutes later, whilst following a massive garbage truck, we watched a kangaroo hop across the road and get absolutely smoked by this truck (who was doing probably 80 at the time). I gotta hand it to the roo...as stupid as it was for him to cross the road at that exact moment (we were basically the only two vehicles on the road for several hundred meters)...he managed to get mostly out of the way in time. His leg took the brunt of the damage, but we saw him scrabbling up the hill by the side of the road. The truck stopped a short while later, and we saw that the roo took off a massive covering on his front fender. So of course the only kangaroo we've seen so far had to get banged up by a truck. Fantastic.



We caught the ferry to Fraser Island, and hopped on a tour bus. Now here's some background on Fraser...it is a massive (200 km long) island off the coast of Australia, and has been classified as World Heritage site by...whoever is in charge of those decisions. In fifty years, the island will be completely unchanged, left exactly the same as it currently is. The only vehicles allowed on Fraser are 4WD, as all the roads are just sand...and incredibly bumpy. As bad as the roads of the Coromandel were...at least they were smooth. These were like constantly being ona rollercoaster, with the little Asian lady behind us explaiming "Woo!" (or maybe "Wu?") over every dip. By the way, Alison's seatbelt was broken so she got to bounce around in her seat, and got a nice little foot injury on a particularly large bump. We drove through a rainforest and jungle area (bounciest ride I've ever been on), visited Lake McKenzie which has the clearest water I have ever seen (got to scuba again), saw a wreck of an old NZ war ship, came across some dingos (which look exactly like dogs), and encountered a few more of those dragons we saw at Whitehaven Beach. I should mention that these lizards totally terrified Alison, and one basically walked six inches from her head on Fraser without her knowledge.



Ideally we would have had a few days to camp on and explore Fraser, but time makes fools of us all, so we needed to get back on the road. We drove a few more clicks then found another driver reviver.

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