Fraser Island, Australia

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Saturday - 24 November - bus to Mooloolaba, quiet little town with a great name. Hostel did free BBQ, excellent!!

Sunday - 25 November - bus to Noosa, stayed in a Nomads, the hostels get worse the further north i go, this one was a 16 bed dorm room with no air conditioning meaning the door was left open constantly for petty pilferers to help themselves to your stuff....not mine luckily as I'd locked it away and security tied it too the bed frame!! I spent the afternoon doing several of the costal walks and walking through the National Park to the Laguna Lookout which was spectacular. Noosa was nice and stylish but dare i say it just another town with a great beach. One good thing about the hostel is that it had a bar attached to it which was playing live music and had another free BBQ, get in!!

Rainbow Beach - Frasers on Rainbow - The Fraser Island Tag Along Jeep Tour


Monday - 26 November - Today I arrived in Rainbow Beach, at the hostel Frasers on Rainbow. I had a 2pm meeting with the rest of the group to brief us on the Fraser's Island Tag Along tour we had booked and to get put into our car groups. I had already met Deborah and Shaun from Ireland who i was sharing a dorm with and learnt that they would be in my car, the other guys were: Hayley, Miranda, Scott, George and Ross. Ross looked like a cross between Robbie Williams and Shaun Maguire, he didn't know who Shaun Maguire was....too young for the grange hill days!! I stayed up for a few sociable drinks while playing pool and chatting with Ross, George, Amy a sweet girl in my dorm who'd just come back from Fraser's and a German dude who'd been attacked by a cow on his farm stay. He tried to explain how he got hoofed in the face but it just sounded dodgy in his broken English so not wanting to judge i swiftly changed the subject!!

Tuesday - 27 November - We wake up and get together in our groups to meet our guide for the trip, Brendan. Brendan looked like a slimmer Alan from the Hangover and as soon as he started speaking it was hard to tell them apart, he was just missing the baby!! He gave his intro and safety brief while instructing us how to pack up the cars etc. We're all ready to go and assigned Car 4 at the back of the pack. We all bounced around because back of the pack is the best place to be!! As elected first driver, I jumped into the driving seat and turned over the engine.... the jeep wouldn't start. Everyone had to wait while Brendan worked out what was wrong..... the battery was flat, good start!! "It may be something to do with the alternator, but we'll give it a go and see how it works out"...Ok then!!.



We're off, it's really weird to be driving again. We head a few kilometers up the road to the Fraser Island ferry and immediately we hit the beach we come to our first deep sand. High revs, low gears and black smoke later we are the only car to make it onto the ferry without getting suck at some point. When we touch down onto Fraser Island we hammer it up the beach. It's quite strange driving on sand but you soon get the hang of it. The music was thumping out of our car and we're all having a party when we followed the other cars into the first pit stop..... here we learnt that most of the occupants of the other cars were pretty tame. We switched drivers and head to Lake Mackenzie for a swim and some larking around in the clear water. The lake is beautiful, crystal clear water and fine silica sand, so fine you can make glass from it without refining it. I started chatting with the group of lads in Car 3 from South London (Mike, John, Dobby, Dave and Ross), they turned out to be a really good laugh. We got back to the car and it wouldn't start so another jump was required.



We drove back down the beach a little way and came to our campsite. We all set up tents before unpacking the cars and starting to make dinner, which consisted of steak and potato salad. As soon as the steak was swallowed, the goon began to flow and we started mingling with the other groups. Now goon, for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure, is a very cheap 4ltr box of white wine. Usually i say that white wine tastes like vinegar, as i generally can't stand it, however, goon tastes more like petrol!! Nobody drinks it neat, i went for a raspberry mixer with Hayley on the first night, but anything with a strong taste to hide the fowl kick at the back of the throat while drinking it will do!!



Our car and the South London lads got on really well, we all shared the same banter, plus we were all English speakers so it helped. The other nationalities tried to join in but didn't really understand our jokes or chat. Even the Canadian ones were struggling, i think it's the sarcasm. English have a unique gift here. But everyone joined in and we had some good fun. One car was full of stoners so they were out immediately, but happy to nod at each other for the evening! .........I basically can't write any more about the evening as it would breach all sorts of human decency and privacy morals, plus my parents are reading this! but if you want to see photos of the shenanigans or hear about how the dingos attacked a tent, the x-rated show i tour guided, how i didn't have anywhere to sleep or how pretty the stars were ask me later!!

Wednesday - 28 November - hangovers in check and sober drivers at the wheel we started the second day of driving. We started out at Hangover creek as Alan/Brendan liked to call it (really known as Eli creek). The creek was very cold water but if you jumped in up stream, the current would carry you down to the beach. We did it several times, it was very refreshing!! Unfortunately, whilst running about in the sand after George, i felt my calf pop, it was a horrible feeling and i immediately buckled in pain as i realised I'd torn the muscle. With a little help from the lads i hobbled back to the car, they offered to carry me but i wasn't sure how sober they were plus i didn't want a fuss.



We all got back into the cars and head for Maheno Wreck, which was interesting but i was in pain and not concentrating much. Hayley offered a massage to stop the muscle contracting and Miranda, a nurse, said it would be a good idea. I took a pain killer and buried my cries as she started to loosen the muscle. It worked really well considering and i was able to move my foot a little bit. Good because the next stop was a climb up to Indian head, the look out across two bays. As long as i kept moving it was fine but the minute i stopped the leg would seize up again. I scaled the hill and the group congratulated me giving me the honorary title of Peggy (Peg-leg). The view was awesome. Brendan told us that he comes up to the head to check out the surf before venturing out, then he pointed out that he wouldn't be surfing today and we proceeded to spot at least 20 sharks in the 30/45 minutes we were there!! Loads of different varieties of shark were spotted, which led Brendan into a story of his closest encounter which was caught on film from the very spot we were standing. He was surfing when a 3 meter tiger shark swam directly behind him. The picture displayed in the local goon shop shows him paddling towards the shore with a huge dark shadow behind him!!! He says he's lucky to be alive, had it bit him he would be fish food!! "Don't swim in the Fraser waters folks"!



From Indian Head we took the short journey to the champagne pools and played with the water spurting corals by tickling them. It was all very amusing. Then we headed back to camp for take two of goon games and the horse races. The music was pumping, we almost got attacked by dingoes whilst going to the toilet and everyone switched tents!!! I stayed up and didn't go to sleep while watching John and Mike do back flips off each other and Dobby and Dave feeding dingoes by lying really still with food in their mouths!!! Don't try it at home kids, it's actually illegal on Fraser Island to feed dingoes, not to mention incredibly stupid. See story about the German tourist, or i'll tell you it!! It was most amusing, as the sun came up we all bundled into the cars.

Thursday - 29 November - On the last day we walked across the sand desert to an oasis lagoon for a swim before driving back to the ferry and Frasers on Rainbow hostel. The tour after party began with a trip to the bottle shop for some Bundaberg, a live band and happy hour cocktails. Everyone got very drunk and the great time from the Island continued on the beach.

Friday - 30 November - A lazy day today, we all headed to the beach, said goodbye to Hayley who was the first to leave from the group. Spent the rest of the day sorting the next few days hostels and lolling about. I was in the same room as Miranda, Scott, Deborah and Shaun which was nice, in the afternoon, I headed down to the bar to meet the boys, everyone, myself included, wanted a quiet night but its always the way that these end up being the best nights out. There was dipping, naked hugs and gatecrashers, Brendan was playing in a band in Dingos, the bar/hostel next door so we all went over to appreciate his music, and the jugs and jugs and jugs of beer....


Saturday - 1 December - I don't remember going to bed last night but it was definitely light out when i got back to my room..... i don't know how i woke up but i i did in a blind panic realising that i had booked in to feed dolphins at 6.30am and it was 6.31am! Luckily i had gone to bed partially clothed so didn't have much to do before I picked up my purse and ran out of the room. The bus hadn't left without me so i was in luck! I didn't know that i would be getting on a boat to get to Tin Can Bay, the feeding zone, boats and hangovers don't mix!!! I got there without vomitting good going for me and boats, and entered the bay to feed the two wild dolphins that were swimming waiting for their fish.



I got my lift back to the hostel and ran about trying to pack up before check out time expired! Then sat by the pool with Deborah until midday drinking a lot of water, she said that she had heard me come in and then leave before she went back to sleep so i can't have had any sleep! The lads came out to bid me farewell bless them, they were stuck there for a few more days, it's been emotional, ta taa! Fraser Island you've been amazing!!!

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