Australia

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It rained heavily all night and was still dull when we woke up. We’d planned today to be a relaxed one with a drive a few hours north, booking our tour and accommodation on the way for Fraser Island.

Just outside the campsite we stopped at a service station to make the phonecalls and I popped into a commercial visitors centre just to take a quick look at a few more brochures. Even though we’d already made our decision about the Fraser Island tour I thought I’d just ask the the staff for their opinion to make sure we’d made the right choice.

The lady on reception came up with a different suggestion altogether. Instead of doing the overnight island tour of Fraser Island that we’d planned, she suggested we do a day tour of the island, then travel further up the coast to do a different barrier reef island day tour. It was something we hadn’t even considered, so we took a stack of leaflets away and went for a coffee to suss out the options. We both agreed that she was right - doing two separate tours would give us the opportunity to see two different places for a similar price plus it would mean we wouldn‘t need to store our van anywhere overnight.

We went back into the visitors centre and made her day by making lots of bookings - she was a volunteer and I got the impression the centre didn’t get too many bookings.

Contented, we got back on the road and drove up to Hervey Bay. Had the weather been better we’d have stopped off at Rainbow Beach but it was rainy and the idea of getting to the campsite early and chilling out before our few days of hectic trips and early starts was too appealing.

The rain came down in sheets all night long and kept us awake. At one point I even started to wonder whether the trip tomorrow would go ahead.

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