Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island!!

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Arrived in Rainbow Beach in the afternoon on Monday, its a very small town with not much here at all so just went to the supermarket for a food shop and then took a stroll down to the beach. Didn't eat all day so was absolutely starving so treated myself to chocolate pudding at the hostel tonight. Meet some people, some are going to Frasers tomorrow and some are in my group on Wednesday. We for a walk around the town in the night with a Swedish girl called Anna. We were trying to find anywhere that was still open so she could buy some chocolate but everything was already shut up 8pm! Played pool with Anna back at the hostel, we were both awful at it and each of the two games we played took ages!!! We then played ping pong for a bit but that was just dangerous as we were hitting the ball all over the place so gave up before we hurt anyway! Haha.

Had a much needed lay in on Tuesday, slept will half 10 and woke up with nobody left in my dorm. Went to the beach and met Anna there. Had a chat and a little paddle in the sea and then went to a cafe. We then had to watch a safety briefing dvd on Fraser Island. The dvd warned us about the dingos on the island and how to avoid attacks and talked about general safety and driving safety. Went for another walk around the town with Anna and a friend of hers who arrived today. Packed for Fraser Island into a small bag as we are not allowed to take our big backpacks to the island.

Up at 6am to go to Fraser Island on Wednesday. I went to collect the car for our group, it was a big 4 by 4 landrover type thing. Never driven anything bigger than my little Corsa, and it was pretty big but actually found it quite easy. Thankfully Australia also drives on the left but the indicators where on the right hand stick instead of the left so accidentally put the windscreen wipers on the first few times I went to indicate. I drove my group to the ferry and on to the ferry! And then drove to the campsite on Fraser Island. Driving on sand is very different to driving on road, on sand we engaged 4WD and have to use low gears. The sand also has a way of pulling the car from side to side so have to counteract that all the time. This also pretty much terrified us about flipping the car in the sand and we were liable for any damage, so really didn't want to have to pay thousands of dollars if anything went wrong!! No accidents happened though and everything went really well. Enjoyed driving it was great fun, and got me missing driving at home. Once at the campsite we all set up our tents and then a new driver took over and drove us a bit up the beach before we walked inland to Lake Wabby. The lake is surrounded by huge sand dunes and some people ran down the dunes and dove into the lake. After hearing a story about a guy in a previous group who had done this and got a stick through his neck and died instantly it totally lost its appeal for me. So I opted to walked into the lake instead and have a little swim. The water was actually pretty chilly at first but soon got used to it. Chatted to some people from another group and the guys kept cracking some awful jokes about sticks and the poor guy who had died. Back at camp in the evening we played a few games of rounders on the beach. The guy behind me hit a really good shot so I had to run like crazy to make it round so he could complete a rounder! Never ran so fast and running in sand is hardly an easy task! Playing rounders reminded me of being in secondary school again. Groups 1 and 2 cook dinner today (I was in group 3) so we just sat back and had a few drinks whilst waiting for food. My meal tonight was veggie burger, rice and some mixed veg, but it all had a bit of a funny taste to it so I was glad I'd brought plenty of snacks! Sleeping in the tent worrying about dingos didn't make for a great nights sleep, and it was actually pretty cold, as I used my fleece for a pillow and refused to lose that by putting it on.

Our tour guide woke us all up at 6.30 in the morning for an early breakfast of jam on "toast", cooking on a camping grill made for bread with burnt patches, so again thankful for the snacks!!! We went to Eli Creek this morning and took a walk through the river that headed back to the coast. We can't go in the sea here as every man eating shark surrounds fraser island and the rips and tides are so strong that you could quite easily get washed out to see and never found again!! We then drove a bit further up the beach and visited a coloured sand rock formation, the entire island is made out of sand. We saw a ship wreck up the coast and Anwen drove us to Champagne Cove. I didn't feel like getting wet again so opted to just sunbathe/nap but ended up getting wet anyway as the wet sand soaked through my towel 😞 and had a nasty slip up the wet metal stairs in my flip flop on the way back up and scraped the skin off my shin and got a huge bruise. One of the cars got stuck on the way to India Head and everyone had to get out and push it. Walked up to the top of Indian Head, amazing view of the island, some people saw a turtle in the water below, but I did not 😞 Went back to the creek for a "bath" as we don't get any showers! Back at camp it was our turn to cook tonight. Strangely enough I ended up cooking the steaks as all the other jobs were already covered. I actually quite enjoyed cooking them too, which is quite weird for a vegetarian!! But I liked seeing them changed colour :S haha, and everyone actually said they were amazing so maybe veggies cook the best steak :P By the time we'd cooked for everyone else there was not much food left for me so I didn't get any veg and just had the horrible veggie burgers!

A German girl came into our group and drove the car this morning. Three Germans were in the car with the tour guide and wanted a chance to drive, there was a bit of a problem with one of the other groups not wanting a new person to come along and drive their car but they let her in the end. We went to Lake Mackenzie, where the water is so clear! Had a swim and washed in the sand. The sand is so pure you can wash with it as an exfoliator and people use it to clean jewellery and stuff like that. I drove us to a picnic site for lunch but there was not much food left by now and I ended up with just a tomatoe and carrot wrap :/ We then went on a rainforest walk and saw some pretty cool stuff and swung on a bamboo just like Tarzan! Haha!! The rest of the girls took it in turns driving back to the ferry and it rained just as we were boarding so perfect timing really as our entire time on the island stayed dry and other groups have not been so lucky! Had a meal with our new friends back at Rainbow beach tonight, was so good not to have to cook or wash up and even got dessert!!!! :D All the new people we have met are so great and it's a shame the group is splitting up after tonight but hopefully we will see some of them again.

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