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Published: November 25th 2009
Coffs Harbour was such a nice town that we spent two nights there. Both days were spent lazing about on the beach, getting bruised and bashed while we attempted to body surf. From Coffs Harbour we headed north to Byron Bay for a night. Byron Bay is a buzzing town, filled to the brim with bikini's and speedos. We were lucky to get a campsite for the night that was right next to the beach, so we sampled the sea water and enjoyed cooking on a beach-side hot-plate. That evening over a few beers, we decided we needed a bit more structure to our drive, so we went to
Tribal Travel the next day to book some tours for the remainder of our time here. We booked a trip to Fraser Island and a sailing tour of the Whitsundays. It has split our trip up nicely and given us a week to get to each location.
From Byron Bay we traveled north along the Gold Coast to the seaside town of Coolangatta. After one night there we continued travelling early the next morning and Philippe found himself recognizing the road he was driving on through Surfers Paradise. I found this
odd, particularly considering we had never been here before. As Philippe amazed me with his psychic ability (“there's a left then a sharp right coming up now”) I eventually realised that he had raced this track in a computer game!
The town of Surfers Paradise is a Mecca to surfers and gamblers for its great waves and
Vegas feel, but to my eyes it seem hugely over developed and very busy. Once we had completed a lap of the race track we continued north, spending the night at a dodgy campsite beside the Wet 'n Wild theme park. The next day we spent five gleeful hours splashing about like 10 years, queueing and then screaming our lungs off as we descended the various water-slides. We were still soaking wet when we hopped back into Mitsy at 4pm hoping to reach a campsite near Brisbane before they shut for the evening.
We found a lovely campsite just south of Brisbane, which unfortunately served a lovely Rosé in its café. What started as a plan to spend one night, was quickly turned into two when we realised the extent of our hangovers! We spent a leisurely Sunday
quietly sunbathing by
the pool...
Brisbane itself was only a quick pit-stop for us. We stayed just long enough to get fleeced for 10euro for half an hours parking in the city centre while we found a Qantas office to change the date of our flight home from Moscow. It struck us as a pleasant city, but also just another city - a lot like Melbourne. We breezed through the city and kept going north until we spotted signs for Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. We detoured to investigate the famous Crocodile Hunter's Park, and decided that we would return the next day to get a full days worth out of the 55$ ticket.
On our way to finding a campsite we passed by the
Big Kart Track and thought with an afternoon to spare, why not? It was my first experience of go-karting and I am proud to say that, over 15minutes on track, Philippe only lapped me
twice!
We found a campsite in Caloundra and took it easy for the rest of the day. We rose early make a packed lunch and be at the Australia Zoo for its 10am opening time. We arrived in time to feed the
elephants and take in the live show that was taking place in the Crocoseum. It was a great show, but it was weird to see so many excerpts of Steve Irwin still used as part of the show. They showed off the elephants again, some snakes (with one guy swimming in the water with one!), a variety of birds and then they fed a snappy crocodile from a feeding deck. You really get a good feel for the quality of zookeeper the zoo attracts when you see them interact with the animals. Apparently you can only get a job in the zoo if you volunteer to work with the animals first.
After the show we wandered up through the park to the Elephants enclosure and on to the Tiger Emporium to eat our picnic while looking at some beautiful tigers lazing about in the sun. It was a sweltering hot day - peaking at 41 degrees. We could barely stick it, but we took our time, meandering back through the Kangaroos enclosure and Koala walk, to the Crocoseum where we I finally got my wish fulfilled - I got to hold a little Koala. They are so soft and
actually quite heavy for their size. We got a photo taken with the little mite. Then we took a train back up to the Tiger Emporium to see an excellent show where they fed the tigers and wrestled with them in the water pool.
After the show we were pretty shattered and had seen most of what the zoo offers. It was a very enjoyable day out, well worth the ticket price, but the heat had got to us. We made our way back to Mitsy and travelled north again to Tewantin, near Noosa.
The next morning we finally found a parking spot at the famous Eumundi markets. These are held every Wednesday and Saturday and we were hoping to find some art from Australia here. We found what we were looking for at one of the 300 stalls, and had a good moot through all the crafts and food that was on offer.
From Eumundi we travelled on to Hervey Bay, in preparation for our Fraser Island tour. As luck would have it our friends Jonny and Dee (from Alice Springs) were also in Hervey Bay, so we walked to their hostel to meet them for
a catch-up and a few drinks. The next day was a bit of a write-off, mostly spent in the pool or on the beach. We did manage to get our shopping done and borrow Jonny & Dee's tent for the trip. We also had to attend a briefing on the tour at 4pm, where we did the paperwork and found out that we had been upgraded from the little Suzuki Sierra (Samurai) to a Toyota Landcruiser, hereafter known as
“Brutus”. He had space for nine, but would be carrying just the two of us!
We were up at 6am to get to
Aussie Trax for our 7am pick-up. After a walk around the jeep and a talk through of the four wheel drive gears we were on our way to the ferry. Despite only having the jeep for about 15minutes Philippe had to reverse it on to the ferry in front of a deck-full of spectators. While that would have been a nightmare for me, he didn't even think twice about it, and Brutus was safely stowed on deck.
Forty minutes later the ferry docked on the massive sand-dune that is
Fraser Island, and we were released into
the wilderness. Our plan was to follow the itinerary the rental company recommended. With the four wheel drive turned on, the first bump set the tone for the rest of the two days. I clenched my fist around the handle, laughing as I bounced about on my giant front seat. The bumping never stopped as we made our way along the sandy roads toward Central Station. We nearly got stuck when Philippe had to reverse back down a one way street (we were going the right way) as two jeeps appeared around a corner. I have since learned that reversing down hill and around a corner through deep sand is not for the faint-hearted. We sunk into the sand, but were quickly on our way again. As I ran ahead to check around the corner, Philippe reversed Brutus, revved it up and took a running jump at the junction and the hill again.
We were on the way again. Central Station turned out to be a shack in the middle of nowhere. After reading up on the Butchella Aboriginal people who were native to the island we headed off, bumping our way towards Lake McKenzie.
Walking onto the
shore of Lake McKenzie is one of those moments that will stand out on the trip for me. It was the clearest lake with the whitest sand that I have seen to date. It was also thronged with people, mostly boozed-up rowdy students. The water was irresistible and was a welcome relief from the sticky heat. We lolled about in the water for long enough to cool off and take in the beauty around us. Then we got sick of hearing American tourist shouting about their personal lives, so we moved on. Lunch was sandwiches made in the back of the jeep. I was surprised that our plates (borrowed from Mitsy) had survived the journey thus far. We packed up, safely stowing our rubbish in the van for fear of attracting the fearsome dingoes that signs everywhere were warning us about.
From Lake McKenzie we made our way across the island towards Lake Wabby and onto the beach on the eastern side of the island. By now we had avoided high tide and had a long stretch of wet, hard sand to drive on. Next stop for us was Eli Creek, where we again had a dip in the
cool shallow water. Our final sight for the day was the Maheno Ship Wreck which was embedded further up the beach. While walking around the ship we bumped into Jonny and Dee who where doing a bus tour of the island. We followed them back down to Eli Creek and hung out, splashing about in the creek for a while before we hit the beach road again to find a place to camp for the night. We pulled in at the side of the beach and pitched the tent. With a few beers cooling in some seawater we set about making dinner before night fall. As Philippe was busy frying up some chicken in the back of the jeep, we had a visit from a local dingo. I'm ashamed to admit that I grabbed the rubbish bag and bolted for the safety of the front seat, leaving Philippe to defend himself and our chicken with only a spatula! As it turns out he didn't need to use it, as he simply stared at the dingo and said 'Shoo' and the dog turned on its heels and sauntered away. In fairness it was pretty mean of us to fry chicken in
its back garden!
As dusk fell the mosquitoes morphed into
massive horse-flies. Despite dousing ourselves in repellent they still managed the odd nip. We sat in the darkness, sipping a beer, admiring the stars, occasionally swatting away one of these genetically modified bugs. It was so peaceful. We turned in for the night listening to a chorus of crickets chirping over the backdrop of waves crashing onto the sand.
Despite planning to wake early at 6am, I was woken up in the middle of the night by someone, or
something, nudging my right hand. I was horrified when I realised that it wasn't Philippe nudging me as he was on the other side of me. I was being nudged, or rather
sniffed at through the tent. As I pulled my hand away and lay their trying to convince myself that I was just being insane, my foot got the same treatment. There was a dingo circling our tent! I lay there trying to calm myself and decide what to do. As I did so, the dingo just went away. A short while later I told Philippe what had happened and it was then that he realised that the
dingo had sniffed his head - he had just worked it into part of a dream!
With all the excitement over, we eventually got back to sleep and were woken early the next morning by some traffic passing on the beach. We had to be off the beach by 8.30am before high tide or our rental company wouldn't be too impressed with us, so we were up and fed, ready for another day of touring the island by 7am. We went down the beach, through a town called Eurong, and inland to dispose of our rubbish. As Philippe was in the compound with the skips, I spotted another dingo padding around our jeep. I yelled at Philippe to be careful, but the dingo pretty much ignored him as he made his way across to the jeep. They really are just wild dogs. While I wouldn't want to pet any of them, they aren't as rabid and dangerous as a lion or a tiger.
We made our way inland to Lake Birrabeen and were delighted to discover that we were the only people on the whole beach! The lake was as pretty as Lake McKenzie but was made so
much more beautiful by the fact that it wasn't polluted by people. We quickly ditched our day clothes and made a beeline for the water. It is not often in life that you get an opportunity to enjoy such beautiful surroundings in peace!
We left the lake and continued along through the rainforest towards Lake Boomanijn. The lake wasn't as clear as Lake Birrabeen, but seen as we couldn't drive on the beach until 12.30, we passed some time lying on its shoreline. Then we made the 10km bouncaton trek to Dilli Village and on towards the beach. We had to make a second run at the exit onto the beach. Philippe backed up and let out even more air from our tyres, and ran at the hump so fast that I think we flew over the hump, caught some air and landed with a thud on the soft sand on the beach side.
We were at the beach by midday, so we had a picnic while watching other cars attempt the hurdle we had just cleared. Philippe had to rescue one jeep that dug itself into the sand (and nearly blew up its engine at the effort).
I had to laugh as the inexperienced driver asked Philippe if the hump was passable. Philippe responded that 'Yes, it is possible', but to my eyes, he may as well have said 'but not for you, you numpty!'. He advised the driver to give his jeep some time to cool off and let some air out of his (still full) tyres before having another go at it.
He was still waiting for his engine to cool at 12.30 when we began the drive over the very soft beach sand towards Eurong. It was tough going, and we had to stop to cool the engine en route, but we made it unscathed - past several troopers being pushed by their occupants. At Eurong we headed back inland towards the ferry on the western side of the island only to get held up in a traffic jam behind a jeep that had dug itself into the road.
The nice thing about doing a self-drive tour on Fraser Island is that help is never far away and most people are decent about stopping to push a fellow driver. While the self-drive aspect of this tour was more Philippe's cup of tea
than mine, I did enjoy the freedom of where four wheel drive capacity can get you. You don't have to do self-drive on Fraser Island - the nature, camping and swimming in clear lakes is something everyone would enjoy. The bumps just come with the territory I'm afraid!
We made it back to the ferry for our 3pm boarding. That afternoon we returned Brutus to
Aussie Trax in Hervey Bay, where thankfully our bond was returned without any problems, which was just the icing on the cake after such a perfect trip!
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Flavia
non-member comment
Hi fellows
Hi, it´s a amazing trip, I´so jelows of you. I recieve the post card fron new zeland, and it´s a beautiful place. Flavia