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Published: December 4th 2006
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Group pic
All of us with Smiley, Aaron, Kobe, and his Dad (can't remeber his name!). 30th November
Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world. We went on a 3 day 4x4 self-drive safari on the island. We had the best time ever!There were 11 of us in our group-9 girls and 2 boys. We were really lucky and everyone was great and we all got on really well.
Olly was the driver on the first day. We drove to Lake McKenzie which was amazing but it was gloomy and raining, which was a shame. It is so beautiful and the water in the lake is spring water so you can literally swim around with your mouth open drinking the water which tastes just like bottled stuff. We swam over to a little island and there were turtles in the water-Anton (the other lad in the group) picked up a tiny one. It was so cute! We had lunch and then headed towards our camp. A car had broken down on the main track to the beach so we had to go a different way. It was a very bumpy ride!
When we finally got on the beach the tide was out and so we had to drive on soft sand which
Lake McKenzie
A truly amazing place. was a total nightmare. We got stuick about 5 times and all had to dig the wheels out. It was fun though! On the way back we went to see the Maheno shipwreck which looked awesome in the stormy weather. When we got to our camp it was pretty much dark. We stayed in the K'Gari aboriginal camp with the Butchalar tribe (a small numer of people live on the island). K'Gari is the aboriginal name for Fraser Island. We cooked dinner on the fire and then had toasted marshmallows. There were a few dingos sniffing round (Fraser Island is one of the few places that still has all pure-breed dingos) so we slept in our tents in an undercover area and had to be careful about leaving food around outside.
We had all been sound asleep for a couple of hours when Aaron, one of the aboriginal men, woke us up to tell us that we were, I quote,
a cu*t hair away from being burned to death
(Aussies have such a way with words!). A huge bush fire which had been started by a lightning strike was heading for our camp. We had to evacuate and go down to the beach. The flames were literally
Lake Wabby
An amzing lake inland. Its the deepest lake on the island at 20m. The water here was not drinkable and there were loads of catfish, other small fish and turtles swimming in there. just accross the path from our camp. We thought it was going to be burned down, along with our trucks! Luckily the rangers were able to do a burn-off and stop the fire from coming right to the camp. We got back to bed at about 5am and had to be up at 7!
1st December
After breakfast we headed to Indian Heads. The drive was 100 times better this time as the sand was so much harder because the tide was going out. It's a huge rock outcrop where you can see sharks, dolphins, whales, rays and turtles. We saw sharks and turtles but there weren''t many there-usually people see loads. The aboriginals never go near Indian Heads as they told us that it is the place where the white settlers made their ancestors jump into the water to a certain death by hitting the rocks below or being killed by a shark, or they would be shot.
Afterwards we walked (because the sand was too soft for the trucks) to Champagne Pools which was great. It's the only place on Fraser (except for the lakes) where you can swim as there are no sharks or
Champagne Pools
A pretty nice place to cool off. stingers. The waves there smash into the rocks and the air bubbles out of the rocks and it really is like being in champagne!
We headed back to camp in the late afternoon and cooked another delicious meal on the fire. In the evening the aboriginals did a show for us; dancing and playing the didgereedoo which was amazing! We all sat by the camp fire (there were about 50 of us as more groups joined us in the evenings) and had some drinks and more marshmallows. It was great.
2nd December
We woke up early as someone spotted a 1.5m long snake above our leads (we slept on matresses but without tents the second night) so we headed off early and stopped off at Eli Creek before going to Lake Wabby. It was a bit of a walk to get to but well worth it. It was gorgeous and full of huge catfish. People were using a bodyboard to surf down the sand dune into the water. Afterwards we went back to Lake McKenzie. It was even better in the sunshine!
We got the ferry back to Hervey Bay in the afternoon and had a
The adventure begins...
We could never have expected what was in store for us. meal out with people from the group before getting the bus to Bundaberg. We were so tired and slept for the entire journey!
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joy.farrow
non-member comment
it looks amazing
olly and charlie - it all looks so amazing, envious with the turtles I love them so much!