Whitsundays - 1770 - Rainbow Beach - Fraser Island !!!

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It's been a while since i last wrote a blog sorry! I've just been too busy having fun!! This all seems like ages ago now!
So i arrived into Airlie Beach and found my hostel which was really nice, the dorms were all individual log cabins with en suites set in a jungle theme!! All of my room mates were nice and one of the girls, Phillipa invited me out with her and her friend that night. I was still tired from the full moon party the night before, but accepted and set about getting ready. I was chatting to one of the girls, Louisa, when suddenly the door flung open and in ran two aussie lads shouting "Hi Team!!" me and Louisa exchanged humoured glances, and inside i was thinking, "what the helllll?!" Then came 5 minutes of pure banter, all shouted at full volume about how ruined they were going to get that night and how we shouldn't expect any sleep! Louisa likened them to the Chuckle Brothers, and she was spot on!!!! Then just as quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared! It was like a 5 minute whirlwind of hell!!!
So Phillipa's friend came around ready to go out, turns out it was a girl that i went to uni with!! Went out for a few drinks before collapsing from exhaustion and dreading the return of the chuckle brothers. Sure enough, when they got in, they turned all of the lights on and woke everyone up individually, calling Louisa 'babycakes' when she told them to shut up! that went down like a lead balloon!! They eventually passed out only for one of them to keep us awake all night snoring like some sort of wild boare!! 2 of the girls actually tried to smother his face with a pillow and he still didn't stop!!

The next day i hung out with the girl i knew from uni and prepared for my 3 day sailing trip which i was going on the following day. I was a bit nervous about the trip because it was a group of 25 people and i didn't know anyone obviously! But once we boarded, i met two girls who were from Leicester and i knew i would be ok! The first day was pretty much sailing as far into the islands as we could get and settling near Whitehaven beach so we could get there early the next morning. Whitehaven beach has been voted the second most beautiful beach in the world and the pure white sand is as fine as dust, so everyone was looking forward to going there. The first night was pretty much about socialising and getting to know one another. This is where i met a Danish girl called Sofie, an English girl and an American lad who i pretty much spent the whole trip with from then on.
The 'beauty' of our boat was that everyone slept outside on the deck under the stars. Cannot stress how beautiful it was, but in terms of actually getting any sleep it was a bit rubbish!! It seemed like a lifetime of rocking and shivering before 5.30am came around and the captain, an actual mental girl, turned on 'Tiny Dancer' by Elton John and bellowed over the top! Awesome way to wake up!! So with no showers and one toilet, we pretty much just sat up and were ready to go!
We sailed right into Whitehaven beach, which was absolutely beautiful. It was ridiculously hot though and there was a 20 minute walk uphill to the lookout which seemed to take forever! Plus there were so many horse flies around it kind of ruined the experience a little bit and everyone was covered in bites!! We all had stinger suits so we could go into the water safely without getting eaten, so we donned them and ran into the sea, which was really nice, before a spot of sunbathing!
We got back onto the boat and sailed to another island, where we did some snorkelling and i saw a reef shark! The current was really strong though, and people got stranded, so we all had to be collected and taken back! The second nights sleep was better, everyone literally passed out at 10pm as we were all so tired!!
The third day we went to do some more snorkelling, i sat out of this one, wasn't in the mood at 8am surprisingly! Then we sailed back and we all ran back to our hostels to have a shower!!

I however, was leaving that night to go to 1770 on an overnight bus, so i didn't have a hostel! so i snuck into Sofie's and used hers, where i met a girl from my dorm in Townsville!! The whole group had arranged to meet up that night in a bar, so we went along, having a few drinks before 3 of the girls walked me to get my greyhound!! Needless to say, i didn't get a lot of sleep on the overnight bus either, and i arrived from my 12 hour coach journey looking, and feeling like a zombie!!

I was only in 1770 (named after the year captain cook first stepped onto australia) for one day because it was very very small, but i wanted to do the Scooteroo tour, where you get a motorbike and leathers and ride around on a tour of the area! However, i lay on the bed and passed out for a whole day. I didn't see anything of 1770, and achieved nothing there except doing my washing!! BUT... i did meet one of my best mateys from Aus there! Angela was in my dorm, and in the odd moments when i was conscious, we got on well!!

Angela was on my Greyhound bus the next morning to go to Rainbow Beach, which is the gateway to Fraser Island, so we arrived and managed to get a dorm room together. We had a safety briefing in the hostel about the trip. Basically you're in groups of 10, you're given a massive 4x4, you throw everything on the roof and drive around Fraser (the biggest sand island in the world) for three days, camping in your larger groups of about 60 at night. We were put into groups, and were instantly concerned that our whole group consisted of wet lettuces. We were with an English lad, 2 Iranian lads, 3 german girls, a german guy and a swedish guy.

The next day, we got up early and had our second safety briefing and set up the vans and got all of our food. We were becoming more and more worried that we had been put with the most boring people in the world!! We would turn out to be right, bar the English lad, Ben, who is now one of my besties too!! The first day we drove to Lake Mckenzie, the most beautiful place i have ever seen, (i think better than whitehaven!!) with water so pure you can drink it straight up. We paddled around for a bit and met up with the other groups which was good! The two girls from Leicester from my sailing trip were there as well so we set about socialising!! We went for a paddle a bit further up and got caught in the middle of a vicious ball game!! We started talking to the lads, Ashley and Adam, and arranged to meet up later on.
On our way to the camping ground we got stuck several times and a bit lost as well. It was dark by the time we reached camp and we had to set up in the dark!! Left the lads to cook whilst we put up the tents and started drinking the goon!!!

Neither me nor Angela slept in our tent that night, we both singly slept on the beach having not been able to figure out which tent was ours in the pitch black once everyone else was in bed!!! We woke up and made breakfast before getting on our way! Today we were heading for Indian head, the highest point on the island where you can spot whales and various other sea life on a good day!! Our group was still boring, so me and ben decided to make our own fun and started playing a game! The rest of the group sat in silence and listened, before deciding that they wanted to join in! Finally, i thought, a bit of life from them!!! So we were just getting into it and having a bit of a laugh, when we pulled up to a section of beach that had been shut down. There were helicopters, police and aeroplanes there. A man approached the vehicle and said that we had to carefully drive around the scene because there had been a bad accident. He signalled to the shore, where we could see a 4x4 half in the water, unside down and looked like it had been on fire. When Angela asked if everyone was ok, the police man said that one of them was ok, 2 of them had died and the rest were in a critical state. We were all in shock, literally looking at a wrecked car with a sheet next to it with bodies under. One of the worst moments of my life.

But we carried on, it was really sobering and we felt guilty for having any fun. So we went to Indian head and saw a turtle and a shark, no whales though!! We played around in the sea before heading to camp for the night, getting there in the light this time, but running out of gas so we couldn't cook anything!!!!! Eventually we found a group who let us borrow some of theirs to finish cooking and we had a few drinks before going to bed. It didn't feel right having a big party following the days events.

The third day we headed to Ely creek, where we waded down the creek to get to nothing, it seemed...bit disapointing!!! but at least we had a wash before heading back to the ferry to go back to the hostel!! After taking half hour showers each, we all had a nap before meeting up with everyone in the bar for drinks!! Despite the accident, Fraser is without a doubt the best and most fun thing i have done in Australia!! I'm going to leave the rest for another day now because i've been writing for hours!!

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Comments

[laura]

:)
fun times Jevons!