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Published: February 23rd 2007
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75 Mile Beach
Well its 68 miles long.... Fraser Island was the first of our three prepaid tours, and being such we were a little apprehensive for if the tour turned into a bit of a nightmare we'd be stuffed, it was already paid for mate! We needn't have worried; we had an absolutely brilliant time. The tour itself and the people we got to know during the trip made it what it was, a real fun adventure. In hindsight it was our best trip, we couldn't have asked for a better trip or a better bunch of people to share it with.
We went on a 2 night 3 day Cooldingo tour, food and Accommodation included. Our days were spent seeing the various attractions of the Island, touring around in a custom made bus.
If you didn't know already, Fraser Island is the World’s largest sand Island. It looks like any other regular tropical Island, green forest and bush interior ringed by golden sandy beaches. Only here, the foundations underneath everything is sand, there is no rock and only a couple of tarmac roads in the two resorts located on the Island, so instead of roads, there are sand tracks. This meant that our custom made
bus was basically an over sized sand dune buggy with enormous tracker tyres to cope with the deep fine sand. Even the bus struggled at times getting through the sand and at worst driving along the sand tracks was more then a little hairy. Listening to the sounds coming from the Korean contingent who were sat at the back of the bus and busy being thrown around, was probably one of the best bits though (a strange sound, very low and not always in time with the bumps!!).
Our tour guide was a bloke called Mike, who from the back of the bus, you would have sworn was the twin brother of everyone's favourite 'Neighbours' character, Lou Carpenter!! He had a great sense of humour and drove like a mad man! Well that's a bit unfair; we only thought we were going to die twice!!
By the end of the first day we had already taken in Basin Lake, Central Station, a walk through the rainforest, and Lake McKenzie, as well as good few KMs of sand tracks. After a well earned dinner we were on the beers and having a few games of pool and getting to
Everyone piles in
Like flys round.... it was sweltering and as soon as we saw the water people just jumped in know our travel companions. There were about 28 of us on the tour. There were a group of 6 or so Koreans, a couple of French lads (possibly French legionnaires!), Terry and Rob, two Aussie mates from Sydney who were on the downward leg of a tour up the east coast, full of beans Tim, a bleary eyed east ender, a couple of randoms and a group of friends who we’d soon start to call the “Croydon Massive” (Mark, Ed, Brad, & Chris). Oh and ‘Swiss!’ I can’t remember her real name, but ‘Swiss’ was the muse for the ‘Croydon Massive.’ All of them at one time or another seemed to have tried their luck to no avail, but as Chris who named her “Swiss” because she came from Switzerland!! Said, she was far more interested in Swiss roll!! Anyway, back to the story, one beer led to another and before long we had about 15 or so people packed onto a small balcony in the midst of a full on singsong. Cracking night, Mark and Ed were fantastic playing out tune after tune on the guitars and with one of the most memorable duets from Brad & Chris of
??? it really was a blinding night.
The next morning the carnage of the previous night was easy to spot with sunglasses and a bottle of water being most peoples chosen accessories. Today we’d be undertaking our longest journey of the tour, a trip across to the other side of the island, up 75 mile beach to the far north east peninsula at Indian Head and then a short distance along the north shore to the Champaign Pools. All the destinations were idyllic as you can see from the photos. Other highlights of the day were floating down Eli Creek on my back (Eli Creek is half way up 75 mile beach and is a fresh water stream which winds its way down to the sea), annihilating the ‘Croydon Massive’ in a footy match on the beach ; ), and spending some time wondering around the Maheno shipwreck (The Japanese bought the ship off the Aussie’s back in the 50s and while towing it back to Japan a freak storm broke it’s tow lines and because they had removed the ship’s rudder to make it easier to tow inadvertently left the ship powerless to stop the high winds and
tide washing it up on 75 mile beach. It has been there ever since and at one point during WWII it was used as target practice for the Aussie Air force. As you can see they weren’t too successful at hitting it!! But that’s perhaps just as well as it has become one of the most photographed attractions in Australia).
After another night on the beers and an impromptu costume party stroke drinking competition, Jo and I sneaked off early-ish to get some well needed rest.
Our last day was spent visiting the emerald green Lake Wabby, where we indulged in a bit of sand surfing. Both myself and Brad hit the water pretty hard, but we left it to Mark to do one better by nearly knocking himself out when he hit the water so hard the board come back and smacked him full on in the face!!
It was leaving the lake and trekking across the Hammerstone Sandblow to the bus that we lost the two French guys. Even with specific instructions to stay together! You wouldn’t expect such behavour from the French! Nearly two hours of searching Mike marched them back to the bus!
It didn’t bother us as while they went walkabout we amused ourselves with a game of beach cricket and got suck into tea and muffins. With everyone back onboard we made it to the Eurong Beach resort for a big BBQ Lunch. Then with our bellies full we spent the rest of the afternoon at Lake Birrabeen. Just check out the picture, this place was paradise.
And that brought our tour to an end. If you were wondering why there are no pictures of us swimming in the sea, it was because there are sharks, big hungry sharks! Although the safer option of swimming in the fresh water lakes and the sheltered Champaign Pools more than made up for it.
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