Whiteknucklin' it at Fraser Island

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4am in Cairns that morning was harsh. The stars were out in full force that morning and the sky was a wonderful sight. That and a low flying bat down our street almost made the early wake up worth it. Another fond farewell to a great city and off to the airport. Again, we had a terrific driver. He had lived in Cairns his whole life and obviously loved it here. Hung out at the airport and witnessed a hilarious event in the women's toilet. Walked in there in a half wake daze when a woman walked towards me to dry her hands. At first her totally inappropriate outfit (both for her age and body type) caught my eye but the kicker was when she turned around, the whole back of her dressed was tucked into her g-string. It shook me out of my stupor and luckily made it to the stall before I started laughing. I felt bad until I heard a kind woman let here know about it and she was laughing as well. I was awake now but all the screaming kids in the airport was a source of irritation. What do parents expect their kids to be like at 5:30 in the morning. About half of them ended up on our flight which attributed to my failing to fall asleep for its duration. Landed in Brisbane and noticed right away the difference in landscape over Cairns. While it was just as green, it lacked that tropical feel of Northern Queensland (and the humidity!). We caught the Airbus which takes you directly to Roma St. Station. This was great as the train we were catching to Maryborough West left from this station. Had some time to kill before our train so we wondered around and found a great open air cafe along the Botanical Gardens. Enjoyed a delicious brekkie and made our way back to pick up our tickets. We were taking the "Tilt Train" which turned out to be the nicest train we've ever taken. It resembled the inside of a plane but nicer. It had better chairs with way more leg room. It was even full service, with people bringing food/drink carts up and down the aisles as well as taking food orders (their was a food car you could visit as well). There were even films running. The one featured was definitely geared towards the many seniors that were on board and even though I didnt have a book to read, I opted out of watching. Didnt need TV anyways with the wonderful landscape going by out my window. I was really looking forward to this form of travel and our trip was to take almost 4 hours. Once we left the city it gradually changed into more pastoral with cows and horses grazing in beautiful pastures dotted with the occasional tree covered hill. All would have been perfect if it wasnt for the demon child sitting in front of me. There was a family of 4 travelling (mum, 2 sisters and devil boy). He was full of energy and obviously bored of the trip. All he did was either punch the seat in front of him (poor man) or stand up to fiddle around. The problem of him standing was a) I could see him b) he spent most of his time staring at us. At least his older sisters were at that wonderful anti-social age where they kept to themselves and occasionally shot a disgusted look at their little brother. His mum pretty much let him do whatever he wanted. I tried really hard to hold it together and not look at him but the little bugger wouldnt leave us alone. Kids are like bees and animals....they always bother the people who dont want them to. Finally, they got off at a stop well before ours and left us in blissful peace. I finally saw my first kangaroo during the trip and it was a cute little baby standing on a hill along the tracks. I was exhausted from our early morning but didnt want to miss anything by sleeping. Kerry was engrossed in this book and didnt mind not having a window seat. The time flew by and we arrived at Maryborough West where we were catching a bus to Hervey Bay. We needed to be at the marina there by 4pm to catch the catamarran to Fraser island. The dispatch had told Kerry they would do their best to get there on time as we only had an hour to get there. The bus driver said the same when we gave him our packs. Well, we had to make a detour to the bus depot and then stopped at the depot in Hervey Bay where the majority of passengers got off. It was now 4pm. We sat on the bus and the driver came back on board to ask us where we were going. When we said the marina, he looked at us and said "You missed your boat". Yeah, thanks Sherlock! So we got to the marina at 4:15pm and had to wait for the next one that left at 7pm. With lots of time to kill, we left our packs there and wandered around the marina. Grabbed a bite to eat and walked around alittle more. We grabbed a bench to people watch when a big Contiki bus pulled up. About 50 kids jumped off and we realized they were off to Fraser Island as well. Good times. We all hung out along the water until we could board the boat. it was dark by now but the ride was still great as the sky was clear. Surrounded by 20 year olds geared up to party, the ride took about 35 minutes. We were staying at the Kingfisher Eco Resort which was a stunning facility. Unfortunately, we werent staying in the hotel itself, but the lodge. We figured for $69 each for a private room we might get lucky and have our own washroom. Waited for the shuttle to take us up the hill and met a guy from our tour. We had noticed him earlier as he had great tattoos (full sleeves on both arms). His name was Chris and he was from Brisbane. Super nice guy in the middle of a big business deal and needed to get away for the weekend. We hopped on the shuttle to the lodges. Looked like we were neighbours and said our goodnights and a promise to meet for brekkie. The lodges were quite nice with a shared kitchen area and roughly eight rooms (our lodge was all private rooms, there were others that had dorms for 4 people). The rooms were bare bones with just two single beds and two closets for your clothes. It was shared bathroom facilities with two showers and one toilet each (men's & woman's). After making the beds, we fell asleep quickly as we were exhausted from a long day of travel.
Breakfast was set for 6:30 - 8:30. We were to meet our shuttle to go the Jetty Hut to meet our group at 8:15. Got down to eat around 7ish where we met Chris. The Dingo Bar was to be our eating/drinking area for the duration of the tour and everyone that had booked a tour would eat there. It had a bar inside with a small dance floor and the outside covered area was where the food was served and the patio had big wooden picnic tables. The breakfast was buffet style with typical bacon, eggs, beans, toast and cereal. Ate our fill and went up to the street to catch the shuttle. By 8:30 we decided to catch whatever car came by as we figured they forgot about us. Made it to the Jetty where our group eventually showed up. Our ranger was Mike and he asked us to wait in the Sand bar until our 4x4 arrived. I guess there was something going on with our ride as we were supposed to leave at 9:15 but that came and went and we were still waiting. By 10am everyone got a drink from the bar.....when in Rome!!! Chris bought a round of beers and we got further aquainted. I noticed that a large coach turned up and I commented that it couldnt possibly be our "4x4". Well, it was. Mike jumped out of it and asked everyone to get on board. As we were lined up, we heard someone say "Kerry?" behind us. It turns out that this guy used to live by him when he was a kid and they havent seen each other in years. Small world! It's too bad he turned out to be the most annoying guy in our group. As we were waiting to board, I took the time to check out the rest of our group. It was a real range of ages from 45 to 18. Kerry, Chris and I were last on board and took the back seats. Mike (our ranger) was a great burly man who always has a smile on his face. Great sense of humour and has an obvious love for the outdoors. He turned out to be the best guide we could have hoped for. As we left we were in for a bit of a shocker. We figured all the roads on the island would be paved (especially looking at the vehicle we were in) but as it turns out they werent. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world which meant all the roads were sand as well. We hit the first start of the road called the "Rollercoaster" and that's exactly what it was!! The road was so full of bumps that you were constantly flying out of your seat. Mike had mentioned earlier that the bus was equipped with seat belts which I had thought were unnecessary (once again thinking I knew more). if you didnt wear your belt, you would almost hit your head on the ceiling, no lie! After the hill, Mike hit it into high gear. Every bump your bum jumped out of the seat and us in the back seat were hit the hardest. All we did was laugh at how much fun it was. It's hard to describe the experience as it seemed so odd to be in this 45 person "Greyhound bus" 4x4 doing 50kmh down windy sand roads. And it was normal sand either but more like a talc. The buses run on tracks made by all the vehicles using the road and basically "drift" around the corners (in our case, at top speed). Total adrenaline rush as the bushes are basically about a foot from the sides of the bus. You kind of do the "mental patient" as one minute you are laughing and the next almost crying in terror. I also think Mike had aspirations of driving in the Dakar race. Another scary part was that this road was one lane only. Where you never knew if a car was coming around one of the corners. there are rules of the road though and cars are supposed to give way to the buses. This is done by backing up into a spot off the road so we could go by. Mike seemed to relish in enforcing this rule as he always seemed to speep up when he saw a vehicle infront of him. He would drive right up the back of them so all they could see was a big headlight in their rear-view mirror. It became almost like people psychically knew he was coming and it was like the parting of the Red Sea. Our first stop was to be Basin Lake for a swim. It took a slight hike uphill to get there as it was an elevated dune lake. Before heading out, we had a snack of apples and meusli bars. It was funny to see Kerry eat an apple without a knife, but even funnier to see one of his teeth sticking out of the apple! Luckily it was one of his bottom teeth. This was almost as funny as him losing his front tooth on a chicken wing. This is a lesson to you all to wear a full face mask when you are playing hockey!! Chris and I couldnt stop laughing and even he took a picture of the tooth lodged in the apple. Off everyone started and already the 4 young Brits (girls) were bitching about having to hike. What did they think they were going to do on this tour? We were later to find out that one of the guys on this tour had dubbed them the Flab Four, they actually were alittle on the slovenly side. It was an easy and beautiful walk through the forest and our first look at a Fraser Island lake. It was small and fringed with a fine white sand. The water was like getting into a bath. Kerry forgot to change into his swim trunks so he couldnt go for a swim. We were there for about 1/2 hour and made our way back to the bus. It was amazing how fast the landscape changes here. We would plunge into thick dark rainforest and next thing you know you're in a eucalpyt forest. we wound our way through the roads at breakneck speed towards our next stop, Central Station for lunch. Mike hauled out all the coolers for our lunch buffet as we headed towards the picnic area. We suddenly heard a knocking sound. I guess I should have noticed that Kerry was missing and now locked inside the bus. To make matters worse, he tried to open the door from the inside and air locked himself in. Mike had to use all his body weight to try and break to seal to get him out. Then, on our way to the group, Kerry wandered off looking for the loo and went the wrong way. It took him 15 minutes to find the group. That's 3 strikes so far and the trip just started! While we ate, Mike explained that Central station used to be a train station when they used to log the island after WWII. Fraser Island went on the World Heritage list in the early 1990's. After lunch we went for a walk along the rainforest boardwalk that ran along a creek. At first glance, I thought there was a layer of white scum on top of the water but at closer look it turned out to be crystal clear water with a sandy bottom. Apparently, this water is tasteless and pure freshwater and the creek pumpes out over a million gallons of water into the ocean every day. We were deep in the rainforst along with dozens of birds, ancient trees, giant ferns and eels swimming in the creek. Mike got us to stand still for a minute with our eyes closed to hear all the different sounds of the forest. It was wonderfully cool as we strolled along the boardwalk before heading back up to the bus. Back on board for more seat belt burns. Some bumps we hit were so bad that some of the girls on board screamed! Our next stop was one of jewels of Fraser Island, Lake McKenzie. I have honestly never seen a lake like this before. The water had leached all the minerals out of the sand which left it pure white and as fine as talc. Mike told us it was like going to the spa as the sand was a perfect exfoliator. The water there would rival anything you would see in the Carribean in its colour and clarity. There must have been 400 people there lining the shoreline. Either just laying in the cool refreshing water or scrubbing themselves with the sand. We had about an hour to sit back and relax. So far this in our mind had been worth the price of admission and we didnt even think twice about the expense of this tour. Mike had laid out afternoon tea and biscuits before we left so we gathered at the picnic tables to eat and watch a couple rather brazen iguanas walk by. Back to the Lodge after that as we were to meet for dinner at 6:45. Mike had said happy hour was at five so we arranged to meet Chris back there for a round or two. In our Lodge, we noticed that we had three new couples staying with us. All from Britian and two of the girls were the most unfriendly so far on the trip. They had nothing to say and didnt even crack a smile. The older couple was very friendly though. We arrived at the Dingo Bar to see that Chris was the only one there. It seems that Happy Hour didnt actually start until 6:30. Got beers anyways and sat down to review the day's events. Another guy, Paul showed up and he ended up being the oldest on the tour. He lived in London and was the epitome of someone going through a mid life crisis. He hated London and sold his flat and went to go travel. He had a trade and thought he may settle in Australia. He was a bit of bitter guy as he wasnt sure what to do with his life and after he left we all agreed that if he didnt leave London he would mostly likely go "postal" at some point. As happy hour grew closer, people started filtering into the bar. Ate a pretty good meal and I laughed at the size of everyone's plates. I guess we were all backpackers on budgets that looked very kindly at a buffet meal. The pitchers of beers were flowing as everyone took a turn buying a round. We were expecting the rowdy contiki people to show up but apparently were all too hung over to go out tonight. We had met 2 cousins from New Orleans in that group who were disgusted by the amount of drinking going on. It seems that the group leader had won the drinking contest the night before. Mike walked by our table and we asked him to join us. We asked him how much he loved driving those roads and admitted that he had been abit nervous afew times that day....didnt need to hear that one! I secured myself the seat next to him in the front for the following day to experience the ride up close and personal. Had a great chat with him the rest of the night. The whole group ended up migrating over to our part of the room and we all proceeded to tie one on. We were really lucky to have such a great group. For the most part, everyone got along really well and even Paul lightened up to show a really great sense of humour. Kerry and I took off close to midnight as we had an early morning the next day and werent sure how we would be feeling. The hill to our lodge seemed alot more steep that night.

Fraser Island to be continued...........

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