Fraser Island

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We were supposed to go out on a night out with all the guys from our boat, but sadly we had already booked our next bus journey, a 14 hour monster, to Rainbow Beach, where we would pick up our 4x4 to head o Fraser Island.

The bus journey was surprisingly OK. After 3 days on a boat, basically sleeping where breakfast was served, and therefore having not much sleep we were all knackered, and slept most of the way. We had one night in Rainbow Beach at Dingos hostel where we met our group and were given a briefing, before heading off to the Island.

Our group consisted of a multitude of cultures, but everyone was really cool and we all got along great. There was an English guy and a Israeli dude called Sam and Omar travelling together, and two Italian blokes called Fabian and Max, an English girl called Rebecca who looked just like baby from Dirty Dancing (I took Dan's word for that, as being a real man I haven't really seen it), a Canadian girl called Karen, and an Austrian girl called Victoria.

It was us three and Karen and Omar that did the driving, and seeing as no one else wanted to go first, I stepped up to the challenge. For anyone that hasn't done any proper 4wd driving, it's much harder than it looks. My first mistake was a schoolboy error. Forgetting that I'd left the car in gear on the ferry to sop it from moving about, I started her up. Now with 2wd cars all you get with the handbrake on is a jump forward and then the car stalls. A 4wd Land Cruiser in Low 4WD is pretty much impossible to stall though, and has the power of a tractor, which means the handbrake isn't going to do jack. So the car starts and immediately starts moving forward on the ferry (we had reached our destination on our ferry by this point, I'm not a complete idiot) and if it wasn't for my quick reactions, would have ploughed into the car in front, taking this Irish guy with it along the way. Thankfully all was OK and we continued onto the island, which is 65Km of beach that is a legal national highway, and absolutely awesome fun. On the way to, in my opinion, the best attraction on the island, we changed drivers and Omar did exactly the same as me, forgetting the car was in gear, making me feel slightly better! And he used to drive hummers in the army! After some pretty hardcore off-road tracks , we arrived at Lake McKensie, which is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. For those of you that don't know, Fraser island is the largest sand island in the world, and is littered with fresh water lakes. These lakes seem even more appealing as you can't swim in the surrounding sea due to stingers, sharks and rip currents. Lake McKensie has to be seen to be believed. I've tried uploading some pics but this computer is rather dated (always seem to pick the crap ones) and I can't even compress the pics as the programs available are restricted. I think Will uploaded a few of my pics the other day if you want to have a butchers:


www.getjealous.com/wilberforce3000

The water in the lake is so clean and clear and refreshing. Sam was even drinking it! I could see that Dan had his sneaky "I'm Weeing over here, keep away" face on so I decided against it. If you do get a chance to see the pics you will notice that the edge of the lake is really clear, and then it suddenly goes from a light blue to a really dark blue. This is because of the gradient of the deepness of the lake, something to do with the sand apparently. It is really shallow for a couple of metres, and then just drops away to darkness. We spend the rest of the afternoon paddling about and chilling out on the lake's beach, and then headed to a camping ground where most of the 7 cars that had left Dingos Backpackers had agreed to meet at.

Now from my experience, everyone makes the same mistake on their first night, and that is to set up camp too late. All the camping grounds are behind dunes just off the main beach, and there are 2 reasons to set up early. 1 - because all of the good, sheltered camps are gone by mid afternoon, and 2 - because trying to put up a decent tent, let alone one with only 1 working pole in the dark whilst holding a torch in your mouth and the wind turning the tent into a kite, is not much fun at all. 4 tents, and me Dan and Will picked the broken one both night, our dome tent looked more like a pyramid by the end. At one point I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when me and Will had got nowhere. To make matters worse, Rebecca had rubbed salt into the would by standing next to her tent, that was perfect, and she'd put it up on her own! Eventually, after what seemed an endless battle, we were done. Having to resort to putting sand on the edges of the tent instead of pegs (we had lost them in the dark, and subsequently run out) which meant about halving the room inside the tent, which was hardly a marquee in the first place.

We just about managed to cook dinner, steak, potatoes and salad (just steak and potatoes for me then) seasoned with sand. Omar, the resident chef seemed to really like seasoning everything with sand, I wasn't so sure, maybe an Israel thing. But seriously, Omar cooked all our food on the trip and he did an ace job, especially on the 2nd night where his chicken stir fry was probably the best I've ever had.

After a few beers and some drinking games with the camp next door, the tent, which surprisingly hadn't blown away yet, didn't seem all that bad. We awoke pretty early and headed for Eli Creek, which was a shallow creek where we floated down on the cool water to the beach. It was so nice and peaceful that we did it twice. The 2nd time turned into a bit of a bundle between myself, Dan and Will, involving trying to splash a huge spider so that it would fall on top of Will. He went for the swimming underwater approach to bypass the threat (chicken). The next spot on the itinerary was the Maheno shipwreck, which was pretty spectacular, rusting away on the main beach. Dan decided to ignore the warnings and climb into the wreck for a kodak moment. Now I have photographic evidence that I can go to the rangers with if he does anything to annoy me for the rest of the trip.

After the wreck it was up to Indian Head where we had been told by loads of people that they saw Tiger sharks and Dolphins and Manta rays from the headland. We saw nothing, the most exciting thing was a flipflop in the cliff. We actually met this Swedish dude in Cairns that fell off the cliff but miraculously fell onto a ledge a few feet below rather than on to the rocks below. He actually said he thought that that was it and he was going to die. I stayed well back from the edge after hearing that.

We then headed back to set up camp, which was so much less stressful, and we were chilling with a Tooheys New by 5. We had fashioned a windbreak from a groundsheet and so dinner was a breeze (the stove had kept going out the night before) and we were complemented on how ace our camp was by loads of other people passing by. Another night of crazy beer and goon filled antics ensued, almost ended by Dan and Will insisting that they pick me up for a photo, and subsequently dropping me on my back and winding me. Being double hard I shook it off and we continued to party into the night. Most of us got a few hours sleep but Karen and Fabien had stayed up at this Aussies' camp who we had met the night before.

I was glad of my sleep, especially when we basically had to cross the Sahara Desert on our way to Lake Wabbi on foot. This lake was completely different to McKensie. The water was infused with tea tree and was green and murky. Whilst Omar built a sand castle empire and Dan spent his time hiding from a girl he had met the previous night, Will and I did some lengths of the lake to cure our hangovers and I tried my hand at catching some catfish with bare hands, but needless to say, I was not as successful as I was on my spear fishing expedition.

We then headed back to the ferry terminal where we had to return to the hostel. The Fraser Island experience was wicked, and anyone that is allowed to should have at least a go at driving on the sand. Will managed to make Omar hit his head on the roof twice, and Dan got stuck in the sand and had to have a push, and I've already told you about my little incident, but its an experience I'll never forget, and definitely up there with the Whitsundays and the diving.

We had another night at rainbow beach before heading to Noosa.

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