Fun on Fraser the easy way

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Here we are in the less than exciting harbour town of Hervey Bay having returned from Fraser Island to find the place in the full throws of Easter madness. It is tradition at Easter for whole communities to descend on such places and erect what can only be described as canvas cities housing many families with seemingly endless supplies of children. The men then sit around drinking weak lager, talking about cars and comparing beer bellies while the women try to outdo each other in the pitch of their screeching. I have decided that the collective noun for middle-aged Aussie women should be a 'Squawk'. Anyway it's always like this and we have to take camping space where we can find it so we're stuck here for a few more days. Then it'll be back to normal and the smug campsite receptionists, who have been laughing at our requests for a site over the past few days, will have to return to being our humble servants - or something like that.

I digress. As mentioned we have just completed a tour of Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world and famous for, well, just that really - oh
Bow of the Maheno
and the Dingoes. We did go 4 years ago but on that trip it rained continuously for 3 days and we felt it necessary to return to see it in a more favourable light.
There are 2 main ways that back packers can tour the island namely a guided tour or a self-drive. The self-drive tours look fantastic if the 8 people on your trip are all close friends or at least in the majority. More often than not however, groups are cobbled together from whoever signs up and the group are then encouraged to pool their cash and grocery shop for the next 3 days. It is highly entertaining to watch groups of strangers touring the supermarket trying to satisfy everybody. Invariably there is a group of shirtless boys who have filled the trolley with meat and bread followed by a couple of emaciated wiry types saying things like,
"Guys remember that Jacinta and I are vegans."
Once on the island such joy continues at some of the fiendishly over priced shops. I actually overheard the following while a seriously dehydrated girl was proposing the purchase of some water,
Girl: "I really think we should get some drinking water,"
Indian Heads

Boy: "how much is it?"
Girl: "It's only $3 for 5 litres."
Boy: "We could get a can of rum and coke for that, I vote no!"
These characters then take their four-wheel drives onto an island made entirely of sand with very treacherous conditions and no experience. The whole thing would be enormous fun if we were with loads of mates but sadly we weren't and so naturally opted for the softer and more comfortable option of a guided tour for 3 days and 2 nights.

We meet our guide for the trip (Brett) and first impressions aren't brilliant but keen to give the benefit of the doubt I try to reserve judgement. We board the bus to be greeted by the usual sea of curious faces and restrained hellos. We are only a group of 10, which is a good number. Brett tries to rally us by asking if we're all excited, only to be greeted with a few murmurs, typical of a newly formed group of strangers. His response was to let out a huge sigh! Brett was proving to have poor motivational skills.
On the ferry crossing we broke the ice with a few of
Champagne pools
Me and the Missus enjoying a swim without fear of being eaten alive.our tour mates and soon the chat was convivial and easy. Our group was pleasant and a huge relief to all involved. Once on the island we were informed that we weren't going to the lake we were meant to and that we were being transferred onto a smaller, less comfortable bus in order to get to a smaller lake! Some sort of explanation might have been nice. I would have been happy with some lie about going to a spot where most tour groups never get to see, but Brett clearly wasn't that smart. Not the perfect start but the lake was, in fact, very pretty and we would have been none the wiser.
Next to the famous Maheno shipwreck to take a million photos along with a million other people but it is still quite a cool sight. Finally, we ended with a dip in the freezing and beautifully clear waters of Ely Creek mercifully without getting rained on like last time.

It was fast emerging that Brett's credentials for tour guiding extended to having a HGV licence and a working knowledge of the geography of Fraser Island. His people skills and social graces were that of,
Group Photo
This is our team. The guy on my left was a rare one- a German with a great sense of humour.well, an Australian long distance lorry driver. Over dinner that night I had to endure his account of a particularly nasty visit to the dentist that resulted in the dentist kneeling on his chest and him getting the dentist by the throat and threatening to kill him. Everybody could see that I was getting suitably bored and irritated as I managed not to shout at him that this, in fact, has never happened and I've heard it all a million times. I actually excused myself to get another beer in hope that the conversation would be dead by the time I returned. It wasn't.

Day 2 and another cloudless day. The full moon had caused a very high tide meaning the usual steam down the beach turned into a crawl along the soft sand causing the truck to overheat but thankfully we made it to Indian Heads. We climbed the rock for a fabulous view of the beaches and spent a while spotting the sharks in the waters below. The sea here is incredibly inhospitable as it is full of sharks and has deadly currents, not to mention the jellyfish. Onwards to the safety of 'Champagne Pools' for a
Coffe Rock
This black rock takes millenia to form and seconds to crumble in your hands as Em enjoyed showing people!dip but the high tides made them much too rough for comfort and so, as a well-planned contingency, we were taken to a petrol station to buy ice creams - rubbish. After a visit to another body of water that was more puddle than lake we were taken back to the same petrol station for lunch! To her credit, Em did ask if there was somewhere slightly more scenic for lunch but apparently not. A wise woman (Jo, a tour mate who'd lived on the same street as us in Newcastle!) once said, "Beware the fat tour guide as he is more interested in the café stops than the scenery." Very true. We did get to the Champagne pools later and had a lovely swim before being dragged away early to watch hapless self-drivers getting bogged in a particularly soft spot. We had assumed this was a joke but were horrified, if not surprised, to find that it was true. Thankfully someone had brought a kite that all the boys had great fun with. To Brett's chagrin, no one got bogged.

Day 3 started poorly. Having been told that we would leave at 7:30, we arose early to find
Tour Bus
The Mercedes Uni-Mog, the greatest tour bus on the island- apparently!the camp suspiciously quiet. The lovely Brett then appeared bleary eyed and announced he'd had a rethink and decided to leave at 8:30. He then proceeded to lie about his reasons while smoking many fags. Emma was bristling. He went on to tell us that because of our late departure we might miss one of the highlights of the trip, namely Lake Wabby. I had to employ many calming techniques to prevent Emma from killing the man and she agreed only to do so if we didn't actually make it. Thankfully, for all concerned, we did get to our destination, which was beautiful. The lake is a 45-minute bush walk from the beach. Naturally we weren't accompanied by our guide as this would have constituted exercise and cut into his smoking time. This gave us the perfect opportunity to vent in a therapeutic way so as not to spoil our enjoyment of the last day.

All in all the trip was a great success with all of our tour mates being largely entertaining in their own ways and all bonding against adversity. It really highlighted the fact that driving skills and local knowledge do not, a tour guide, make.
Our illustrious guide
A fine figure of a man with a lovely beard.A couple of my favourite Brettisms were,
" Me and Asians just don't get on…"
" I told the lady in the dole office to shove her forms up her arse…"
But when all was said and done, he drove us around, fed us and tried his best. His best was, unfortunately, rubbish.

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Photos

Champagne pools
Me and the Missus enjoying a swim without fear of being eaten alive.

Group Photo
This is our team. The guy on my left was a rare one- a German with a great sense of humour.

Coffe Rock
This black rock takes millenia to form and seconds to crumble in your hands as Em enjoyed showing people!

Tour Bus
The Mercedes Uni-Mog, the greatest tour bus on the island- apparently!

Our illustrious guide
A fine figure of a man with a lovely beard.

Comments

[Deep]

All good things get even better
Hi Steve and Emm, Finally manged to log onto your blog when Emma warned that you were bringing it to an end. I am sitting here on a friday evening being thoroughly entertained when i could possibly be going off to osbornes! I think somebody else may have mentioned it but your dental skills are certainly being challenged by your writing skills, so i can see an alternative career beckoning. Keep us entertained by your goings on in noosa if you can, love all the photos, even your model shots Love from deep, indie and the girls