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Published: March 20th 2008
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Spent the night at Hervey Bay last night to prepare for our trip to Fraser Island. Had our meeting inn the morning where we met the people who we will be travelling with for the next 3 days. Everyone seems really friendly. There is Rob, Sarah and Richard ( English), Nacky ( Japanese), Agnes, Sina and Simon ( German) and Lars & Anna who are from Sweden and Denmark. A good mixture of folk there! Our first task was to prepare a shopping list and then go buy everything at the supermarket. Not an easy thing to do when there are 11 of you who are total strangers. However we managed to get quite a lot done between us and of course stocked up on plenty of alcohol which is apparently part of your staple diet on the island. On the morning of departure we had to get up at 5am to get organised for our early start. We had to check the contents of our vehicles and make sure that everything was in working order. This included counting every spoon,knife and fork and checking it off a list. If anything is missing on return we have to pay for it.
Fraser Island
having fun in the water It was exciting setting off although there was so many Do's and Donts that our heads were spinning. I guess they are worried about their 4WD's as they are expensive. So we set off for the ferry that takes us over to the island. That took about 40minutes so wasnt too bad. Our plans for that first day were to do a bit of driving and we had quite a bit of ground to cover. However we were not off the ferry 20 minutes when we got stuck in the sand. The engine just seemed to sieze up. Fraser Island is a complete sand island , the roads are entirely sand and can be difficult to navigate. We couldnt get up the hill and so 10 of us had to get out and push which didnt really help much I have to say. The boys had the bonnet up, all looking in there with blank expressions on their faces although im sure they knew what they were doing :-) It was actually really funny but everyone was worried as we thought we were going to have to phone for help and get towed. This was not an alluring prospect as
Fraser Island
our Fraser Island gang on day of departure we would have had to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it and also would have had to wait for hours till someone got over from the mainland. To add to the embarrassment we had a convoy of cars behind us as the roads are all one lane tracks so they couldnt pass. Anyway in the end up it was Raymond to the rescue as he got us going again, something to do with the gears, he had to show a couple of the guys how to drive it properly as they were trying to drive it like a normal car. As a result of this little hiccup we had lost loads of time and so only made it to Lake Narrabeen on the first day. We all went in swimming and then headed off again to set up camp for the night. There are 5 tents between us, Raymond and I have our own tent which is great as we thought we might have to share. Putting the tents up was comical in itself as i think it had been a while since anyone had done any camping! We then set up our bbq and had a lovely
Fraser Island
all the girls dinner under the stars. Its quite an exercise as you have to unload the entire van only to pack it all up again. Then a couple of people had to go down to the sea to wash all the pots and pans - in the dark! Im glad I didnt have to do this part as I helped cook :-) We have to collect our food scraps and bury them in a deep hole. There are dingoes on the island and so we dont want to attract them in the middle of the night as they can be dangerous. We go the toilet in pairs with a torch as its pitch black and who knows whats crawling about out there! Im glad I have Raymond for this, a couple of people are going together who were complete strangers yesterday :-0 You know you are truly doing the camping experience when you are going behind a bush and taking a spade with you if needs be :-)
Its an early start on the island, up at 4.30am in order to have breakfast, take the tents down and pack up all the gear. We have to be driving for 6.30am as
there is only certain times you can drive on the beach due to the tides and there is a few places that we would like to see. One of the rules is not to get saltwater on the vehicle as it rusts. This is not as easy as they made it sound as all our driving is on the beach and we need to drive near the water line as this is where the sand is hardest, therefore easiest for driving on. Before we left they showed us pictures of a van that had been taken out by a group of Japanese. They had gotten out to take pictures and left the van too near the water line. The van sunk into the sand and as the tide came it washed the van away, with all their belongings and everthing. I wouldnt have liked to be the one making that phonecall! It cost them something like $30,000 between them!!
Our first stop was the Maheno Wreck, a massive shipwreck right on the shore. Its been there since 1935 and is slowly disappearing but is still an amazing sight. After that we drove to Lake Wabby which is the most
Fraser Island
stories round the campfire gorgeous lake I have ever seen. Its surrounded by golden sand dunes as far as the eye can see. At certain points you would think you were in the desert. The lake is great for swimming in, sharing it with green tortoises. We spent a couple of hours there and took some good photos but it was just so crazy hot, there is not a breath of wind. We couldnt even walk in the sand in our flipflops, they were burning right through! I had to walk on a towel to get anywhere!
We set up camp for the night again about 4.30pm. We have to do this before it gets dark as its almost impossible to so otherwise. Raymond and Simon made a fantastic spaghetti bolognese and we all ended up pretty drunk. Everyone sang a bit of their national anthem which was fascinating and hilarious as few of us can hold a note!
Our last day was quite overcast but we'd had enough sun by this point anyway so it was a welcome relief. We headed back to easy driving land where we had a night out to say goodbye. We had a fantastic crowd and had
Fraser Island
Gill 'n' Raymy such a good time on our trip. We have heard a few stories since we came back about people who didnt get on and who had arguments. We even met a girl on the island who wanted to join our group as she was having such a bad time with her own crowd. So we swapped email addresses and then went out dancing which was fun. Too many cocktails were drunk I think!!
So now heading on to Brisbane so looking forward to that!
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