Advertisement
Published: April 6th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Hopped on the Oz bus at 7am in Airlie for our trip down to Hervey Bay - there is an overnight stop on route with the Oz bus in a cattle station called Krombit !! It is literally in the middle of nowhere - the real outback ! Stayed in cool wooden room / huts and had a fantastic meal which was all cooked in a big open stone fire! First activity of the night was to learn how to crack a whip and break the sound barrier !! This is not as easy as it looks and after hitting ourselves a million times we managed to get it! Next it was to ride the mechanical bull - for the boys this was particularly funny - they all ended up in a lot of pain!!
The next morning it was up at the crack of dawn to head goat mustering on horseback!! We got all saddled up and off we set - Michelle on buttons and Luke on Chrissy. We went for a horse ride all through the outback before setting off to muster the goats !! This involves trotting up behind them and basically shouting at them as loud
as possible, they don't react to the horses, it is the shouting that makes them move! There must of been a couple of hundred goats so it took ages to get them down from the fields and into their pens !! It was a great laugh and a completely different experience !!
Next it was off to do some clay pigeon shooting - where Luke got 5/5 with the shotgun and then for a goat rodeo ! The rodeo involved getting into teams of three and entering a pen with the goat - one person had to run and catch the goat by the horns or back leg and pull it back to one side of the ring, then the next person had to pick the goat up and flip it over on to its side and hold it on the ground while the third person branded it ! It was hilarious and we came third the first time we tried it! The second time we had two goats to catch and we managed to do it in 29 seconds and come first which we were pretty happy about!
As our cowboy careers came to an end we
boarded the Oz bus again and set off for Hervey Bay where we would do our Fraser Island trip and run into Rhona again!
The next morning it was up at 7am for our safety briefing for Fraser Island with Palace Adventures. We were doing the 3 day self drive trip so had to go through all the dvd's of how dangerous dingo's were and how easy it was to flip the jeeps!! Rhona, Luke and I managed to get in the same group and we had 2 Swiss guys, an English guy and 2 girls from Israel! Once we got our jeep and loaded it up with all our camping equipment we set off for the supermarket to get our supplies !! The supermarket turned out to be the first test for our group as the two girls from Israel complained over everything we bought !! They ended up causing a good bit of trouble throughout the trip because they were just so lazy and also announced they were allergic to and didn't like sand - considering we were on the biggest sand dune in the world this proved to be very funny and watching them trying to
avoid the sand for the next three days was comical!
Fraser Island is mad - the roads inland are just tracks and you bounce your way over them! On the beach it gets pretty tricky too as you are sliding all over the place on the soft sand ! The best place to be in the jeep is in the front as the seats in there have suspension so Rhona, Luke and I tried to get in there as much as possible !! We got a bit lost the first day so spent a good bit of time getting stuck and reversing !! You can only drive on the beach at certain times of the day because of the tide coming in and we left it a bit tight for time a few times and had to fly up the beach hoping we would get through!! They also warn you about not driving in the salt water so trying to avoid it is tricky when the tide is coming in !!
We camped both nights at the beach which was amazing and great fun. The only thing you need to watch for is the dingo's, they are everywhere
and are constantly trying to get at your food!! We had three tents between 8 of us in our group so once we set up we started cooking ! On the menu the first night was a good old aussie bbq and the old reliable pasta on the second night !
We did a good bit of sightseeing on the island but definitely the most spectacular sight was Lake Wabby - you walk out to the lookout and it is amazing to see a huge sand dune with a lake at one side - it was a pretty tough walk to get to the Lake but the water was amazing !! Other sights we visited were Eli Creek, Indian Head, the Champagne pools and Lake McKenzie!! There were three Palace Adventure jeeps so we had great fun meeting up with them and drinking goon till the early hours- (wine in bags over here is called goon and is the drink of choice for all backpackers, its pretty classy stuff!) As usual we managed to find a few Irish in the other group and were the last ones in bed !!
Fraser Island was great craic, it really is
an amazing place and it has been such a laugh doing the 4wd ! Next stop from here on the trip down the East Coast is Rainbow Beach just for one night (this is just because the Oz bus stops here) and then on to Noosa!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 15; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0326s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
indiana jones look out