Fraser Island

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Hello!

Deaks and I arrived in Hervey Bay early in the morning so headed to our hostel and crashed out. We had a nice day chilling and doing washing etc. It was nice to do nothing for a whole day as we don't do it very often. Suz arrived late that night after successfully getting her new bank cards at Airlie Beach just in time for our Fraser Island trip the next day.

We set off early the next morning and got the ferry over to Fraser Island - the world's largest sand island - where we met our group (there were about 25 of us) and our tour guide - Graham. The girls took delight in calling him Grrrrrrraham with a big roll of the tongue like they call my Dad! We had decided on doing the 3 day Cool Dingoes tour rather than a self drive as we'd heard a few bad stories about people being stuck on the self drives in small groups and not getting on and it ruined their experience a bit. Cool Dingoes do it in bigger groups and you have a tour guide and had a really good reputation so we thought we'd go with them.

We headed straight off for day 1 in what Suzanne named the Monster Truck! It was the funniest, bumpiest journey ever - it made the roads in Cambodia look good! It was great fun hurtling through the forest on the dodgy tracks. It was like being in a simulator but worse! We were allowed on roads that self drivers aren't as we had an experienced tour guide so we hardly came across anyone else on the tracks which was nice. Our first stop was a nice rainforest walk. Uncle Graham pointed us in the right direction and left us to it, warning us of spiders and snakes and most of all leeches. I set off, armed with sunglasses on even though it wasn't sunny, after Uncle Brian in Cairns told us of a story where a girl on his trip had a leech on her and started screaming and jumping around only for the leech to fly off and land on a guy's eyeball and it was over 30 minutes before they could get it off!!! I couldn't help myself and told Deaks that she had one on her leg and she squealed and did a dodgy little dance in panic! I'm so evil! Thankfully we didn't come into contact with any. The next stop, after lunch, was Lake McKenzie. I'd been told about it and was looking forward to seeing it. It was beautiful. We saw 2 dingoes on the beach just happily strolling along. Later that evening we were taken to our dorms - they were all 4 beds but luckily we got one to ourselves. We spent the evening chatting to some of the other people in our groups about where they've been that we're heading to and getting tips etc.

Day 2 started at 7am where we headed on an hour's drive through the forest and onto the beach. It was amazing as you came through the forest and the beach emerged. The beach on Fraser is 75 miles long and is a highway with a speed limit of 80km p/h. We sped down it passing other cars which was a surreal experience. Our first stop was Eli Creek which flows onto the beach. Suz and I waded through it, ducking for massive spiders that were sitting in their webs above our heads! Next stop was the Maheno Shipwreck which was quite cool. We then headed to Champagne Pools where we chilled and sunbathed for a bit. After lunch we headed to Indian Head - a lookout point. When Captain Cook sailed past he saw Aboriginals standing on it which is where it got its name from. After that we went to The Pinnacles to see the 72 different coloured sands. Last stop for the day was Stonetool Sandblow - an active sand dune. I ate some tree sap there which was disgusting and dried up my mouth. The Aboriginals discovered it had a numbing effect so they used it to cure toothaches.

That evening we had dinner in the Dingo Bar but there wasn't a lot of people about and we desperately wanted to escape the company of one particular boy in our group who was one of the most annoying people I've ever met. I've never known someone love the sound of their own voice so much and be so desperate to be the centre of attention all the time! If I'd have been on a self drive with him in a small car I would have killed him! We headed back to our dorm and had an early night.

Day 3 was another early start. Half of the group were only doing a 2 day tour and had left the evening before so there was a smaller group of us which was nice. We headed off in the Monster Truck to Lake Wabby. This one was my favourite. We saw it first from a viewpoint and it was amazing - surrounded mostly by sand dunes and partly by forest. Uncle Graham sent us off on the 2km walk to get to it where we chilled for a bit. It was a bit cold so I only managed to get in up to my waist as it wasn't warm enough to dry off afterwards! After that we started the 2km walk back to the beach to meet Graham. Walking on the sand uphill wasn't easy! There were some steep slopes which we had to run up in order to make it before collapsing!

After lunch we headed towards our last stop - Lake Nirrabeen which was similar to Lake McKenzie but not quite as nice in my opinion. It was quite cold so only Suzanne was brave enough to go in! After chilling there for a bit we started the journey back to our resort. Graham decided to put his foot down this time and give us a final scary journey which was great. If it weren't for the seatbelts I would have been flung around the truck. Deaks and I were laughing the whole way home thinking it was better than a ride at Disney. Suzanne, amazingly, managed to sleep through some of it!

We caught the 5pm ferry back to Hervery Bay and headed to Kookaburras - our hostel. We got in to our 6 bed dorm to find that we were sharing with 3 (messy!) guys. We were absolutely shattered and were planning on an early night before heading to Noosa in the morning. Our roommates returned after having dinner and we discovered they were 22 years old and from Wales. After discovering our ages, they asked Suz (28), in amazement, why she wasn't at home having babies by now!! The cheek of it!!! After that we decided we couldn't be shown up and that even old grannies could have fun so we abandoned the plans for an early night (and Suzanne wanting some peppermint tea!) to show these young boys a good night out!! We turfed them out of the room so we could get ready and they waited in the hostel bar for us. We had a few drinks there and played some games and the plan was to head into town. Once we discovered it was a 30 min walk into town the boys agreed that we could drive their campervan - excellent!! Suz refrained from drinking so that she could drive as the boys had been drinking for a few hours. We all piled in to this van - Deaks and I having to lay in the back amongst all their filth with dirty pots and pans around us - an experience to say the least! We headed into town to find Koalas which is where it all goes on apparently to discover there was about 3 people in there and that the town was dead!! Not impressed, we headed back to the hostel and went back into the bar where we got chatting to the entertainment lady. She must have been nearly 50 but was good fun and had got the karaoke going. When the bar closed she said she would take us to another place where we could sing so about 8 of us headed to this place - it was so random - a proper local bar with no tourists in at all! We had such a good night in there. A psychic lady in there started talking to me and Jimmy (one of the Welsh boys) and he decided to test her powers and told her that we were engaged! She got excited and went into how she could see how in love we were and even told us what date we would get married and that we would hit a rough patch after 4 years but would sort things out and live happily ever after with a daughter!!!!! What is that!!!! I'd only known the boy for 3 hours! Very funny all the same!

We crawled home at 2.30am after a fight broke out and Gina (50 year old entertainer) got involved and ended up with a fat lip off some random bloke - nice! We decided that was our cue to leave! We had to get up early the next morning to catch the Greyhound to Noosa. It was a 5 hour journey and, feeling very hungover, I asked the driver to put a film on. He informed me that he only had one really crap film and I said I didn't care and that anything would do. It was called The Posiden Adventure and he begrudgingly put it on, after informing everyone on the bus to blame me if they didn't like it - how rude!! It was so good - I was on the edge of my seat for 2 hours - it was better than Titanic!!!

Bye for now

xx

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