Hervey Bay and Fraser Island

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Tuesday 31st March

Today was our chill out day before Fraser Island so we headed to the beach and had breakfast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We strolled along the beach for the most part of the morning and spent a very lazy afternoon lying on the beach. We had our briefing today for our self-drive 4WD tour of Fraser Island in the bar of the hostel and met our group. There was Pippa and myself, four Norweigien girls, two Danish boys, one Canadian guy and two fellow English guys, so that's eleven people and just one truck! We had a few games of pool in the bar to get to know our group a bit better and spent the evening being very excited.


Wednesday 1st April

We woke up extremely early this morning so that we could pack up the trucks with our bags, food, beer, cooking equipment and tents. After a long talk from the guys at the hostel about how to drive the truck and some hints and tips about getting around the island we headed off to board the ferry that would take us the short half hour trip to Fraser Island. As soon as we arrived on Fraser we knew we were in for a bumpy ride when we caught our first site of the tracks that we would be driving down! It was great fun trying to hold everything in place while flying towards the ceiling of the truck! Our first stop was as Lake Birrabean, it was absolutely stunning and the fresh water was so nice to swim in and we were very grateful of the cooling down as the weather was beautiful. It was my turn to drive us to a campsite for the evening and it was so much fun driving along the beach with the waves crashing to shore right next to you! We found a campsite on the beach and set up our tents for the evening. It was so refreshing to be outside again and it reminded me of when i was in Chile, we spent the evening under a blanket of stars toasting the beautiful island.


Thursday 2nd April

Pippa and i woke up at 5am this morning to see if we could catch the sunrise. Unfortuantely after dragging our sleeping bags down to the beach and getting comfy we accepted the fact that this morning was a little bit too grey and so went back to camp. We headed for Eli Creek today, this is a fresh water creek that meets the sea and if you walk to the top you can let the current take you down to the bottom. We spent most of the day here fooling around in the creek, climbing trees and taking silly photographs. After a BBQ lunch we drove North up the beach towards to Maheno shipwreck. Back to camp in the evening for a (questionable) steak dinner and some games around the campfire. Tonight a cheeky dingo would come to camp and take Pippa's flip flop as a chew toy...!


Friday 3rd April

I woke up at 3am to find myself near floating in our tent (it really did remind me of Chile!) and i woke Pippa up and we made a run for the truck...by 4.30am all but 3 of the group were huddled in the truck sheltering from the tropical rains that had flooded our campsite (i've got no idea how the other 3 slept through it!). When the sun rose we packed up our soggy camp and headed for the nearest cafe so we could fill up on coffee and croissants to cheer everyone up. We were a little bit disappointed with the weather as this was the day that we were going to the most beautiful lake on the island, Lake Mackenzie. Thankfully on our drive across the island towards the lake the clouds parted and about two hours of sunshine gave us an amazing view of the lake and a chance to wash the previous nights rain away!

Unfortunately today marked the end of our trip to to Fraser Island and we headed back to Hervey Bay where we were to catch our 13 hour overnight bus journey to Airlie Beach.


Lots of love from Fraser Island, QLD

Danielle xx

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