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Rather eventful trip on the bus to Hervey Island. Just outside of Rainbow Beach, about 2 hours from Hervey Bay someone walking along outside thought it was a good idea to throw an egg at the front of the greyhound bus.
Combined with the fact our driver was a little bit out there anyway, this caused quite a deal of commotion and the bus driver was slightly startled. T be honest, imagine the scene, you are driving a 6 ton bus full to the brim of people when out of nowhere a egg shaped projectile gets hurtled at the front of the bus while you're traveling along at about 60 mph.
Yes, I too, would have checked my pants.
Anyway, to everyone else, it sounded like a balloon popping. Unfortunately, it left a crack across the window on the drivers side and we had to stop in the middle of whop whop (Australian saying there, are you impressed?) and change buses.
We changed buses, however no one really helped change the bags apart from myself and a few Canadians. So hats off to the Canadians, most other people just stood there and assumed their bags where on
it. Well I hope they were haha.
This brings me nicely on to the subject of different nationalities that I have seen while traveling. I have started a tally table of the amount of ech nationality I have come into contact with who are also traveling. Unconventionally I am going to start a number two though.
In second place are the Germans, Australia is swimming with them. Next up are the lovely people from the USA, followed behind by the Canadians. Canadians do seem to be quite a friendly bunch and their humor is pretty random which suits me down to the ground. Next up are the English, all pretty well mannered and all on good form. But at number 1 by a country mile are the Japanese. There are loads of them, and wow, do they like taking a photo or 12.
After an eventful night in the hostel, there were loads of schoolies in the hostel making loads of noise (schoolies are kids who are on holiday from school and probably on the "first away from their parents" holiday so cue tons of noise and lots of terrible music till 2am), we met up with
our guide for the Fraser Island tour and packed our stuff away and after a quick check of the cars we were on our way.
Our 4x4 was filled with 7 people, Caz, Debs, Jacinda from Canada, Inger from Denmark and a lovely couple that I met in New Zealand who just happened to be on the same tour as us - Anna and James.
It was great to meet up with Anna and James again as I had such a laugh with them traveling around New Zealand with them. James and I were in hysterics for most of the trip, it involved the old Walls sausage advert where the dog said Walls in a really deep voice and then said sausages in a really odd mumbled voice - kind of like Scooby Doo. Trust me it was funny, but you probably had to have been there.
Over on Fraser Island the driving was epic. The whole island is one big sand dune so the driving was very bouncy and rough in places. We had a good guide though - Murray - who we thought was the real incarnation of Chuck Norris.
First stop
off on the trip was a huge sand blow which led to Lake Wabby. This was about a 40 minute walk from the beach, through this huge field of sand and then on down to the lake. The freshwater was great to swim in and we stayed there for about an hour or so. It was a pretty hot day so it was great to be on the water.
After the lake we drove along the beach on to our next stop Indian Head, so called as when Captain Cook passed it he noticed Aborigines on the rock watching the ship. At the time all indigenous people were known as Indians so the name came from that. Murray explained to us that Aborignies don't like coming to this place as back in the 1830s there was an Aboriginal massacre here, where some were rounded up by another Abrpginial tribe at the request of the governor at the time and they were told to walk off the cliff edge or face being shot. Pretty hectic.
As we were walking back through the trees on the cliff, I felt very uneasy, it was a very strange feeling.
Back
at camp we started to cook our BBQ which comprised of some steaks, sausages, and some potatoes along with some salad. It ws a nice feeling all eating together. We then got pretty drunk while playing the infamous drinking game Ring of Fire - a standard practice over here, I think I have played it about 10 times so far.
Afterwards we sat round the camp fire having a laugh and at about 11pm we headed down to the beach to watch the moon rise which was pretty spectacular.
The next morning, after a very handy berroca, we were on the road/sand at about 8.30am. First stop was a tea tree lake called Lake Allom where you could see tortises in the water along with fish that nibbled the dead skin off your feet. Quite a pleasant experience, they loved my feet 😉
After that we headed to the Champagne Pools. These are two pools right by the sea and are separated from the sea by some rock. The waves then break over the top of the rocks and fill the pools. You can't swim in the sea round here as the current and rips are far
too strong. So this is the closest you can get to swimming in the sea.
The following day, our last day on Fraser, we visited Ei Creek, a freshwater stream that flows into the sea. This was pretty cold but good to get your feet wet. Murray had told us we should be able to see some eels, but no go, I didn't see any.
The final leg of or Fraser trip was over to see Lake Mackenzie. This place was amazing. The water was so perfectly clear and it was lovely to swim in. We got a big game of frisbee going and after that I was pretty knackered. Back to the car and after some lunch we bumped int one of the resident monitor lizards in the car park. Murray told us that if they are startled they will run up the nearest tree they can find and if you are standing near the lizard and standing still the lizard won't know that you are a tree and will run up you ! So the moral of that story is if they are startled and run towards you run away as fast as you can
!
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