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Published: January 28th 2007
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The night before we left Airlie Beach it absolutely chundered it down, as you can imagine we didn’t get much sleep with the rain bouncing off our van. The rain went on all night causing our van roof to leak. We had to use tea towels to soak up the rain coming in through the side window. It was slightly annoying that we didn’t get much sleep as we had a really long drive the next day. We set off from Airlie Beach at around 8.45am and headed back onto the A1, the Bruce Highway. We stopped twice for toilet breaks and for food but we were almost driving for a solid 11 hours and covered between 800-900 kilometres. The drive went relatively quick with no problems along the way. We arrived in Hervey Bay just before dark, found ourselves a campsite on the Esplanade. Unfortunately the office shuts at 6pm so we just pulled up and figured we could pay them in the morning. The only problem was we had no keys to use the toilets so had to find a spot behind the van and hope nobody saw us. Kerry whilst having one of her midnight pees found that
she had a spectator in the shape of a possum sitting in the tree. It almost scared the shit out of her - thank god it didn’t. We had a good nights sleep and woke about 7.30am with the birds chirping away. Hervey Bay almost seems like a mini version of Skeggy. It does not appear to have moved on since the 70’s but it has a nice laid back feel to it. We stepped out of our van that morning literally straight on to the beach. The beach here was nice, no white sand, slightly brown even, but the sea was lovely and refreshing. We spent most of the day chilling out and decided to book ourselves on another trip for the following day to Fraser Island. A couple of friends had recommended it and cheapest way to do it was with a tour as you needed a 4 x 4 to access the island and also to obtain a permit. Later that afternoon we went back to our van to start tea when this chap came over to us with a deck chair, a cup of rum, a packet of tobacco, a hand made spear and a boomerang
which was 160 years old. The history/science/herpatology lesson began. He introduced himself as Gary. We had seem him around the park a couple of times carrying out odd jobs so we knew he was staff and not just some crazy geezer, although we could now beg to disagree. Lets just say that he came over to us at about 3.30pm and did not leave until way past 11pm that night - and we had a trip the next day. We were told lots and lots and lots of really interesting facts about all things Australian. Especially about snakes, reptiles and spiders! He was what you might say a bit of an old Croc Dundee but with a lot more hair and a lot more years. We joined in with the conversations and the drinking, by the end of it he had gone through a bottle and half of Bunderberg Rum and we had polished off 4 litres of white wine. Stu had the lions share and had already downed a couple of XXXX Gold stubbies too. Kerry was a little wiser than Stu to stop drinking as she knew we would both feel rank tomorrow for our trip. She instead
made her excuses and had a cheese fest in the van and left them too it.
Needless to say we woke at about 6am, Stu didn’t feel too great. We caught a shuttle bus to the ferry crossing and Riverheads which took us to Fraser Island - the world’s largest sand island. We went straight from the ferry to our awaiting transport - a massive 4 x 4 coach. Apparently we were in the middle of the biggest drought in Australian history so the sand tracks were particularly bad, really soft and really bumpy. We got off to a fairly odd start when our driver tried to adjust his pneumatic seat but the knob came off in his hand and compressed air started to escape from the hole left by the knob (he had to drive for the first 40 minutes with his thumb over the hole so his commentary could be heard). He then couldn’t find the button to close the automatic slide door. Could you tell it was his first day on the job?! We finally set off down our first track OH MY GOD HOW BUMPY! No wonder we had to wear seat belts! We would
have certainly been thrown around the cabin and mashed up if we were not wearing any. We were told about how Fraser Island was created from sand being dragged down the Eastern coast via strong currents finally coming to rest against three large rocky outcrops eventually growing sooo big that it could sustain life thanks to its pure fresh water table below it. This was formed after all the different ice ages made the seas fall and rise helping the island develop (firstly as part of the mainland) its own varied ecology mainly trees.
Our first stop was Lake McKenzie - a fantastically beautiful fresh water lake with pure white silica beaches and crystal clear waters. Apparently the water here had a PH of 5.0, almost the same as our skin so it felt really really soft when we swam in it - so so refreshing. Oh - the bad luck hadn’t deserted our driver either as he smacked into a tree when reversing from the parking area - DOH! We spent around 45 minutes at the lake catching a few rays and cooling off in the cool waters. We then went for a little drive then got off
for a walk through the rainforest section at Central Station, a former rail terminal for the old foresting business which has long since been demolished. All the island is now a World Heritage site and a National Park so it is now looked after by the Forestry Commission. We went off down our track again, all these tracks are easily 3 - 4 ft of deep soft sand edged by huge trees and forests. The tracks are barely wide enough for these huge buses to fit through. We then went to one of the islands two resorts, Eurong Beach for lunch. After this we jumped back on the Thunder Bus and joined the strangest national highway we have ever seen - a flippin beach called 75 mile beach to be exact. There we were hurtling up the beach with the South Pacific roaring in to our right hand side, we also had to share this stretch of land with all sorts of 4x4’s and even airplanes. After 15-20 minutes we reached our first stop of the afternoon called the Pinnacles which were rock faces with different coloured sand sections in them. Next up was the wreck of the early 1900’s
cruise ship called the Maheno that ran aground in the 1930’s whilst being towed to Japan - OOPS! Our final stop of the day was at the refreshing Eli Creek - a fresh water creek that had a knee high channel through the sand but this place was really busy so we just had a paddle and chilled out again. Another 45 minutes later and we were back on board the ferry. A further 40 minutes and we were back at the mainland. We arrived back at our caravan site at tea time ready to just chill out and get an earlyish night - that was until our little friend Gary turned up again with his deck chair and his rum in tow. We knew we couldn’t face another night of serious drinking so we made out that we were off out for a meal. We felt a bit rotten about it but we just needed a bit of our own space - not that we haven’t had enough of it mind! We were glad we went out as we found a really cool Japanese style restaurant that played some grimy beats, Kerry was in her element. When we got
back later that evening we sneaked in and grabbed quick showers and jumped into bed. We both slept soundly and woke with the birds, had some brekkie and left a note to say goodbye to Gary and headed off to our next stop - NOOSA!
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