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On Friday, after another early start, we got into our groups and picked up our new wheels from the garage. Our ride, a toyota truck which had been used down the mines, we were told was "about 4 years old" despite it having 160k on the clock and being a really faded cream colour. Our group of eleven filled it right up, two of them had been on my boat in the Whitsundays and the rest were a mix of english, irish, dutch, german and brazilian. We designated the dutch guy, Michael, as our driver for the trip as he'd been driving a 4x4 around most of his time in Australia, though we weren't so sure it was a good choice when he nearly rolled it at the first roundabout on the way to the ferry!
The crossing took about half an hour and after that we were let loose on Fraser, the biggest sand island in the world. First off we took a long walk through the forest to one of the freshwater lakes on the island. The rest of the afternoon we spent making our way towards the beach on the east coast where we were setting
up camp. We couldn't find the spot we were supposed to camp at so we just pulled in behind the dunes on the beach and set up camp. A couple of us drove down to a shop we'd spotted to get a football and some cards to have stuff to do that night, the whole time our sociable dutch driver would stop and talk to pretty much anyone we passed. On the way and on the way back he stopped to speak to an American woman on the beach. As he was talking a dingo came out of the grass and picked up one of the woman's shoes. The dutch guy shouted "hey, dat dingo's got your shoe!" and drove after it beeping the horn, and though it had looked like it was going to drop it, this just scared it off! That night it turned out we had picked the best spot to camp, after a drinking game (in which I was targeted pretty badly) we discovered a party just metres from our tents! It had a tarpaulin dancefloor and everything and the music had attracted loads of people from other tents.
After a suprisingly good nights sleep
(possibly goon-aided) we set off for the Maheno shipwreck, an old ship that was washed ashore by a cyclone in 1935. This was at about 9 in the morning, but already a few of the boys had already cracked on with the Tooheys! Next up was Eli Creek, a shallow stream that runs down to the beach, you can just lie down in the water and float back to the beach. Further up the coast we stopped at Indian Head, after a short climb up to the cliffs you get an amazing view of the island. We also did a massive walk to the Campagne Pools, which are just big rockpools that the waves crash over the rocks into. Didn't really seem worth the walk but at least we knew we hadn't missed out on anything. Had a relatively quiet one that night, though by the morning a mean storm was a-brewin, and I had to go out of my tent at about 4 in the morning in the rain to secure all the bits that had come loose!
We made our way back down the beach through the heavy rain in the morning. Our final stop was Lake
Mckenzie, which is supposed to be one of the best bits of the island that everyone bangs on about. Unfortunately it wasn't that pituresque when we got there as the rain was still coming down hard, but we went in for a swim anyway and found that it was warmer in the water than out! We got the ferry back to the garage to find out that somewhere along the line we'd put a hole in the exhaust, but we were relieved to find that it was covered by the insurance we'd paid for at the start.
That ended what has been one of my favourite bits of Australia so far. All the people in the group were great and all got on well, when we weren't looking at the sights we were being entertained by the drunkards in the back (mainly doing borat impressions). Back at the hostel a few of us went out and ate far too much at mcdonalds.
I'd seen all I wanted of Hervey Bay so decided to shoot off to Noosa the next morning. The 5am start was a bit painful, so when I got to Noosa I spent the rest of
Beach Party!
I'm in there somewhere, first person to spot me wins a boomerang! the day on the beach. Yesterday I caught another bus down to Surfer's Paradise which has been really cool so far. The hostel room is like a mini apartment and there seems to be a lot of organised stuff going on which is always good. Keep spotting people from further up the coast, I've seen the spanish guy from the whitsundays in every place I've been since and as I was walking into this internet cafe, I heard a knocking and turned around to see a roomy from Airlie Beach waving at me from on board a greyhound bus! Probably going to stay here for another day or two then next stop, Byron Bay!
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