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Published: August 8th 2007
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We arrived in Hervey Bay at 4pm on Wednesday 6 June and checked into Kookaburra's Backpackers. It was still raining heavily so we just hung around the hostel and watched Traffic in the TV room that evening. We sat outside the front of the hostel with two Irish girls who worked there and had a couple of drinks before going to bed. We woke up on Thursday to the sound of rain so we spent some time on the internet before going to see Shrek 3 in the afternoon. At 6pm, we had a one hour briefing on our trip to Fraser Island and were put into our group of 10 people. Once again, due to the rain, we had dinner at the hostel and then we just sat outside (undercover) chatting until bedtime. On Friday, we woke at 6.30am to the first sunny day in over a week. The three groups of 10 people went to pick up their 4x4s, camping equipment and supplies for our 3 day trip to Fraser Island. Our group consisted of two 20 year old German guys and a group of six 18 year old English guys who were travelling together. This meant that only
Ian and I would be able to drive the 4x4. Once we were fully loaded, we drove to the barge ferry and took the 40 minute crossing to Fraser Island. Following our itinerary, we drove to Central Station and then walked to Lake Basin. It was a lot of fun driving the 4x4 on the bumpy dirt roads and we were glad we didn't have to sit in the back on the benches as you get thrown about so much. We sat at Lake Basin for 30 minutes before walking across vast sand dunes back to the 4x4. After driving through the tiny resort of Eurong, we drove on to the beach and found a spot to have our lunch. We then walked to Lake Wabby where some people went for a dip and others just lay in the sun and enjoyed the setting. At 5pm, we drove to our camping spot on the beach and set up our tents before cooking our dinner. Unfortunately a dingo stole half of our roast beef but we still enjoyed our packet mash potato, mixed vegetables and remainder of roast beef. By 6pm, it was already very cold so we wrapped up in
clothing and started drinking. We sat around in a circle playing drinking games such as Fuzzy Duck for a couple of hours. Then I went to sit on the beach to stare at the stars and I was gone for so long that people from another group were out looking for me. This resulted in our group joining the other group for the evening and we were drinking and singing songs until after midnight. A highlight of the night was seeing the moon rise over the horizon. The half crescent moon was orange and it was so big that it looked like a large boat at sea resting on the water. I sat on the beach until 2am watching the moon rise and admiring all of the stars. On Saturday morning, we had sausage and egg for breakfast and then packed up camp and set off up the beach. We passed the Pinnacles before reaching a shipwreck that has been there since 1935. Continuing up the beach, we eventually reached Indian Point where we walked up to the lookout point. From here, we saw school's of dolphins swimming around the bay and also a few large stingrays. In the distance,
we saw a number of whales on their migration journey up the east coast. We then drove to the other side of Indian Point and parked on the beach to have our lunch. After successfully keeping the dingoes away, we took a 30 minute stroll up the beach to Champagne Pools. We stood on the rocks as the waves crashed in and filled the pools with water and sea life. After walking back to the Land Rover, we drove back down the beach for half an hour to our new campsite for the night. Spaghetti Bolognese was on the menu for dinner followed by custard and peaches. The drinks then come out but everyone was in a chilled out mood so we decided to start a campfire as it was absolutely freezing. Before long, everyone had warmed up and it was very cosy with our 4 tents forming a tight circle and 10 of us sitting in the middle. We sat around sharing stories but by 10pm, people started to go to sleep. The four of us who stayed awake until midnight were rewarded with seeing a few shooting stars. At 7am on Sunday morning, we were all woken up
by a ranger shouting and banging on our tents. When we eventually came out of the tents, he issued us with a $375 fine for having a campfire and said we were lucky it wasn't double for leaving our site in a mess overnight. On the plus side, we were all up early so we packed up camp and drove around for a bit before going to Lake Mackenzie. It was another gorgeous sunny day and we lay on the sand by the huge, crystal clear water lake for a couple of hours. We then returned to the 4x4 and made our hot dogs for lunch before driving to the barge ferry. When we returned our 4x4 to the garage for inspection, we were really concerned as we had hit some severe sudden drops in the sand while travelling at speed along the beach. Fortunately they said the only thing wrong was that the brakes didn't work but we knew that from the start. Once all the equipment had been checked off and all our cutlery was washed up, we went back to Kookaburra's Backpackers at 5.30pm. It was nice having our first wash in 3 days and we were
ready to go out for the night. We drunk a couple of cans of beer while walking down the Esplanade and then went for dinner at a nice restaurant. A further walk took us to Houlihan's where we stayed for an hour before going to the bar at Beaches hostel. It was fairly quiet there so after a while we went to a club called Morroco's but it was just as quiet. We took a taxi back to the hostel and sat outside drinking until 4am. I eventually got to sleep at 6am after being awake for 23 hours. On Monday, we were awake at 11.30am and were sitting on the beach by midday. After taking a long walk up and down the beach, we returned to the hostel at 3pm. We spent a couple of hours doing our laundry before sitting on the internet for an hour. In the evening, we walked to Houlihan's for dinner and then returned to the hostel by 9.30pm. We then sat in the TV room and watched Goonies before going to bed at midnight. We woke at 6am on Tuesday to catch our 7am bus to Kroombit cattle station.
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