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Published: August 6th 2008
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Arrived into Hervey Bay ready for my Fraser Island trip. I met my group who I would be spending the next three days with in the bar. We were given a briefing on what to do if we came across the wild dingos (which was apparently just stand there) and how we operate the four wheeled drives.
We then had to get up at 6.00 in the morning to pack up the truck, which took a lot of patience and many coffees. We finally set off with a map, tents, torch and cool box of meat and wine set to catch the ferry across to Fraser Island. The ferry only took about an hour and then we seemed to be transported into a whole new environment. By magic our phone reception died and the roads became off road dirt tracks and the nearest highway was the beach. They also warned us to be careful driving on the beach...you either had to watch out for getting stuck in the sand, getting washed out into sea (with the tiger sharks) or a plane might be landing there as well, so make sure you look up!
The first day we headed straight
for Lake McKenzie. The road was ridiculously bumpy with 7 of us in the back on benches facing each other, being thrown around the vehicle. I was sat in the “seat of death” which was below the roof where all our equipment was being held by a net. Luckily, only sleeping bags fell down.
Lake McKenzie is instantly appealing with white sand, and lovely blue water. There were hardly any people there as well which was a bonus. We had lunch on the sands, went in the water and played ultimate Frisbee. We then moved on to Indian Head which is a lookout point at the top of a steep hill where you can often see the tiger sharks in the water…except that we didn’t see a thing. I did however go into the sea later in the day to wash the dishes and the fact that tiger sharks were in there, never crossed my mind once…honest!
Camping was particularly hairy, as the night quickly closed in and got very dark very quick. After managing to get the tents up and think about BBQ, you seem to forget that you need to go to the toilet, which also
meant facing the dingoes. The girls went in packs with one holding the torch, the other being the lookout whilst the other two went to the loo. We saw spiders everywhere and managed to freak ourselves out by thinking we could hear dingoes approaching with every step. The boys didn’t help by trying to sneak up on us and leap out of tents.
The next morning we saw the sun rising (no through choice but because we needed to get on the beach highway before the tide came in). Eventually we packed up and got onto the beach highway. The driving was incredibly bumpy, with and somehow we kept merging towards the sea (nothing to do with my driving!!). Unharmed, we spent the day going from lake to lake, beach to beach. I took the car again to the off-road lakes and then dark came again. We pitched up our tents on the beach, got some steaks out the esky, drank some beers and then along came the dingo!! Surprisingly it wasn’t very scary. Hard to take it very seriously when it just looks like a dog. Some of the girls were spooked and went straight into their tents
for the night, whilst a few of us stayed up and watched the shooting stars. Another group of people from the next camp gave us a 30 second warning everytime a dingo was coming our way which was surreal but very funny.
It was an extremely windy night but no howling kept me awake. Unfortunately for the boys, their tent blew away a few times in the night. Funny that, as I actually helped put that one up…not that I mentioned that.
After a safe night with no dingoes licking my face, all that was left was to go visit lake Wabby. The lake was beautiful with green waters with turtles and sand dunes. All you could see was desert. A lot of sunbathing and swimming later and it was time to get the ferry back to the main land and then an overnight coach to Airlie Beach for my sailing trip.
A great 3 days….
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