Hervey Bay & Fraser Island

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HERVEY BAY & FRAZER ISLAND
We arrive at Hervey Bay Greyhound stop frazzled. The air con was up full blast and when we made a food stop the temperature on the roof read 44 degrees. Hot, hot, hot! We jump in the waiting mini bus for the Palace backpackers, where we will be staying. En route we fill in the check in card and are told the bottle shop run goes at 6pm (we need to go if we want Goon for the Fraser Island trip) and if we want ‘all you can eat pizza’ that night sign up and pay by 6.30pm.

We get put in a top floor 4 bed dorm with a crappy old fan which is luckily at our end (well those are the bunks we chose!). We have a balcony though which is nice. We run off on the bottle run, but really don’t know what to get, so wander around for a bit in a daze. Not allowed glass, cans are heavy, so we settle on two boxes of slightly more expensive Goon, it still has traces of milk and fish eggs, but hopefully no bat fur or dingo sweat! And it does state a grape! Cabernet Sauvignon! Let’s hope it is okay as we have two boxes to get through!

We get back and make a start and it is not too bad! Whilst Charlotte is on the phone to Liam’s Dad trying to sort out the flat and mould situation, which turns out to be more of a heating situation! Liam spots a whole flock (millions upon millions) of Bats swarming across the sky. Very strange! We head down to Pizza at the pool and it is some really nice Domino’s pizza with free soft drinks. After we head back to the room and meet a couple who have just returned from the island. They tell us of some of their stories and are not really fussed about the fan as it was a lot hotter in the tents. All they really wanted to do was have a shower and get the sand off of them.

We cuddled up on the lower bunk as the top one was so high and got a reasonable night’s sleep. We were up early for the briefing, how to be Dingo safe and information on the Island. We were put into groups, Charlotte and Thomas (a German guy that spoke with an American accent) were the only two drivers in our group as the rest were either too young, didn’t want to, weren’t confident enough or Liam (can’t drive) . Thomas sorted out the signing of the forms and became the nominated driver for Hervey Bay, while Charlotte sorted out a shopping list of food of the trip from the suggested menu. Matt (one of the three Liverpudlian’s) collected the cash deposit and provided the credit card for the rest.

We were sorted. We got shown the vehicle and were soon on our way to the camp shed where we got given out tents and camp gear. Liam had a laugh with one of the work guys who had an amazing tattoo around his waist of a gun holster holding to guns and Maori art work. Male bonding! Once loaded we stopped off at Woolworths for food and were ready to go well before the other three vans.

Finally we got underway and jumped on the ferry, marveling at the sea turtle swimming beside it. Forty five minutes later we are touching down at Kingfisher bay. We pile back in the van, lower the tire pressure, fill up with 20 litres of water and are off with Thomas driving us over the bumpiest and sandiest roads we have ever seen. We get stuck for a bit in a traffic jam, can you believe it! One of the little cars cannot get up the hill in the soft sand. It finally gets going and we are on our way.

We go to Lake Wabby and have a sandwich before heading down to the lookout. Lake Wabby is the deepest lake on Fraser Island. Its shore lies at the advancing edge of the Hammerstone sand blow. The lookout gives you a good view of this barrage lake and the sand blow that is engulfing it. Everyone does the 1km walk to the lake, but the last little bit up the dune was a killer. We hung around at the top as the walk down looked like a killer in the sand on the way back! We got treated to a photo shot by a couple of the girls on our tour who were taking pictures of themselves in bikinis on the sand dune. All great fun!

We head back just before everyone else leaves and are soon on our way again. We head out onto the beach and pull up at the Maheno camp site, just before the Maheno wreck. We are a bit later than expected, so Charlotte took control and after finding the site she asked the three boys from Liverpool, Matt, River & Tim to keep an eye out for the other three vans whilst the rest of us split into groups to put up tents and do the cooking for that evening. Liam, Cassie and Charlotte cooked the BBQ, potato and garden salad. Looking through the meat bag, we seemed to be missing the steaks, so we had extra patties that we were going to cook for the next day instead.

We were the first to eat as we were well organized and also two of the four gas cookers did not work. Once we were done we let the other’s use our cooker. But the Dingo’s had smelt the food and were circling. They managed to grab Peter’s buns. We spent the whole night Dingo spotting! Dingo safe my arse, as soon as we saw one we got the cameras out! All four vans got together in a circle after dinner and chilled out. We were sharing a tent with Mark and Sarah. We lay on the sand looking at the stars, which were amazing! It was so clear we even saw galaxies.

In the morning we surveyed the damage and the Dingo’s had had a go at two of the boxes of goon. They had chewed through the cardboard and when we moved one of the boxes it turned out that they had pierced the bag too. We had to be off of the beach by 5am, so a really early start. We were packed up and ready to go by 5.30, not too bad. Charlotte was today’s driver. We headed off over the beach and up towards Indian head. It was not as hard as she thought. It was a bit like driving in snow when we were on the soft sand. But the harder sand was fine, if a little bumpy.

We made good time and were up at Indian head ahead of schedule. We did not see any signs for the ‘Champagne pools’ so carried on via the bypass up the beach. We figured the ‘Champagne pools’ were on the next head so drove up there. The other vans followed and we parked up by that head. One of the boys headed up to scout it out while we had breakfast. Then we all went up the road to a car park! Then down a short boardwalk to the pools. They are so called because as the sea comes in over the rocks, it looks like champagne with all of the bubbles over it.

There were loads of us in the pools which were heavenly cool, so we jumped in too. I was great to wash all of the sunscreen, deet spray and sand off of our skin. And bring our body temperatures down. We soaked for quite a while before we heard the ‘Jellyfish’ call. It was expected as the tide was coming in. We walked up to the top of the rocks and looked down on the beech below, watching a 4 x 4 towing a boat get stuck in the sand and the various passers by trying to help it back up the beach, before it got washed away. They were at it for hours. It tried getting up the road to the car park, but kept getting stuck as there was not enough sand under the rubber matting. Eventually a ranger came along, so we hear and got it up. We also spotted a tiny jellyfish with a bright blue tail going up and down a little inlet in the rocks.

We got to the pools about 8am and were expected to stay until 2.30pm. There was no shade and with jellyfish in the sea, there was not much relief. When we spoke to some of the people from the other trips, they let us know that they were all told that they could not drive past Indian head as the sand was too soft and they would get stuck. Opp’s! They were also allowed to travel at two hours either side of the high tide and we had been told three hours.

The other groups were all leaving at 1pm, so one van decided to go on a bit further to have a look at the other side of the island. The other three vans decided to leave early, two stopping off at Indian head and us continuing on to the Maheno wreck and then whizzing on down for a bit of extra time down in the cool waters of Eli Creek. We headed back to the van a bit early, so we had time for a sandwich, but also because we were a bit hot and wanted to get into some shade. We bumped into Matt on the way back and he had been stung by a blue bottle jelly fish, but did not have a bad reaction, so it stung a bit, but he was okay.

On the walk back we popped to the toilet and saw another boy who had been stung, but was feeling really ill. One of our team brought up one of the vans and was giving him and his team a lift back to their van. He was in a bit of a bad way. When we got back to the van the three boys Matt, River and Tm had rigged up the best shade ever! They had attached a tarpaulin to the van and pegged it into the sand at such an angle as it caught the little breeze there was and it kept it open and cool. We chilled out here before heading out. We made a water stop at ‘Dundubara Resort’, which looked closed, but had water taps.

Charlotte drove us down to the wreck avoiding incoming aircraft as we went. It was very busy with busloads of tourists there, so we stopped and took a few pictures (we would have stopped this morning if we had known it was going to be this busy!). We left the tourists behind and went down to Eli Creek, my god, we were glad we allowed an extra hour down here! We walked up the mouth of the creek and as we were about to enter the main part a local suggested we walk up the board walk at the side and float back down, rather than walking against the flow. We did and Charlotte gratefully floated all the way down. We sat at the bottom in a deep bit in the shade for a while. As Liam had walked down the first time, we put all of our things on the bank and he went up and floated back down too. After a while we went further down and found the others from our group sitting in the sun, dangling legs in the river.

We jumped back in the van again and headed down, as we had loads of rubbish, we made another stop at ‘Happy Valley Resort’, but there was nowhere to dump the garbage. We managed to get ice and snacks at their shop though! As we were heading down to the campsite for tonight we spotted four Palace vans on their 1st day so waved furiously, causing the last one to swerve, Opp’s. We were getting down to our campsite and two of our vans were pulled over. They had found a little camp site, but the pink vans were taking over the big one. We decided to try down at the other site, but en route Charlotte spotted a site big enough for all of us, so camp was made.

Again the same routine, some looking out for the forth van, they had seen the four going back up and started following them, before realizing it was not us! Some doing the tents, Thomas and Sarah offered to take the camps rubbish up to the garbage dump and Charlotte, Liam and Cassie doing the cooking. Tonight it was Spaghetti Bolognaise. Made in one pot! Yum yum! We found what we thought to be an extra bag of mince, was in fact the missing steaks! And although we decided to have them for lunch the next day (we never did!).
Peter’s group did not get any meat for tonight, only pasta and tomato sauce, so we insisted he eat some of ours as we had more than enough. We let one group use our cooker when we had finished, but as we made camp earlier we were done and washed up before sunset, so less Dingo’s. We also gave our leftover pasta away to two of the Irish girls in the other group to help avoid bloodshed! The Israelis forgot to leave some of the pasta out of the bolognaise for them! More goon and star spotting then off to bed exhausted.

A later start today, we just had to be off of the beach by 8am, we made it by 8.30am, not too shabby! One of the other vans did a garbage run this morning as some of them had started cooking chicken drumsticks and sausages, so had to finish off, and then let the cooker cool down.

Bumpy, bumpy roads! Thomas was driving today, probably a bit too fast, so we soon arrived at Lake McKenzie. Lake McKenzie is an inland perched lake with white sandy beaches and sparkling blue waters. It attracts many visitors, self drive groups to busloads of tourists on tours. Parking is limited as we found out, so best to visit before 10.30am or after 2.30pm.

We grabbed our swimmers and walked down a short wooded and shaded walk to the lake. Well what a sight. It makes you want to drop everything and dive in, which is pretty much what we did. We arrived by about 9.30am ish and did not have to leave until 2pm (leaving plenty of time to get to the ferry & allowing for breakdowns!). We spent hours in and out of the lake! Finally by 12noon the last van got here. It turns out after they came back from the garbage run the clutch broke and they could not get it in gear. They flagged someone down to get them to a phone and mechanic. But when they found him he made them wait while he had a coffee. In the mean time the others flagged down a garbage truck who found the problem and fixed it with a cable tie! He even left them a spare incase it did not hold! Of course the mechanic was raging when he got there and found out the work had already been done! The girls tried to charm him, to no avail, grumpy old man!

We got together and jumped into the van, a couple of little delays on the way back, but again with the speeding of Thomas (Charlotte felt sorry for Liam and the others in the back, bouncing around all over the place!) we got back to Kingfisher bay in 45 min’s not the two hours we had allowed. Needless to say everyone jumped out of the van and ran into the air conditioned shop and brought ice lollies, leaving Thomas to pump the tires back up to 40 psi.

We hung around in the shade for an hour, chatting and taking photos before heading back to the ferry, then back to the camp shed. Charlotte and Liam washed up whilst the others unleaded and cleaned the van, then back to the hostel. Thomas took the van back to the camp shed whilst Liam did the bottle run and charlotte booked the all you can eat pizza and checked us in.

Turns out we were sharing a 6 bed dorm with Matt, River and Tim, Thomas and ourselves. The first port of call was the shower as it was empty. Liam was first in as Thomas was dropping off the van and the boys were trying to book bus tickets out of there for the next day. As the internet was down at the hostel they had to go to one up the road. Sarah was using the shower upstairs (Mark and Sarah were in the next room), so Charlotte and Mark waited patiently. Mark was next in, followed by Charlotte, just as Thomas was coming back. We bumped into the boys at pizza, so they were last, but Charlotte was well asleep before they had finished.

On check out we heard the sad news that Patrick had died. We did hear also that his Dad was the one to turn him off, so are glad that he made it over. Our thoughts are with his family.

Up at the crack of dawn and on the first bus out of there, back up to the greyhound stop before getting the Colonial village YHA bus to them. The guy who picked us up was another scourer, but lovely. When we got there he sat us down in the big shady communal area and gave us a cold glass of lemon squash and four slices of an Orange. When we were ready and refreshed we could go over and check in. The manageress Margret came over and let us know who she was and that our room was ready straight away if we wanted to check in early. So we did.

No air con, but a great mosquito net in place of a door, with a breeze and the best fan. Charlotte just laid there for an age enjoying the cool air. Liam was great and did all of the washing. We later decamped to the communal area and enjoyed there BBQ evening meal. Charlotte had Chicken kebabs, whilst Liam enjoyed a Burger along with a plethora of salads and stir fried rice. A couple of beers and we were over for the night. Liam made Charlotte watched Austin Powers - International man of Mystery, but we only made it half way through before falling asleep.

We were up at 6.30 for the free breakfast and Charlotte fully intended to head back to bed. However Liam had other ideas and decided it would be a good idea to get to Woolworths and back before the sun got too hot! We did and yes it was a good idea, but bed was better. Of course we had woken up by then so went for a long lazy swim in the pool before walking down to the marina for lunch.

We found a lovely little café and Charlotte got the most wonderful Quiche and salad, whilst pinching chips off of Liam’s plate of Fish & Chips! We wandered back to the YHA and did some blogging and internet in the shade of the communal area. A little more swimming and dinner of Moroccan style Lamb & Raisin sausages (from Woolworths) and the backpacker’s staple of Noodles. We sat by the pool eating our dinner watching others dig into the BBQ dinner. There were not many new people in that day, so it was quite quiet.

We were up again for the free breakfast, then repacked all of our stuff, checked out and put it in storage. We spent the rest of the day blogging, swimming and getting advice from the front desk on places to go and what to do. We were all too quickly back up at the Greyhound bus stop waiting for the journey north.

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