Advertisement
Published: September 4th 2006
Team F*#k@rs
B:Stu,Thomas,me,Beverley,Louise,Oonagh
F:Nathan,Jill,Tash,LauraFraser Island
Having being told that it is sunny on Fraser Island 360 days of the year, you might think it was not unreasonable to expect
some sunshine...but no, we must've seen the only 3 days of rain for the whole year... and it rained enough in those 3 days to keep the population from drought for the next 3 years.
And so our group of 10 - myself, Thomas, Louise & Oonagh from Fermanagh, Stu & Jill (soon to be) from Virginia, Nathan, Beverley, Laura and Tash from England - met up at 6.30am for our "briefing" which consisted of a supervised alcochol purchase from the agents convenient bottleshop around the corner and some food shopping, some warnings about dingos and riding the clutch from our 4WD company, and the rest was up to us!
Initially designated "Team B", our word for the trip became "F*ck#rs" thanks to Tash's tourrets' outbursts, and the fact that all other 4WDers on the island really disliked us by the end of the trip, what with our biscuit-nabbing, knife-lifting, loud noises at night, barbequed-bacon breakfasts and generally the fact that we were making more fun out of the driving rain
than anybody else! Rather than energetic walks round the island, we were content to drive everywhere, or just head back to camp early rather than battle the wind and rain.
Day 1 wasn't so bad - there were spatterings of sunshine on the early leg of the drives round Lake Wabby, and spirits were on a high after watching an overexuberant Irish girl try to slide down the sand dunes on a boogie board, but managed to smash her face into the sand on the way down! The first rain shower started at 4pm and didn't stop until we left Fraser 2 days later.
Happily, the food was of haute cuisine standards, with chicken satay and salad the first night, BLT sandwiches for breakfast, spaghetti bolognese for next dinner..and plenty of fruit, toasted marshmallows, TimTams and salsa dips in between. I was never as well fed since arriving in Australia.
Luckily we had booked our Fraser trip with a company with a Base Camp on the island, which meant we had a covered area in the evenings where we could eat, drink and be merry...and with our boxes of Goon and Tash/Laura leading the games, it got
quite vocal into the wee hours of the morning.
With the miserable weather continuing into Day 2, sightseeing wasn't really a priority - although it was fun watching the lunatics diving into the champagne pools with crazy surf crashing into the shore, despite all the signs advising against it. There was an ER moment, when Stu fell on the rocks, and had to have surgery performed on his hand by a swissarmyknife to remove the pieces of oyster shell embedded under the skin.
Relations with Team A - the other set of 11 from the same company who set out with us - were souring by day 2, after an initial thieving of (highly sought after) teabags from our supplies, followed by another klepto-event where all our cutlery was lifted. The UN had to be called in on peace-keeping duties, and I played my part by witholding Team A's spoons, until our knives were returned....
Day 3 and with the rain interrupting Lake MacKenzie's turquouise waters, we head back to Hervey Bay early, happy enough to escape the claustrophobia of the jeep, but all-in-all a fun experience, lucky as we were to have such an easy-going group.
Fraser Cuisine
Chicken satay, rice and salad with balsamic vinegar...yum Crusade Update
00
DAYS
00
HOURS
00
MINS
00
SECS
Until All-Ireland Final
Things are not looking good on the flight-home front, as the thieving highwaymen here in Australia are refusing me passage except for exhorbitant prices.....it looks like I'll be hitching a lift from a camel crossing the desert at the rate things are going!! As for tickets...I'm sure there are some benevolent people out there who can sympathise with me and might care to share their allocation.....all donations gratefully accepted!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.23s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 27; qc: 122; dbt: 0.1318s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Niall
non-member comment
All-Ireland
Ciarrai ABU