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Published: August 26th 2011
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We've been journeying slowly south over the last few days from the craziness of the Karnak playhouse to Yandina only about 200km north of the New South Wales border.
Initially we travelled with Ania a friend of ours we met at Karnak an who left at the same time.
Our first stop was at Magnetic island where we had a nice day wandering from one secret and secluded bay to the next. When we got back we stayed at Ania's parent's freind's friend's house (otherwise known as Liz and Wayne). The cooked some excellent bbq food for us and plied us with wine and whisky and picked a loofa off a bush for me (that's right a normal bath loofa, which was full of seeds and looked like an over-ripe banana in it's case). Feeling a smidge worse for wear we headed south to the (in)famous Whitsunday islands.
For those of you who don't know, the Whitsundays are a patchwork of tropical islands off the great barrier reef. One normally sees them by paying a fortune to either go on a boozy overnight cruise around the islands, or pays even more to stay on a resort on an island.
We choose
to get a lift with a prawn-fisherman called called Barry who took us to a quiet beach where we camped for two nights. Unsuprisingly, it was bloody lovely. We spend our time walking around the island to it's various lookouts, snorkelling in the reef just off-shore or sunbathing.
We'd arranged to be at our next wwoof on the 25th so spent the next week or so meandering south, stopping off at the many national parks and pretty coastal towns on the way. We were lucky enough to meet an Australian couple, Sal and Tim who were heading slowly heading north, stopping off anywhere interesting with an eye to moving there. They gave us some great advise about where to go and inspired us to do the same thing when we return to the UK.
Next up was a trip to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world covered in lakes, rainforest and eucalypt forest. The island is a national park with a huge selection of tours to visit it. We decided that we didn't want to take a tour, partly because its a lot of money for just one day and partly because we don't feel like you
get to really interact with places on short tours.
Instead Chris had read that you can walk around the island, I was a little nervous about this idea because there is no tarmac on the island, walking on sand is hard work and we would have to carry all of our food and camping equipment. However, you don't know until you've tried so we went for it. We set off early and were on the island by 9.00. The first day went pretty well, it was warm but not too hot, the sand was compacted in a lot of places so not too hard to walk on and we arrived at our campsite by 12.00. The second day was very windy with occasional showers, but we set off to some of the lakes anyway. The lakes were interesting but we arrived at the same time as a shower of rain, there was no where to shelter and we started to wonder what on earth we would do with our time. The rest of the afternoon was very wet and we started to worry about our $20 tent and began to wonder if the night would be spent inside the roofed
dingo proof food boxes. In the end Chris' inspired propping of the outer layer with sticks kept us dry. The night was very wet and we were woken repeatedly by a possum (possibly a rat but a possum is more interesting) chewing through the ground sheet of our tent trying to get our food.
The next morning brought no relief in the weather but we packed up our tent anyway to head for our next planned camping site at Lake Mackenzie with an idea of trying to hitch from there to the ferry. The 6km walk to the the lake was beautiful despite and possibly because of the weather, the forest was misty and very prehistoric. We arrived at Lake Mackenzie before 10am and found very few cars there, so headed straight onwards towards the ferry. The next 2km were more like an obstacle course with trees regularly fallen across the path to be climbed under, over or around with our huge backpacks on. We then joined the road which was more direct and had the possibility of hitches. My first attempt at hitching failed in a way I never expected, a car passed as we were sat checking the
map and I stuck out my thumb, the car was full of guys from our campsite who just thought we were saying hi, waved and carried on. Another 2or3 km my second attempt was more successful and we got a lift all the way to the ferry and even had time for cups of tea and a hot shower.
After my uncertainty about the walking I'm glad to say even with the terrible weather, we made the right choice. We definitely got more of a feel for the island than we would have on a tour, saw it in a quiet and peaceful way and saw a dingo close up. It would have been nice to see it in the sun but as a guy we met in India said 'you go when you can' and you just have to deal with the weather.
We headed straight out to Tin Can Bay in the evening and ate fish and chips in our car with the wind and rain lashing around. Leaving the island early was the most sensible decision we've made in ages.
The reason for the visit to Tin Can Bay was in the hopes of seeing bay dolphins close up. A shop in the marina feeds them a bit in mornings but after waiting 2 hours we gave up. Unfortunately, rain cramps our style a bit, everything we do is outside so we didn't see much in Tin can bay or Rainbow beach and headed down to Noosa early. We spent a lovely couple of days in Noosa a little tourist town with a national park practically in town, with better weather but still some drizzle. We got our first (and hopefully last) warning for sleeping somewhere overnight somewhere we shouldn't then headed up to our next wwoof.
We are currently staying with a family of 5 who are building their own house inland from Noosa at a community surrounded by national park. More on that next time...
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