Sand, dingoes and undercooked pasta on Fraser Island

Fraser Island is one of the destinations that all backpackers doing the eastcoast do. Its something about a combination of a large section of the Lonely Planet guide book being devoted to it, relentless advetising all the way up the coast and the fact that it is a pretty amazing place. It's the largest sand island in the world, measuring some 70km long or something and being totally sand apart from a couple of rocky outcrops to the north.

Because of the sandy nature of the island, the only way to get around is in great big 4x4s!! And because the vast majority of the island is national park, the only way to see properly is to camp! The two together spell ADVENTURE.

I arrived at the departure town, Hervey Bay, mid afternoon after an unsatisfyingly long Greyhound trip about an hour long from Rainbow, I arrived at the transport terminal. I immediately knew this town wouldn't be the nicest place be in - for a town of only 30,000 people, the shopping area was massive, spelling out: 'big ol' tourist area' in 12ft neon letters. from my experience, places like this often have no regard for the backpacker or their experience, but more for the amount of credit our cards have on them. Hervey was only a leaping point for Fraser, so I wasn't really bothered.

Being gentlemen and our hostel not having a big enough bus, we waited 30 minutes for the courtesy bus to drop the ladies from the greyhound off first. While waiting, I started to talk to 2 guys, Kilian (aka Kal) and Brad, a German and a Canadian, who ended up being in the 4x4 I was assigned to! 2 in a 100 chance, eh! Kal and I also ended up being at the same places further up the coast, another example of the backpacker community on the east coast being relatively small.

Arriving at Koalas, which is a large hostel/tours company, we were told of the amazing BBQ that was available. All you can eat for $8! I was there. First, though, we were briefed on what would happen, and bundled into our groups of 11 that would fit into one 4x4 like some brilliant Ikea furniture. They all seemed like nice people.

BBQ engaged and a few sausages nicked for lunch the following day, we started getting to know each other over some jugs of cocktails.

6am! Up before the sun had a chance, nailed down some brekkie and started loading up the van. After a barely comprehendible route briefing from 'Koru', a broad Mauri (?), and being told that "all beans must be given to me.... Ah HAHAH A! Only yankin' yas! Nah, I love me beans!" *Polite laughter...*

Finally on the road, we drove the 10km to the ferry, looking forward to 3 days of being in the middle of nowhere!

Fast forward 1/2 hour and we were bouncing along haphazardly along some of Fraser Island's numerous sand tracks, featuring big ruts, roots, a few dingoes and massive slopes. Sitting in the back, this was something quite scary. Not being in control of a vehicle that has your life at stake is an interesting experience to say the least. To make it even worse - the back left seat had no seatbelt (pfff.... safety), so everytime we hit a big rut or bumped over a root, that person was garunteed some airtime off of their seat. Brad and myself ended up making use of this, aiming to get an 'Air Hi-5' at somepoint, though I don't think this ever really worked out due to the suprising nature of the bumps.

For the first leg of the journey, the people in the back were in a constant state of fear for the cutlery that was jangling around in the storage overhead. Over a few particularly vicious bumps, a few knives decided to find a way out of the box, narrowly missing their masters on the way to the truck's floor. Being held back by a few bungee cords, the whole storage compartment also took a liking to bulging out like a fat person's fatty belly after every jerk. The look on the faces of those at the back was pure magic, though we secured a sleeping bag infront of the store to keep it in place a little bit more after a stop.

The first sight of the day was the magical lake McKenzie. Think of tropical beach paradise. What do you see? It was probably a carbon copy of McKenzie, though there weren't the palms. The water was the bluest water I've ever seen. It was like some one had seen the colour of a swimming pool and copied it but given it a beautiful darkening fade as the lake reached depth. The sand complimented this - it was possibly the whitest sand I had seen to that date (only to be later superceded by Whitehaven Beach on the Whitsunday Islands). Last amazing thing: The water was water table water - so you could drink it! Getting out of the 'piss zone' to ensure purity, I gobbled up a mouthful, being a bit weirded out that it didn't make me gag like sea water does.

Craig, a semi cockney guy, and I tried swimming as far down as we could - the water was so clear, but the bottom was invisibly far away over a sand shelf. Diving down and swimming for a while, I pushed off the bottom, having not seen anything apart from sand and water and a deep deep blue. It was a wierd sensation, not making the top from just a push off the bottom! I had to swim upwards for a couple of seconds, having lost momentum. We learned that lake McKenzie is really deep. We celebrated by opening the first beer of the day.

After the awesomeness of Lake McKenzie, our hopes were raised considerably - was this sand island all so incredible? Visiting Lake Birrabeen, apparently: no. It was so deserted, and the brown-stained water over the lowering light was quite a sight, but it wasn't a snip!

We went on to try and find our camp site, but didn't want to stay at the place we were recommended, because of the sign that said "Silence after 9pm". So in the dark, we tried to find somewhere on the beach. The beach was a great big highway, except there were mounds every now and then, no road markings and the constant threat of the sea (and us loosing the bond if they find salt water on the engine...). After debating where the hell we should go, we found a place just behind the foredunes. By now it was pitch black, witout the usual ambient light from cities or other traffic, so it was interesting navigating our way there. We were already about 2 hours after the last time we should have been on the beach - the surf was chasing the three 4x4s which had began to que up to get to this sacred camp site. Paranoid about the damage of salt water, it became a mad dash inbetween wave breaks to burn it up the dune. Every van must have done it about 4/5 times unsuccessfully due to the soft, uncompacted sand being very unforgiving to our purpose. Even with people pushing, it was hard. Someone mentioned the fact that these 2 tonne vehicles could easily roll back onto its helpers, which was confidence instilling.

(Its taking me ages to write all this, so I'm gonna do stuff in note form, and save time/$$$! Might write in full later...)

Camped in little place over dune like a mini festival!
Steak, bread, cheese and beer dinner
New drinking games
Moon bright as sun, when clouds disappeared.
Craig going to sleep like a buddah infront of fire.
Started to rain.
Woke up with wet feet, and all clothes wet, nice.
Lots of nasty drizzle for following day - difficult to dry stuff.

Driving on the beach highway @ 80kmph.
Dodging an airplane which had just landed.
Drove into 'civilisation' called Eurong and bought real food and a cuppa
More drizzle
Drove to the wreck of the Maheno, a big ship that got washed up ages ago, cool and rusted
Drive to Indian Head - one of the 2 rocky parts of fraser.
Passed a fishing competition with about 50 4x4s - sort of ruined the 'wilderness' and away from help idea of Fraser
Difficult for van to get up, so we walked.
As soon as we got to the top of indian head, it started chucking it. Awesome views before and a sheer drop 200ft down.
Took a piss on Indian Head, ha ha

Waiting for rain to stop. Walked other side of the Head to Champagne pools
Called so because the surf flows over the rocks into some pools and looks like, er, Champagne.
Too cold for me to swim + I had no other dry stuff due to rain.
Clams/Muscles on all over rocks that spat out water 10cm high

Drive to another campsite on the beach
Pasta time! Impossible to boil water for 11 people on a gas ring = mushy mushy pasta that was cold.
Family guy on iPod in a tent

Drove to Lake Wabbi and got lost on way there.
Big puddle that Kal accelerated into - bug rut at bottom that could be seen! I get launched off seat (in the seat without seatbelt) and land hard, jarring my back - hurt like hell. had pain running for a week after, though pain subsided initially!
Plus the 4x4 had poor door seals, so muddy water splashed in the back and got me soaked.
Wabbi: green lake being encroached on by a big sand dune.
Set to disappear in 5 years!
big catfish in green water, birds of prey above
Running into waters down steep dune then rolly pollies!

Drive back to ferryport.
1.5hrs early :-/ missed out on a couple of places
Back on land - had to clean everything! As if it was ours and they were doing us a favour hiring it to us. Cups missing - paid $6 PER CUP!! As if.

Night at koalas - put in a mini apartment with rest of team, good idea.
Go out for a meal. Cheap irish restruant's kitchen shut. Go to italian. Had a small lasagne.
Trouble! Slow, stuttered service - Thea's pasta came with meat, very late. Manager said it was mushroom and she was lying! Service not good - manager blames us for coming in! Blah blah arguments, some people not being happy and not paying (I did, in full...), manager saying in the end- "Oh, F- you, then!" grabbing the cash we put down and storming off.
Downer on night! Couple of horse races in hostel then bed.

Chilling on Hervey Bay beach nxt day before greyhound to 1770! Beach very average but sheltered - odd not having big waves!

I can see a Rainbow (Beach)

I had a few days before my prebooked Fraser Island adventure, so Ollie and myself boarded the ever faithfull Greyhound to Rainbow Beach, a veeery small town to the south of Fraser. Attracted by it's 'colourful' name, we rocked up at Pippies Beach House, a hostel which wasn't actually on the beach. It had a pool though.

What a nice little place! We were checked into room 3 - the Princess Room, which was decorated in a lovely pastel pink and lots of fairy/princess stickers! "How delightful", I exclaimed. However beautiful the room was, we only had one night at Rainbow, so we got exploring.

After a beast-wich for lunch (seafood for me), we set off to the namesake beach. It wasn't really the best beach ever, with a large pool of brown looking water behind the foredune, which halved the useable area. There were also 4x4s booming up and down the beach to get to a prime fishing spot at the head land 3km away, so we could never relax when walking on the beach for fear of the Chelsea Tractor's roo bars picking us up.

After a time of walking, we got to a large sand dune on top of a 10ft cliff. I'd read a little bit about a place called the Carlos Sandblow, and thought it was this. It was big, at about 50m high, but nothing amazing. Never the less, we took a nearby exit point to try and get to the top and run down, as boys should do. 30mins later, we thought we might not quite be on the trail for it, but we persisted. Coming across a sign for the Sandblow, the first dune was obviously not what we were looking for. another 1km through national park territory and past a funky looking 3 wheeled motorbike/skidoo thing, we came across the most amazing sight I'd seen probably all trip.

What faced us was about 500m of sand from where the trees ended and others started on the other side. This sand stretched from the right of this mountain to the cliffs by the beach on the left, though we couldn't see the beach. It looked like a small mountain had just been scooped out and uncovered some sand. It was the biggest expanse of sand I'd ever seen, all of it smoothed out into a Pringle shape.

Going to the left towards the sea, we discovered the reason for the local name of Rainbow - kicking the sand, a layer of chalk dust was uncovered. The cliffs below were distinctly banded in 3/4 different colours, cool, but no Hunstanton beach! Back to the Sandblow, we found some prime dune jumping sites, having expended our own weight in water climbing up the sand dune. A few sweeeet airs later and sand in the eyes, we went to the far right side of the dune, where the Sandblow was swallowing up vegetation at a rate of 3m+ a year. It was so silent, so we basked in the sun and windfree area for a goooood 30mins, probably thinking about what was for dinner later.

Walking back, we met a load of people who were going to the Sandblow for the sunset and the full moon. It would have been very cold, though, so we declined in out shorts and teeshirts.

That night we watched Transformers, which is still a brilliant film and met some people from our set of rooms.

The next morning, I did my thing (walking/exploring til I can't be bothered anymore) and saw the rainbow cliffs from the beach while Ollie sunbathed. Pretty uneventful apart from climbing a sand pile at the base of the cliffs and getting scared that I'd unstabilise them and find a big piece of sandstone bearing down on me. And I rediscovered Pink Floyds brilliance.

For only a short visit, Rainbow beach was a blast; a little nugget of enjoyment that not many other people visited, which is always a good thing when swapping travelling stories with people who've been doing EXACTLY the same thing as you.

"To Hervey Bay and Fraser Island, Oliver!" I exclaimed.

Noosa on the Sunshine coast

Getting into Noosa on ye olde Greyhound (all of which have a number plate which says 'XXX DOG'!), Basil, Eric, Ollie and I made ourselves at home. Ollie and I got a nice 4 share dorm, which is always good.

Attending a meet and greet sort of affair, I started talking to a late-middle aged Texan guy who became some one to avoid over the proceeding days. I can't remember his name, it may have been Ted, it's almost irrelevant, but he turned out to be running away from the US because they were trying to draft him and his 'superior jet engine engineering skills'. Unfortunately he was the sort of guy who would keep talking, however many times you drop hints to end the conversation. After a sub-par introductory meet and making a new acquaintance in the common room, we set about seeing the town in dark.

It was a nice place, and evidently quite a prestigious area for the richer Ozzies - the high street was filled with haute cuisineries, expensive wine shops and boutiques of many shapes and sizes. We fitted in between Hugo Boss and a champagne shop at an Ice cream shop. Buy One Get One Free on some really nice 'screams helped us get into the feel of the place, for sure.

Back at the hostel, which was a beautiful listed early 1900s wooden building, we met some of E and B's dorm room mates that we ended up hanging out with a lot, who had some of the 14 beds in the 'Conference Centre' room, a separate out house supported over some awesome looking Jungle Book-like scenery. I saw a bush turkey trying to rest on a branch, which was quite funny, in the middle of this mini forest. They're big old animals which don't really have the gift of delicacy or agility, more suited to chicken (and turkey...) like behaviour.

We started making some food, when I was trapped by Texas; he was standing at the entrance to the hostel; I needed to go in past him to get to my room! Cornered on the ramp leading to the reception, we/he started talking about how we should all be microwaving clothes because chips are being put in our clothes to monitor us and our movements. And how we should always argue against what we're being asked to pay - 'why should we pay what they want?' We should be being charged $7 a night here, not $27. Its because of the taxes and all of the hostels ganging up on us, of course. He proceeded to tell me that the reason I wasn't totally buying his theories was that I was naive! And stupid!! I would someday realise what he was saying. I found that a little bit insulting, naturally, but he was still talking!! Ollie walked by me, smiling. And didn't rescue me from this fat American.

Eventually I managed to walk away, still saying 'yeah, sure' and 'oh, right' to everything he said, until I was out of sight. Score! Freedom! My pasta was mushy, though.

I was looking forward to a 3 day 2 night kayaking trip in the Noosa Everglades to the north I got free in Sydney for booking 2 things with them. Phoning up the company, I was informed that I'd have to wait 15 days to get on the trip! Stuff that! It might have been free, but they should really get some more Kayaks if there was this wait in the off season.

The following day we hit the beach. I think this was one of the first tropical-ish beaches I went to - clear waters, cool fish, tropical trees bordering the beach, magical green headlands sticking out to the south/east and bright sand that makes a funny squeaking sound when you scuff your feet. After a few false alarms of big rain drops and grey looking clouds, we started beaching properly. Going for a swim in the clearest waters so far, we started seeing fish swimming not 2 feet away from us! These were about 10/15 cm long and striped. Staying still in the shallows for long enough, these fish started swimming around us and brushing against our legs, as if it was fashionable. They had amassed to a shoal of at least 30 fish by the time we started trying to catch the slow moving (fast running) critters. I touched a couple, but they're instinctive and sensitive, so this was an effort.

Going out after chilling out in the (Harry Potter(?!)) Convention Centre, which had a piano, we walked the 15 minute walk to Noosa Heads, the paupers part of the Noosa area. Entering the first discotheque, a place attached to a hostel called Koalas, I almost got punched. Apparently I was standing in front of some girl's way, and her boy/friend didn't like that, so I get shoved aside by some unseen force. Turning to face the force, I found a cropped hair, gold necklace wearing guy who was saying something unhearable over the music. As if it was alright, he patted me on the shoulder and placed his other hand around my neck. Not forcefully, but the body language was pretty obvious. Wierdo. I'm not exactly the person to go 'What you want mate??', but there were loads of other people in the club of a similar demographic. By this time we'd realised it was a crap place and it was shutting up anyways. We went home, because that type of people would be at the next place, too, and none of us were really feeling it anyway.

The next day we went to Sunshine Beach, a town and beach a bus ride away, with Tommi, Andy and Izzie, Eric and Basil's roomies.

What a cool beach! Big old waves and water that got deep enough for nice waves only a 5 metres from the shore. Renting a couple of surfboards from the local surf shop, I tried surfing for the last time in Australia. It was largely unsuccessful aside from a couple of waves; trying to body surf the fairly large waves was creating more success. Knackered and with bruised shins and stories of pointed boards flying past heads, we returned the boards and relaxed on the beach which must have been 5 miles long and largely uninhabited. What to do?? We thought. Dig a hole! So we did, over a metre quarter deep and bean shaped, it was a good hole. I think we discovered oil.

Noosa National park was on the list of things to do. Ollie and myself made a day of the large nature reserve, and walked it the following day. It featured brilliant rocky little coves inaccessible by man, clearer waters than legally allowed and some amazing wildlife that just jumped out at you, in some cases. I saw a huge goana on one of the tracks - it was a 2 ft black and yellow lizard that looked like a croc without the scales. It jumped off the path, which made us see it, and just slowly walked back to the bush, gifting us a good look at him. We also saw a big turtle in one of the coves, just swimming about solo, looking for chow.

After walking for a few hours, we came across another big beach (just another soft sanded, warm watered one). After sitting down and relaxing for a few minutes, we saw a man in the mid distance walking the shore. I thought he must be wearing a beige set of shorts because... Coming closer, he turned out to be starkers. Yes, we'd stumbled across the only nudist beach for hundreds of kilometres either side of us.

"Crikey, Its gonna be a big day!" I said the following morning. Ollie and myself were off to the famous Australia Zoo, aka Steve Irwin's Zoo. It was blooming cold at 6.30am when we left - I think I was on the verge of illness, so I wrapped up in shorts, 2 t-shirts and a beenie. After boarding the huge shuttle bus to the zoo and watching a (frankly depressing) video about Stevo and what he's done, we arrived at the zoo, which is in the middle of blooming no where! Apparently there are ambitions to expand the zoo from its current 72ha to 1000ha. Wow, that's a lot of animals.

The current amount of animals was amazing for one day. After a pose with a bronze Irwin statue, we watched some cool otters chasing each other around and preempting their feeder/demonstrator's movements. They've escaped before, apparently, using team skills to make a branch-bridge to leap out of their enclosure at night and steal other animals' food, jumping back before dawn. The only way the zoo keepers found this out was the poo they left around. Clever, eh?

The highlight of the whole zoo is the "Crocoseum" a 5000 capacity arena with display space for birds, snakes and crocs in the middle. The keepers were getting the crowd excited. "Shout if you're from England!!!.... Canada!!!.... Australia!" after which one man shouted "....INDIA!!!" in a moment of quiet. Brilliant timing. After the birds screeched around at head height and the snakes did not much, the keepers coaxed a croc through the water and made it jump high in the air for the food he was dangling. Quite a good spectacle, to be sure.

Other highlights included some fat wombats that did nothing, and got picked up like big teddy bears by the keepers, seeing a leopard being taken for a walk, tiger cubs playing with the filter cover from their pool and feeding an elephant. Their trunks are strangely dry and muscular yet delicate.

There was a heavy emphasis on Steve and the Irwin family. A great wall of condolence and things devoted to steve was under the Crocoseum, which was sad. The amount of promo for the remaining family was weird, to the extent that their 10 year old daughter had a dance/exercise video out that had clips being played on the big screen in the Crocoseum. That kid's going to grow up messed up.

Noosa is a cool place that not everyone visits; its good to get away from backpackery places, and chillax after a big city. We ended up staying there for 6 nights or something at the end of which we were ready to move on, to the Fraser Coast! Land of sand, 4x4 trucks and baby-eating dingos.