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!