Beautiful Fraser

That evening, we had a briefing about our trip the following day to Fraser Island. It was basically the same as any rental company - don't do this, don't do that, or you'll lose your $1000 bond, make sure you do this, etc...oh and don't forget to have a good time! We also met the people we'd be travelling with. We were divided into two groups of nine, one car per group, but we would spend most of the time going around together, and by the end of the trip we all got on well.

Day 1

Rising early, we were shown the basics of our nine seater pink Landcruisers. Seriously, why pink? At least we were distinctive, as pretty much every other car we saw on the island was white, or a dull and uninteresting colour. We actually thought that they might glow in the dark (that's how vivid the colour was), but sadly this wasn't the case.

Thomas took the wheel for the first part as we headed to get groceries for the three days before heading to River Heads, where the ferry would take us over to the island. After about 40 mins we landed on the island, and it was straight on to one of the many windy and bumpy inland tracks.

We stopped briefly at Central Station. This place clearly used to have some kind of importance, based on the name, but now it was just a collection of tourist info boards, communal facilities and tons of trees. We then went towards the eastern beaches, the main roadway on the island; used by wildlife, pedestrians, cars and planes to get from A to B. We stopped at Eurong, a small (but large for Fraser) resort town, which had one of the only bits of tarmac road on the island. Here we ate some ridiculously good pies before going on to the beach.

It was a new experience for many of us driving on the beach. Most of the time the sand was smooth enough to reach the speed limit of 80 km/h, but every now and then there'd be a suddne drop, or the saltwater would come too close to the car ($1000!). It was really good fun actually.

We drove to Lake Wabby, one of Fraser's many freshwater lakes. The water was just the rigth temperature for swimming, and a massive sand dune steeply went up on one side, which many of us ran down jumping into the water.

I then drove us to our campsite for the night. On the way we stopped at the impressive Maheno shipwreck. All that was left of this old passenger cruiser was its rusty shell, which was constantly being attacked by the waves. The other pink car found us and we spent the evening srinking lots and talking lots.

Day 2

In order to make it to our first stop of the day before the tides blocked the road, we left the campsite by about 6.30am. We continued driving up to Indian head. This was the point where we couldn't drive any more, as the roads were really bad, and we'd lose $1000! We walked to the top of the headland, where there were spectacular views of Fraser's pristine beaches and sand dunes. The water was so inviting, even though it had dangerous currents, tiger sharks and deadly jellyfish!

After ecountering a very photogenic monitor, we walked north of Indian head up to Champagne Pools. This large rock pool was sheltered from the currents by a large wall of rock. Waves came crahing over, and the bubbly foam caused by the waves made it feel like you were swimming in champagne, hence the name Champagne Pools. Some of us rather stupidly sat on the rocks and felt the full force of the waves hitting us! We then saw one of Fraser's landmarks; the dingo. Fraser has one of the largest and purest of dingoes in Australia. We saw two park rangrs on the path above the pools shout "Dingo!", and then the dog came into view, climbing over the rocks, apparently not concerned about the hundreds of people taking pictures of him. He didn't pose a threat, but we were ready to defend ourselves "aggressively" (stupid safety video) if he attacked.

We then drove back the way we came, as the tides had lowered sufficiently enough for us to drive to our next stop. The Pinnacles were some really tall, ancient sand dunes that had weathered to look like mountains. When we pulled up, we were expecting some kind of walk, but it was just a small path before we reached a dead end. It was a bit of a disappointment. We then stopped at Eli Creek, one of the largest creeks that flows into the sea on the island. We could walk up a small part, and at the point where we could no longer go further, we saw a garden snake, luckily curled up asleep, and a rather large spider, but he luckily wasn't interested in us!

At our next campsite that evening we found out that the others had camped a little further down with some other 4x4s they had met on the way down. In pitch black darkness we somehow managed to walk all the way there (about 20 mins) carrying our esky (cool box) whihc was full of beer! We didn't stay long, as it started to rain, and it got every cold.

Day 3

On our way to Lake McKenzie, we stopped at a rubbish dump. Owing to the dingoes, there wre only a select few places were you could dispose of rubbish, as even indirectly feeding dingoes incurred harsh penalties. At this dump, there were a few dingoes roaming round, and they took an interest in our rubbish, which I had the job of binning. The first bin I came to was full, as was the second and third. I was trying to find an empty one with the constant thought that dingoes were creeping up behind me, and then they started howling. When I got into the back of our car, a dingo was right by it looking in before I shut the door! A close encounter with an amazing animal.

Most of the day was spent at Lake McKenzie, which is often dubbed as the premier attractinon Fraser Island. I could certainly see why. Pristine white sand, light blue water and trees surrounding the lake. If only the sun came out, then we would've truly seen the lake's beauty. As we were heere all day, some of us decided to head to Eurong and get some more pie. Even though it wasn;t very far away, Fraser's roads meant it took over an hour to get there and back. But that's the great thing about 4x4 driving; it's so much fun!

In the early afternoon we went back to the barge terminal, had a group picture with everyone and then went back over to the mainland. That night we all met up for food and drinks at the hostel.

Fraser Island definitely lived up to is reputation as one of THE things to see in Australia. It was so different, and so beautiful as well.