Weekend-ing Aussie-style (in a 4x4)

However unlucky I was to get sick suddenly (sore throat and a cough) the day that I traveled from Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay, spending all my mobile credit receiving calls from the inept travel agent who was trying to book me into the same Fraser Island trip that he'd booked my mate, Vanessa and her friends on, and subsequently not even getting onto that same trip... My luck certainly turned around, or perhaps, as I tend to believe, it was meant to be that I spent an extra day in Hervey Bay, chilling out at the beach and starting the recovery from the sudden illness and heading off the following day on my own trip to Fraser with a group of whom I knew no one - only to find myself vacationing in some of the best weather you can ask for with some of the coolest folks.

It is meant to be the 'dry' season here on the east coast of Australia. Hard to believe as I sit here in Noosa, writing an update with torrential rain pouring down, leaving me and my fellow backpackers nearly stranded inside the hostel today. Good thing this is a lovely place with ample common areas to lounge about in and read books and check in on the interweb. For some reason we're having a very big storm for the rest of this week and when I was up in Airlie, as I think I mentioned, it wasn't a whole lot better. So the weekend on Fraser Island was a particular treat - clear blue skies (sometimes cloudless), lovely warm days, amazing white silica sand beaches, huge crashing surf, dingoes, sharks, turtles, gum trees - you name it - we experienced it. It was wonderful!!

So, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. Yes, it is only sand. There are only a few very small (like a few hundred meters in length) paved roads around a beach settlement called Eurong. Otherwise, there are no paved roads - only sand tracks which are maintained slightly by tractors when they get too rutted - most were very rutted though and interestingly difficult to navigate, but for the fact that everyone there is clearly driving a 4x4 vehicle. Our 4x4 vehicle was a large truck, outfitted with two long benches, with seatbelts (a must) for 8 others to sit in the back. Off we went, my fellow driver, Adrian and the 'kids' (all between 18-20 years of age, and too young to drive - you must be 21 with a license for at least 2 years in order to drive the vehicles there). We drove through gum tree forests and onto the east coast beach - basically a long beach all the way up the coast, which essentially serves as a highway. You must really look both ways before crossing, lest you get hit. Seriously.

On our way up to the middle, east side of the island where we were to camp for the night at a campground, we stopped in at Lake McKenzie - a freshwater lake whose blue hues completely amazed me. This was a freshwater lake that had blues like that of the Agean Sea! Wow! And amazingly soft, white, silica sand beaches surrounding it. Lake McKenzie is a big tourist draw and was undoubtedly very busy, but we loved it nonetheless. After the lake we made our way up the beach where we stopped at the main sites along the way - the famous Maheno shipwreck, the Pinnacles, and Eli Creek. Arriving shortly after at our campground, we set up camp and cooked a big BBQ and drank goon (very cheap wine in a bag). Even though I'm not meant to drink this stuff, I have been partaking since the sailing trip where the Scottish girls on my boat introduced me to cutting it with juice/cordial. Quite nice that way! The kids taught me a whole bunch of new drinking games - 4 girls from England traveling together and 3 boys from Germany. They were great fun!! Then we headed down to the beach at 9 PM (our camp noise curfew) where we could see pretty much every star in the southern hemisphere!! WOW!! We could very clearly see the Milky Way. I was able to visit, briefly, with Vanessa and her friends, since they were there for their second night at the campground. (the trip we booked was 3 days, 2 nights and we stayed at the same campground, situated very conveniently halfway up the island, so we didn't have to set up camp more than once)

Next morning we slept in and headed out just after 9 AM to see the north end of the island. We got to Indian Head where you climb to a very nice lookout and then trek down a beach for about 45 mins to get to a place where they have things that are called Champagne Pools. I had a crap sleep the previous night (side story to follow) and as a result was still feeling quite ill and decided halfway up the beach on our long trek to stop and thrown down my beach towel and told the crew to pick me up on the way back. I sat at the beach and rested, soaking up the sun - very nice. That weekend, there happened to be a fishing derby on the island, so there were heaps of locals there. Not surprisingly, the fishermen that I parked myself nearby to came over and offered me beer and kept me company while the others were off for an hour or more. That was really fun - learning more about Aussie culture and the fishing derby in particular. :) Back at the camp that night we had more goon and a big dinner and got off to sleep early. We had three tents and I was in one with Adrian and Anne. The first night I was woken up, not only by loud, drunk people, but also by very loud snoring from within my own tent. I turned over and shook Adrian, who very clearly awake, said "What?". Oops!! I said that I thought it was him snoring, but evidently not, since it was still going on. So I asked him to hit Anne! haha! Anyway, he woke her up and informed her, to her embarrassment, that she was snoring very loudly. The next night we resorted to videotaping it and embarrassing her further with the evidence the following morning.

Last day on Fraser we headed off to Lake Allom to see the turtles. We saw at least 20 of them. It was great! The girls were really keen to do it, so they made sure to wake us up so we could head out to do that by 6 AM! (I'm nearly starting to get accustomed to these early mornings) After that we drove back in, collected our tents and the one person who didn't want to come so early, and headed back down to the beach and straight for Lake Birrabeen, which is not unlike Lake McKenzie, but harder to get to (the sand tracks were crazily rutted and some steep hills to boot!), and in vast contrast there are very, very few people who visit it! There were only 2 or three groups of us at any time. We nearly had the beach and lake to ourselves! It was lovely!!! We spent about 2.5-3 hrs there and when it came time to leave and make our way back to the barge (the ferry that transported us to and from the island) we just didn't want to go.

At the campground the night before we saw several dingoes who came around to check things out. We were amply warned not to approach them or try to feed them or anything. They were interesting to watch. We also saw a dead shark that afternoon - some of the kids picked it up to take photos with it. It wasn't a very large shark, but definitely a shark! Given the surroundings, the weather and the great company, I have to say, this was a huge highlight of my trip and I'm very happy that, even though my plans did not work out the way they were initially meant to, I went ahead and took a chance on getting put into an unknown group of people and did it anyway!
I'm now on the Sunshine Coast with not a ray of sunshine to be seen!! This is not the norm for this time of year. I seem to have brought the kiwi winter with me or something... well, actually, it's not nearly as cold as NZ - I am still wearing my jandals (thongs in Aussie-speak) after all. I head down to the Gold Coast tomorrow to visit with a friend and former colleague, Lynn. No set plans after that and no idea how long I'll stay there. I have a few housekeeping things to take care of - like get a haircut!! Let's hope this big storm goes through faster than they are predicting so I can enjoy some more east coast sunshine!!