SPRING BREAK!

I arrived in Hervey Bay Brownieless, but having had 2 seats to myself on the bus. It turned out that 2 people on that bus with me were in my Fraser Island camping group. For those of you who don't already know, here's some information about Fraser. It is the largest sand island in the world and it is World Heritage listed. The island is home to many freshwater lakes, such as Lake Wabby and Lake Mckenzie. Mckenzie is (apparently) one of the top rated beaches in the world (even though it's a lake!) and it is particularly beautiful, but more of this later. I was booked to do a 3 day and 2 night 4x4 self-drive camping trip on the island. Basically this meant that I was put in a group with 7 other people, given a load of tents and stoves and shipped off over to the island.

The problem with these trips is that often how good they are is governed by how you get on with the other people in your group. We were incredibly lucky. There were 2 groups of us leaving on the same day and we all seemed to get on pretty well. Somehow we managed to acquire 2 chefs (one French, one Italian) who were a constant source of amusement ("anymore French... is impossible!). We bought all our food (and booze) and the next morning we were ready for our briefing. I can't begin to describe how funny and terrifying this briefing was. The old guy basically showed us videos and pictures of dead backpackers who hadn't followed his advice ("IF YOU DO NOT LISTEN TO ME YOU WILL GO HOME IN A HELICOPTAAAAH") and told us all these scare stories about how easy it is to die ("FROM THE MOMENT YOU ARRIVE THE ISLAND WILL BE TRYING TO KILL YOU"). The main beach on the island doubles as a beach, 70Kmh road, an airstrip and a deathtrap. He told us how there are 25 creeks and traps on the island which, if we drove in the wrong place, would certainly kill us ("IF YOU HIT THE FIRST ONE, YOU WILL NOT HIT THE SECOND ONE! YOU WILL DIIIEE!"). So suitably scared we set off for the ferry.

Our first stop on day one was Lake Mckenzie (a freshwater lake often used by FHM to take pictures of pretty ladies rolling in sand). Unfortunately this was to be our last stop for the day. After waiting 6 years to drive on Fraser Island, my turn came around, I reversed out of the parking space to find that the steering on the car had somehow got completely buggered. No worries we thought, a few extra hours at one of the most beautiful places on earth. Long story short, the mechanic couldn't find us and we had to wait overnight for him. The other group waited with us and we had a huge bonding session over some excellent (but not good enough for our chefs - "so sorry, for bolognaise, this is not bolgnaise, so sorry.") Spagetti Bolognaise. I managed to achieve the nickname "Big Dog" due to my (lack of) skill at catching a ball. Our French Chef was renamed "The Dingo Whisperer" because he would creep up to them whilst they growled and barked, saying "dingo? dingo? dingo?". We camped out on the beach and saw the sun come up over one of the world's most beautiful lakes, something pretty unique because you are not allowed to camp there, but we had no choice because we were stranded.

The next day our Bush Mechanics brought us over a new car and did a Mcguyver job on ours so they could get it back to the mainland. They also told us that we could get a free night on the island as we had been stuck for so long and wasted a day. We headed up the 75 mile beach past the Maheno shipwreck which in its day was one of the largest passenger ships in the world (and the fastest). We camped up at a place called Waddy point where we had too much beer and lots of rain. Some of us ended up getting drenched as we put everyone elses stuff in the dry(er) vans, so we stood outside in the wet for an hour. Some others (no names John) spent their time showing poor terrified Swiss girls things they should never have to see.

The next day we drove South down the Beach to Champagne pools where the sea washes over the rocks to fill pools of water full of bubbles. Hanging onto the rocks as the waves crash over was fun, but most of us came away with cuts and bruises, but it was all worth it. We then drove on down to Indian Head which is an outcrop of rocks where you can look out to see and on somedays see sharks. Which we did. No idea what kind of sharks, but they were there swimming around, waiting for some dumb backpacker to fall to their death. Other people saw Manta-Rays and turtles, I think I saw a turtle, but I'm not 100% certain.

This was our last night camping and we camped in a site just off of the beach where we built a contender for the best bush camp ever (we couldn't have done this without Knotty's expert knot tying), by using the tarps to keep the rain and wind off and sleeping underneath in the open air. This was drier and cooler than any of the rubbish tents we were supplied with! We drank the rest of our booze and passed out under the tarps ready for our last day.

We ended our trip by visiting Lake Wabby, a greener lake than McKenzie (for complicated science reasons) where we all risked "SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH" by running down the steep sand dunes into the shallow water. After the 40 minute walk back to the 4x4 we headed back to the ferry and then back to Hervey Bay.

All in all it's one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and we were lucky enough to be able to do it without a guide (set to change in the next few months, no more unaccompanied groups because of deaths). Made extra special because we all got on and everyone mucked in. Seemed a shame that we have all gone our separate ways, but we'll always have "New York, NEW YORK!".