Hervey Bay / Fraser Island
Landed in Hervey bay and checked into our hostel not the best but its only for sleeping in. Went to our briefing about fraser island and we were put into our groups. by far ours was the best, made up of 3 english, 1 mad scot, 2 mad canadians, 2 americans, 2 dutch, and 1 german. Spent the night in hervey bay drinking with our new found friends and ended up in the club next door with free cocktails and beers so who could resist and singing happy birthday to nick in our group. Most of the group left to go to bed around 10pm including myself as we had to be up at 5am the next morning. Lee, Dallas, Gareth, Lauren and Stuart stayed in the club till the wee hours, Stu took a turn for the worse in the club and vomited on the carpet much to the groups shock but stu was soon back to drinking, a conquerer he is!
Up early at 5am to check all the equipment, learn how to drive a 4wd and most importantly know how to back away from the mad dingoes on the island if they want to attack you! None of us in the group had ever drove a 4wd before so fun was definitely to be had!
Despite the back seat drivers not trusting our dutch map readers Marks directions, he perfectly navigated us to the ferry landing in plenty of time, then over to Fraser Island, having done all our checks we got off the ferry and headed in land and immediatly entered on to the soft sand, The four wheel adventure had well and truly begun. After a bumpy 30 mins with most people in the back banging there heads on numerous occasions we arrived at our 1st stop, Lake MacKenzie, The lake was unbelievable, a mixture of dark blue, light blue and crystal clear and despite being a little fresh when we jumped in, we all went for a swim and had a good laugh. Back in the 4x4 we headed off to our next stop Lake Wabby, on route the 1st of many bags of Goon (boxed wine) was opened by Gareth (Scot) and Dallas (Canadian) and they both did well not to spill a drop. Lake Wabby was amazing, it was just a small lake but surrounded by massive sand dunes which seemed to go on forever and even had trees growing out of it, it looked so wierd. The lads decided it would be fun to roll down the dunes to the bottom which was great until you had to climb back up, it was a killer, Nick however went a little too far, as he reached the bottom and stood up, he stumbled and ended up flat faced in the lake. With the boys still trying to remove all the sand from their pockets and other areas we finally arrived on the beach, it was cool driving along the beach with the huge waves crashing just metres away from us. We stopped at Eli Creek, walked halfway up on the platforms and then got in and waded all the way back in the beautiful emerald coloured Creek. After again drying off we had one more stop for the day - Maheno Wreck, a ship which ran aground in the early 1900's and has been slowly rusting away ever since, it was still good to see. Then it was time to set up camp for the night. We found a decent-ish spot, put the four tents up that were already covered in sand from the previous travellers and then after soughting who was sleeping where, the bar-be-que was lit, the food was great until it started to rain and in the hurry to put up the tarp we managed to cover the rest of the burgers and sausages in sand so we just moved on to the drinking which went on into the early hours with all 3 Koala groups having a good laugh.
It was an early rise the following morning so we could get up to Indian Head and back before the tide came in, we were hoping to see some Tiger Sharks from this vantage point as it was a breeding ground for them (one of the reasons not to swim in the sea surrounding Fraser Island) Unfortunately we didn't see any, however we did get to see a couple of Whales breaching about 200 metres from the coast which was cool. We managed to beat the tide and headed south to Lake Birrabeen, again despite being slighly cool we all headed in for a swim and more importantly a wash as we have nowhere to shower. After a few hours of swimming and lazing about we moved on to Rainbow Gorge which was full of massive sand dunes, this time of all different colours which looked quite spectacular and had one of the highest dunes i've seen, so again we thought it would be fun to roll down, i ended up in the bushes and had a mouth full of sand, not nice. We then found our new spot for the seconds nights camping, this time we put the tarp up before any cooking commenced. After a wonderful spag bol we decided to have a game of Up the River, Down the River (card game) It didn't take long for every one to be pissed and as with the night before it wasn't till the early hours that every one made it to bed.
Again an early start, not as early as the day before as there were a few sore heads, we packed everything up and went south again along the beach to Eurong where we managed to get some breakfast (pizza slices, umm) then we visited another Lake again more for the wash than anything else, this time it was very cold and started to hammer it down which helped with the showering. Only a few of the boys and Lauren braved the conditions, the rest returned to the comfort of the 4x4 for a chat. When the rain finally subsided wveryone got dry and we headed back to the ferry landing awiting our return back, the lads were still smacking the goon. Having arrived back on the mainland and cleaning all our stuff, we all met for a subdued drink, by now after having a luke warm shower (which i was disgusted at the hostel for) we were all feeling the effects of a long long weekend. I have to say it was one of the most fun weekends i've ever had and to share it with a great bunch of people from different nationalities was the icing on the cake.
Up early at 5am to check all the equipment, learn how to drive a 4wd and most importantly know how to back away from the mad dingoes on the island if they want to attack you! None of us in the group had ever drove a 4wd before so fun was definitely to be had!
Despite the back seat drivers not trusting our dutch map readers Marks directions, he perfectly navigated us to the ferry landing in plenty of time, then over to Fraser Island, having done all our checks we got off the ferry and headed in land and immediatly entered on to the soft sand, The four wheel adventure had well and truly begun. After a bumpy 30 mins with most people in the back banging there heads on numerous occasions we arrived at our 1st stop, Lake MacKenzie, The lake was unbelievable, a mixture of dark blue, light blue and crystal clear and despite being a little fresh when we jumped in, we all went for a swim and had a good laugh. Back in the 4x4 we headed off to our next stop Lake Wabby, on route the 1st of many bags of Goon (boxed wine) was opened by Gareth (Scot) and Dallas (Canadian) and they both did well not to spill a drop. Lake Wabby was amazing, it was just a small lake but surrounded by massive sand dunes which seemed to go on forever and even had trees growing out of it, it looked so wierd. The lads decided it would be fun to roll down the dunes to the bottom which was great until you had to climb back up, it was a killer, Nick however went a little too far, as he reached the bottom and stood up, he stumbled and ended up flat faced in the lake. With the boys still trying to remove all the sand from their pockets and other areas we finally arrived on the beach, it was cool driving along the beach with the huge waves crashing just metres away from us. We stopped at Eli Creek, walked halfway up on the platforms and then got in and waded all the way back in the beautiful emerald coloured Creek. After again drying off we had one more stop for the day - Maheno Wreck, a ship which ran aground in the early 1900's and has been slowly rusting away ever since, it was still good to see. Then it was time to set up camp for the night. We found a decent-ish spot, put the four tents up that were already covered in sand from the previous travellers and then after soughting who was sleeping where, the bar-be-que was lit, the food was great until it started to rain and in the hurry to put up the tarp we managed to cover the rest of the burgers and sausages in sand so we just moved on to the drinking which went on into the early hours with all 3 Koala groups having a good laugh.
It was an early rise the following morning so we could get up to Indian Head and back before the tide came in, we were hoping to see some Tiger Sharks from this vantage point as it was a breeding ground for them (one of the reasons not to swim in the sea surrounding Fraser Island) Unfortunately we didn't see any, however we did get to see a couple of Whales breaching about 200 metres from the coast which was cool. We managed to beat the tide and headed south to Lake Birrabeen, again despite being slighly cool we all headed in for a swim and more importantly a wash as we have nowhere to shower. After a few hours of swimming and lazing about we moved on to Rainbow Gorge which was full of massive sand dunes, this time of all different colours which looked quite spectacular and had one of the highest dunes i've seen, so again we thought it would be fun to roll down, i ended up in the bushes and had a mouth full of sand, not nice. We then found our new spot for the seconds nights camping, this time we put the tarp up before any cooking commenced. After a wonderful spag bol we decided to have a game of Up the River, Down the River (card game) It didn't take long for every one to be pissed and as with the night before it wasn't till the early hours that every one made it to bed.
Again an early start, not as early as the day before as there were a few sore heads, we packed everything up and went south again along the beach to Eurong where we managed to get some breakfast (pizza slices, umm) then we visited another Lake again more for the wash than anything else, this time it was very cold and started to hammer it down which helped with the showering. Only a few of the boys and Lauren braved the conditions, the rest returned to the comfort of the 4x4 for a chat. When the rain finally subsided wveryone got dry and we headed back to the ferry landing awiting our return back, the lads were still smacking the goon. Having arrived back on the mainland and cleaning all our stuff, we all met for a subdued drink, by now after having a luke warm shower (which i was disgusted at the hostel for) we were all feeling the effects of a long long weekend. I have to say it was one of the most fun weekends i've ever had and to share it with a great bunch of people from different nationalities was the icing on the cake.
posted by Lee and Sonya at
8:37 PM
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