4x4

We are back from our epic Fraser Island self drive 4x4 trip.  It was amazing.  We signed up to the trip for 3 days and 2 nights with 9 total strangers.  We were soooo lucky with our group.  We had 4 Canadians, 2 Swiss, 2 Germans, 1 Irish and us 2 English.  Quite a diverse little group.  We got on brilliantly and everyone helped out. 

We all met at 3pm on the day before we left (Sunday) for a quick meeting to introduce ourselves, buy food, order booze and watch some information videos.  We then all had a BBQ together and relaxed with some beers before going back to our hostel for a good nights sleep.  We had to be at the garage by 06:30 the next morning (Monday) so we got into bed  and set our alarm for 05:30; or so we thought... When the alarm went off we got up, got a bit late, rushed down stairs in our hostel to find the place shut.  It was in fact 05:00 not 06:00 as we had forgotten to change our clock from New South Wales time to Queensland time...oops.  But we managed to talk to my mum and dad on Skype by pure chance for 20 minutes so every cloud etc...  And it turned out to be good practice for a whole three days of very early starts.

So we headed over with plenty of time to find the others and go over for our 2 hours worth of early morning lectures from Koala (our trip organisers).  It was a little over the top with the threats; "if you get salt water on the car, you'll get fined", "if you're late back, you'll get fined", "if you have any fun, you'll get fined"...  But we took the practical advice and left the lectures to one side.  Luckily everyone was older than 20, most over 22 so we didn't have any annoying kids with us  ;-)

We left at 09:30 to get the ferry to Fraser Island.  The ferry arrives on the West coast which is pretty inaccessible and so our task for the day was to get across the island to the east coast where the beach is the road up and down the island and where we were going to camp for the night.  This was only about 20k and so we were pretty relaxed and thought we would end up arriving at the camping spot pretty early, however this is because we totally underestimated the driving conditions.

As soon as we were off the ramp, the car was flicked into 4 wheel drive and away we went.  Two of the Canadians, (Justin and Chris) were very handy at the wheel each with good experience of driving in snow and harsh conditions.  Just as well as the sand roads were SHIT.  Slipping around, getting stuck, digging ourselves out and pushing the big van up sandy hills.  It was all really good fun and good for team building. 

The first stop that day was Lake McKenzie which is right in the middle of the island and we got there by lunch time.  This lake was absolute perfection!  Like a postcard.  It was such a treat after quite an overwhelming, tiring, hot and sandy introduction to driving on the Island.  We had a gorgeous swim and had lunch in the special dingo proof lunch area!  Then it was back on the road to try and get down the beach to find our campsite; which luckily we did get to before dark despite at one point going in a big circle around the lake (not many road signs on the island!)

But it was all cool was we found a perfect camping spot on the each and it was stunning.  No-one in sight, huge sandy beach and tents set up in no time.  The 75 mile beach on the island is a bit of a tease because it looked so tempting when we arrived but all we could do is wash in the shallows as it's full of SHARKS!  We had a BBQ for dinner and dingo proofed our camp.  Then we got on with having some beers and getting to know each other - we even had music as we took our little speaker and the evening was brilliant.  There were quite a few naughty dingos about which was amazing to see but we chased them off because if they are fed and become tame, then they get aggressive.

The next day we'd been told we should get up and leave camp by 6am to head up the beach to the north of the island - Indian Head (as the beach road is unusable two hours either side of high tide).  Alas although we woke up pretty early by the time everyone was up and sorted and we'd taken the rubbish to the dump and had a group trip to the toilets and water shop it was 8.30 and when we got on the beach most of the compressed sand was covered up by the sea.  Amy was driver this morning and it was quite hard work avoiding the waves, avoiding the wash outs (mini rivers/craters in the sand where fresh water wasr running into the ocean) and avoiding deeps soft areas of sand.

To cut a long story short, we didn't make it up to Indian Head.  We stopped about half way up and agreed that we'd missed the boat (so to speak; a boat would have been handy).  It was a really good decision because instead we visited all the sights on the south end of the shore such as the Pinnacles (huge rock structures), the Maheno Shipwreck (washed up in 1935), and Eli Creek.  Eli Creek was the best.  It was a cute little river running out of the hills down to the beach and  just as the day before by the time we got there we were all tired, hungry, hot and sandier than we'd ever been in our life so a chilly peaceful stream to walk up and float down was perfectly timed.

Once everyone had floated to their hearts content we headed to the next stop (Happy Valley) to eat our lunch.  This was also as far as we could go as the tide was high by now and there were some rocks that we'd just been able to get round on the way up that we couldn't get back round until the sea withdrew.  It turned out Happy Valley had a resort and so we stayed there for an hour or so after lunch (and a some of the group worked on getting nice and drunk).

The final stop of the day was the best - Lake Wabby.  This was back down near our camp but a 40 minute walk inland each way to get to.  We were pretty sweaty by the time we got there...  Just when we thought we were there, we turned a corner a saw the biggest sand dune I've ever seen.  It was like a desert.  Just at the bottom of it was the lake.  Irish (as Michael the Irish man became known as) decided that a hill this big leading into the lake was fit for one purpose only:  forward rolling.  See below... :-)

It was back to camp and a slightly more sedate evening as we were all KNACKERED.  Next day we woke up, packed up in the rain (the bloody rain ladies and gentleman - it ain't meant to rain here is it???), and we were at Lake McKenzie by about 09:00...  Our ferry was at 15:00, but we got there way too early at the ferry port and played charades and 2 truths, 1 lie for 2 hours.  We were super duper hungry but the time the ferry was set to go as we'd run out of food!   Everyone bought snacks on the ferry and ate like animals!  When we were finally back a Koala's, we washed up, cleaned up, showered (hurrah!), checked into our room, and got down the local Irish pub for a final farewell dinner to 4 of our group.  It was a trip of a lifetime; we're so lucky we had so much fun and had such a good group.

Today, (Thursday), is what me and Ame are now referring to as an "admin day":  washing, internet, planning and resting.  We're on the 20:50 overnight bus to Airlie Beach tonight arriving at 09:00 ready for our 3 day 2 night sailing trip which sets sail on Saturday.  Four of the others headed up last night but are also sailing Saturday and so we're going to try and meet up with them Friday night.