Fraser Island

Alright, so, Ash and I are both very aware that it's been a while since our last post but I'll try my best to make up for it by talking about the island of sand!! That's right folks, the biggest sand island in the world is Fraser Island and we were there!

Our trip was a 3 day/2 night self-drive tour with a group of 11 people (ourselves included). We drove around in this massive (3 tones) 4x4 and followed an itinerary for the 3 days. We camped at the same site for two nights, using that as our home base and driving around the island from there.
(Heather got a bit tired. I am writing now)
Day one was a trip to Lake Mckenzie which is one of the most beautiful things we have ever seen. The water is so fresh and constantly filtered by sand that you cannot wear any sun screen or perfume or anything. This is not a good thing for a little white blonde girl, but we managed to splash around and get some pics before I put the sunscreen on. Heather was fine. She is as brown as they come and does not need to worry too much. We could even swim and drink water at the same time. It was the cleanest water we have ever tasted. We had a very rushed lunch with our very cool group and then went to a ship wreck on the beach. This was so cool. We were not supposed to go in it, but there were too many perfect photo ops to ignore this. The next thing to do was to find our campsite. Gareth (our travel buddy from the UK) literally drove us up and down the beach for about 45 minutes making the world record for U-turns on a sand highway. Finally we arrived just in time to miss out on the mosquito protected soft beds and to set up our own tents in the dark. Heather and I prepared most of the dinner and the boys "cooked" it on the fire and BBQ (they may have over cooked the steak). We sat around the fire with some aboriginals and heard stories of spirits on the island. A few people were even lucky enough to see some dingos.
We got up early to make it out to Eli creek. We were supposed to be able to go down this fast moving creek on our backs. Lets just say that those who did it spent a lot of time pushing. We then headed to Indian head and the champagne pools. Indian head was the most amazing view I have ever seen. We saw a pod of dolphins swimming by and turtles and rays from above. The champagne pools were amazing, but we got a really bad 4X4 that wouldn't make it up the hill so we had quite the walk. Once we got there it was very cold and rainy and windy so we had to fight it all to get back. On the bright side we did see a humpback whale breaching off in the distance a few times. It made up for the glass like sand blowing into our legs and the wind and rain freezing us. Once we finally made it out we went back to camp and had tea and biscuits with our almost all British group. We sat around and had a few drinks at night and played some cards. I still hadn't seen a dingo and everyone else had. Every time I would go to the washroom one would come to the kitchen where everyone else was. Toni (another travle mate) and I were walking to the bathroom and we finally met one. She was on her way to the kitchen to miss me again and we caught her on her way. I have to say I am glad I wasn't alone. What a great day.
Our last day was not so good. Because of the storms the high tide came in early and we got stuck on the beach. Our car actually got stuck and we had to dig whenever the tide would go down. It was fun, but a bit scary. We made it back to Eli which was not part of the plan and had to sit there for a few hours. We even saw a car actually go under water. The man thought he could make it and ended up being in water up to his windows. They managed to pull him out and he drove off down the beach even further. Crazy man! must have been a rental car! The rest of the day involved trying not to get stuck and making it back to the ferry in one piece. We did it! we even got all of our bond back. All in all this was an amazing trip. I was the most knowledgeable camper and next to me Heather was. That does not say much so lets just say that we all did a good job.
Next we will write about our trip in Surfers Paradise. There are some good stories from this one..keep up!
cheers
Ash & Heather