Travel Blog: Day 134

Remember I told you about the 7am bus I had to take early on my birthday? Guess what – I missed it. I woke up at 7:49 and hurried over to the bus terminal. Luckily it only cost me 4$ to get me a seat on the next bus. I phoned the hostel in Rainbow Beach to tell them I would come later and was told that I might have to move my Fraser Island trip back one day because I would miss the briefing. I tried to invoke some pity by mentioning that it was my birthday and the lady on the phone told me that we would ‘work something out’.
When I arrived in Rainbow Beach the briefing was just over, but Heidi (the woman from the phone) told me that I just needed to watch a couple of videos on my own and that I would still be able to go to Fraser Island the next day. She later brought me a big muffin with 4 candles stuck on top and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ for me. How sweet!
After breakfast the next morning our group (20 people) started checking the equipment and packing it onto two Toyota Landcruisers….under the supervision of Chris, our ‘guide’. Since this was a self-drive-tour, Chris would not come with us but he prepared us as good as possible. After the two cars were packed, he gave the drivers a quick introduction on how to drive a 4WD. Then we were off. I was first to drive in our half of the group (group 1, yeah!) which consisted of a Spanish guy, a French guy, an English guy, an Irish girl, an Israeli girl, two Swedish girls and two Finnish girls…and me, of course. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the ferry and only 10 minutes across to Fraser Island. This is where the fun driving part began. It was quite an experience to master the 4.2 Liter diesel engine and make the Toyota grind through the sand of the never ending beach. The island itself sure is beautiful. But with all respect – after driving along the beach for 2 hours, this part gets boring after a while. Especially because swimming is not allowed due to jelly fish and sharks.
Our first stop was Lake Wabby. A beautiful lake surrounded on three sides by rainforest and on one side by a massive sand dune. Have I mentioned, that Fraser Island is one of the biggest (or THE biggest?) sand islands in the world? Anyways, the water was really warm and enjoyable. Only the thousands of horse flies spoiled the experience somewhat. From Lake Wabby we drove further north to our camping ground, passing the wreck of the ‘Maheno’ – a former cruise ship which was later used for target training by the Royal Australian Air Force. At the campground we put up our tents, prepared dinner (hamburgers) and spent the rest of the night having a good time and consuming quite a bit of goon (cheap Australian wine that comes in 4 liter cardbox boxes) in the course of it. At one point we had a dingo visit us. He came as close as 10 meters. But we were all well instructed about what to do in a situation like this: if a dingo approaches you, you cross your arms in front of you and slowly move backwards. If the dingo still attacks you, you have to fight back aggressively. Since both of these actions sound somehow ridiculous when being attacked by a wild animal, they became a kind of running joke in our group. ‘Our’ dingo moved away without us having to attack him aggressively.
The second day was spent driving along the beach to Indian Head – the only rock formation on the Island – and afterwards to Eurong Resort, where we had lunch. From there an inland track called the ‘washing machine’ took us to our second campground. I was looking forward to be driving on this track but the constant rain made it really hard to spot the potholes. After we arrived at the campground the rain continued for another 2 or 3 hours so most of us just sat in the car waiting. The second evening was not nearly as lively as the first one since almost everybody was still a little hung over.
One the third day we finally got to see the main attraction of the island: Lake McKenzie. This is the perfect white beach and the clear blue water you will see on almost every Fraser Island postcard. This spot is incredibly beautiful. I just wish that we had had more time to spend there. After only a few hours there we had to get going to get back to Rainbow Beach on time.
So this was my trip to Fraser Island. I hope you enjoy the pictures. After the trip I spend another two nights in Rainbow beach before I went farther north to Hervey Bay. Here I spend only one night but was able to see the millions of bats that fly over the village on their nightly trip to Fraser Island. Quite impressive!
After a 13 hour bus ride I arrived in Airlie Beach today where I booked a 2days/2nights sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands starting tomorrow. When this is done I have completed the main things I wanted to do in Australia. I know that there is tons more to do and even in a year you cannot do everything, but I still figured that I initially planned to spend too much time her e. And since there are way too many Germans around here I thought I might as well go see some other country while I am down here. The result of these considerations is that I will fly to Thailand for three weeks to dive into a completely different culture.