Current Mood: Happy & Tired

The day came to leave Noosa and head upto Hervey Bay to go on our Fraser Island Adventure.  In the rush to get dressed I stuck my hand up to put on my T-Shirt and got it smashed by the Fan!  Ouch…  Had a nice flap of skin hanging down on my middle finger, still nothing Em and her first aid kit and large bit of plaster couldn’t fix!

We got to Hervey Bay, the most backward place I have so far experienced in Oz.  Resembles a real life Eerie Indiana. Still, all we had to do was pick up our Landie Defender and away we went to Fraser Island.

Driving off the barge, I lowered the tyre pressures to deal with all the sand tracks and stuff and set off to Lake Wabby, the deepest lake on the island.  The driving was so much fun, everything bouncing everywhere and the girls screaming over the smallest of bumps.  We were sliding and slipping all over the place! A little bit of deep sand, no problemo, slip it into Low Range stick it in second and we’re off again! 

Lake Wabby was amazing, a massive Sandblow is slowly engulfing the lake and it will be totally gone in 70 years time – but for now it’s lovely, cool and fresh water!  We had a little dip with the catfish and swam around, always wondering whether there were any freshy crocs hanging around.

Next was Eli Creek and our first bit of beach driving, the sea on the Eastern side is manic, the waves crash into each other at stupid angles, the beach is lined with washed up Jellyfish, both Box and regular, sharks are known to live just off coast and the rips are enough to drag cars out to sea, let alone people.  I know Russ rescued someone just off this coast and it really is an eye opener when you see for yourself what he went into!  Shit this coast is crazy!!!  Still, the beach driving wasn’t and we flew up the beach at 80Kph, only slowing for the foot deep washouts. 

Eli creek was super relaxing, you wander up this freshwater washout and then lay back down at the top, a natural lazy river, you get taken slowly all the way back down to the beach again.  Em and I were like little kids, running back to the top and floating all the way back down again – Scatt does what she does best of all and relaxed on the Beach while em and I went again and again to the top!

We didn’t have long until High Tide so we set up camp just off the beach by Eli Creek, two tents (Em and Scatt in one as Scatt was worried about the dingoes, me in the other) and our cooking, eating stuff.  We started to boil some water and then a couple of Sydney Ozzies pulled up next to us as there tent was set up.  The guy came over and introduced himself with a beer, the best way, and we all got chatting – he’s an italian ozzie, built like a steam boat and reminded me of a bleach blonde Don Corleone, with dyed blond hair, his missus Debbie came over and said hello and we got talking – after an hour our stove still hadn’t boiled the water so the couple asked us if we wanted any of their BBQ. 

Then at about 7.30, just before the Dingoes’ were due to show we felt a few drops of rain, so we got up to get some of our stuff in the tents.  Then it was like someone upstairs had turned on a giant fan and walking round the back of the Landie, we saw our tents were now flat against the sand, blown down by the wind.  Then to make matters worse, him upstairs must of unzipped a few clouds and thrown in a bit of electrical stormage to amuse himself.  It was torrential…  BOOM, CRACK, BOOM!  The storm was directly above us and the Landie was shaking in its boots :(.

Come 10pm, the storm was still raging and we were snuggled like rectangles in a square box trying to shut our eyes.  Don’t know how long it took, but I was asleep on and off until I woke with a crook neck at 3am.  I looked over the front seats and saw Em leant against the side door and Scatt spread across the seat so shifted into the boot so Em could spread across the front bench seat.

The weather had all but passed at 3:30am so I took my sleeping bag and tarp out the van, stuck the tarp over the sand, climbed into my sleeping bag and shut my eyes.  From then until sunrise I could of had a dingo come and pee on me and I wouldn’t of known anything about it, I was out for the count…  The sunrise, was pretty amazing and I was rather pleased with myself for sleeping outside.  The girls woke and we packed our rather mullered tents away.

 The next day was spent driving up to Indian Head to see the sharks – we couldn’t  see as the water was too murky – typical.  They we went to Lake Mackenzie, a jaw droppingly stunning place, with sand as white as Micheal Jackson and the lake as blue as, well you get the idea ;).  So we decided to skip some of the other places and just stay here.  So we camped at Central Station, Em and I in a tent that was made up from the non broken parts of the original two and Scatt in the Landie.  Here we had hot showers, decent toilets (I had to poop in a 50cm deep hole I dug with a spade before here!) and a pre-made camp ground with running drinking water.

Then when we woke, we had another whole day at Lake Mackenzie.  What a wicked day – loved every minute of it.  But, now we’re back in Eerie Indiana and awaiting our bus to 1770 /Agnes Waters.  Scatt is staying here while Em and I move up as her fella Darren is arriving here.  We’re meeting up back in Arlie Beach/Whitsundays!

Sorry about the lack of blog, but I was out of civilisation the last 4 days!

I’ll be putting pictures up as soon as I possibly can.  Laters all!  :)

[zp]fraser-island[/zp]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 10:11 am and is filed under Australia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.