Still heading down the East... events after Airlie Beach
AUSTRALIA | Friday, 30 November 2007 | Views [240] | Comments [3]
I set off on an overnight bus to Hervey Bay. I still hadn't decided
what I would do while there and if I wanted to spend $200 on a three
day camping trip. On the bus I sat next to two really cool Swiss girls.
It was a 12 hour drive to our next stop and we were delirious by the
time we arrived. Sleeping on a full coach is damn near impossible, esp
when you have an isle seat and can't lean on the person next to you. I
checked in and had a talk w/the reception... Beaches (the place I was
staying) was running a special for camping.. I'd receive two free
nights on the mainland. Okay that I could afford. Five days and $200
not bad. I agreed. They told me I may want to do my own shopping since
I was a veg and it may make things easier. I set off into town and
spent the day at the beautiful beach and then picked up groceries. That
night when I was putting together dinner I met another Swiss girl that
said I should be in her group, but then got mad that I bought food
w/out consulting the group. I kindly told her that I was a veg and I'd
let the people organizing throw me into whichever car had room... I
prayed I wouldn't be in hers. It was and early night and an early rise.
6am.. we were piling our luggage into storage and gathering for our
orientation. Group C they told me... as I was walking up to the table of
four boys I started to get a bit nervous... what did I do? Two English
(tricky and big jimm) and two irish brothers (dave and alan) ... oh
man. after breakfast the two sweet swiss girls (marion and lili)
wandered over and I was SOOO relieved to see them. Turns out we only
had one person with a license that was able to drive standard... so
they added two more girls to our group, anna and vicki from England....
it was a much nicer balance now. We hit it off right from the start and
were the only table to be laughing and cracking jokes at seven in the
morning. Basically the camping trip was a self guided 4X4 tour of
Fraser Island. It's all off roading and you pitch your own tents, fight
your own dingoes and cook your own food. First things first we had to
sort out the shopping. Booze was first on the list. The boys picked out
two huge bottles of Vodka, 4 cases of beer and I think that was it. The
girls chose on pack of jim beam for Lili, two boxed wines for the other
three and a small bottle of Bacardi. The boys bill came to about $300
with mixers and my share was $10. The other groups spent $150 max
total. Wow I soo felt like calling my friends in LA who call me a lush
and saying 'See... I'm not so bad compared to these guys'. Simon (aka
big jim) took charge of that. Next were groceries. The group was totally
okay w/eating veg friendly foods or adding and splitting the cost. So I
was nominated shopper and Vicki chose to come along. We put together a
rough list and headed off... while the others packed the car. When the
shuttle driver was taking us to the supermarket she was lecturing us
the whole way about how we only have thirty minutes and then she's
leaving without us and we can call a cab... it was like something out
of a reality show. Supermarket sweep perhaps? There were two reps from
four groups and we were all over the place... Vicki and I had two carts
at the end. The total came to $302 for nine people... a bit much, but
it's okay... $33 bucks each. The other groups spent no more than $200.
Oops. I later found out that I was the only backpacker in the group..
the rest were on a two to four week holiday and then back to work for
them. We finally took off to Fraser. the ferry was not like any I'd
been on before. The lower deck was basically a parking lot for about 15
cars max and the top two tiny deck were for the passengers. Anna,
driver one.. was too scared to drive onto the ferry.. so Rich (aka
Tricky) volunteered. phew. Once across to the other side we were the
first group to set off to our first stop, Central Station, where we
were meant to go to kill time to wait for the tide on the beach to go
down to head to our camp site. We found a great spot and parked. We
were going to grab a few things from the back and Alan put the key in
and it snapped. Oh shit. Some might say this is a foreshadow... They
didn't give us a spare what do we do? Our mobiles have no signal...
someone tells us there's a phone down the way.. three from the group
set off to call. Turns out they keep a spare hidden in the console.
Thank goodness. We decided to do a thirty minute walk instead of the
hour recommended and then have a picnic lunch. Have you heard of march
flies? These things were a nuisance the whole weekend. They are giant
flies that stick to you even if you swat at them the don't flinch and
they bite... hard! Bastards. The bug spray doesn't do too much to scare
them away either. Our lunch was quite comical because of these flies..
we were all doing a dance and shuffling around, but it made for great
laughs.
We set off to Lake Waby which is surrounded by a beautiful
white sand dune. They said it was about a two hour walk... we were in
denial and thought we could pull it off faster... we saved maybe ten
minutes. The water is green, but clean and had cat fish swimming in it.
The group decided to run up the dune and roll down.. we had sand
everywhere for days, but we got some good pics. We were hot and sweaty
and tired so we decided to head to Base, our campgrounds. By the time
we got there the groups had set up there tents and were working on
dinner. The host suggested the girls set up the tents and the boys take
'em down... but two of the girls weren't really 'involved' in the
process so the boys helped out. We had two tents between nine of us..
we decided to do a boys and a girls tent. The boys had some objections,
but we weren't yeilding. Vicky made a joke about if we were on a
reality show she'd be the first to go.. as her contribution was
velcroing the windows open. We got started on dinner. The gals took
care of salad and appetizers and the boys grilled. There was tons of
yummy food and great laughs. A big Aussie thing for backpacker is goon.
It's a cheap cheap box wine..that whouldn't really be called wine.
After dinner the group pretty much stayed together getting to know each
other. We decided to play a drinking game or a few. We played one
called 21. It's kind of confusing, but basically when you get to 21 you
can implement a new rule... which complicates things further. By the
end of the night we were making crazy wooloowoooloo noises and yelling
out that feck (irish for fuck. They shut the lights off at ten so we
propped out torches and kept playing until the ground leader told us to
go somewhere else. We were off to the beach, which seemed like a short
walk away. At this point all the groups meshed together and it was one
big party. No bonfires allowed so we propped torches and used the
stars. We ended up singing songs together like 'I love you baby and
what..dadada' We couldn't really remember the words so it was pretty
much garbage and the chorus over and over. I couldn't last past 1 so I
headed back w/the Swiss gals and the other six followed about a half
hour later... or so we thought. The walk back was forever long and dark and scary. What if there were dingoes out there. Turns out Dave disappeared with a girl,
which we didn't find out about until much later. The boys had killed
their two big bottles of vodka and about a case of beer and weren't
ready to go to bed. Instead the boys decided to sit just outside out
tent and sing, well yell 'I love you baby'. Finally at 2:30 I yelled for
them to go to bed... they would start to whisper the song and towards
the end they were yelling again. Ughh. I got up and pushed on of them
through the tent and they fell over and were laughing. After some talk
about Dave being gone and us being possible lesbians because we weren't
up they left. The next morning we got up and had a feast of fresh
fruit, toast with nutella and cereal. It was wonderful! The guys
staggered out of bed about an hour later. We had to get in the truck to
get ready for our day. We opened the door and holy shit it looked like
we were robbed or something. The boys trashed it in their drunken
state. We found towels in coolers, swimsuits in the glove box, the
girls bacardibacardi. Tricky: no I hate that stuff
wasn't me. Simon: No no I wasn't even awake. Dave: MIA Allen: No no I
didn't do it. Later in the day Allen remembered that he took pics of
the night before. So many drunken pics and then there was a video.. at
3:00am. It was Tricky pouring the bacardi with no shirt on singing 'I
love bacardi' and all of them had no shirts on and were sitting in the
back of the truck singing and talking shit about each other. SOOOO
Funny! We headed to our first stop. Indian head to see tiger sharks
from a lookout, cool stuff. We heard stories about how they can swim in
shallows and even come up on the sand and flip themselves around and
swim back... I would pass out if I saw that I think. We couldn't swim
in the ocean because there were soooooo many jellyfish you could see
them as you were driving past. Most weren't too harmful, but for every
ten clear ones we came across there was one purple one... they just
look menacing... for a jelly. Our next stop was the Champaign pools.
Natural pools that fill up with the high tide that you can swim in
safely, except the tide was too high and the water too rough. It was a
beautiful walk though. We had two hours to kill for the tide to go down
before we could head back. We decided to park the truck and use the
shade it made to hide behind and make lunch. We made a small assembly
line in the back and put together sandwiches. We layed out for a bit
and digested before we headed out again. It was a real nice peaceful
moment that I think we will al remember as a peace before the storm.
Next we headed to Ely Creek. A cool creek that you can walk to the top
and float down. The water was colder and I didn't want to go in, but
they weren't having it and splashed me and then there was a sand fight
and then a rest. Vicky offered to drive when it was time to head back
to Base. We made Tricky sit with her to help her out w/the gears and
such. I was sitting behind him. We were a bit nervous since she wasn't
a registered driver, but it wasn't too far from base. We drove past a
famous shipwreck that has been there and hit a soft spot of sand. I
felt like I knew what was going to happen, but maybe my mind just has a
blip. I asked Vicky to slow down... off roading scares me. finished. We all pitched in and fixed it all up like
before and then asked about the
So two
main no nos on offroading on the sand is don't brake hard or at all and
no sharp turns. Both happened when we hit the soft patch...we were
heading to the water and then started to fishtail....one swerve then
another to correct it and then we flipped, twice. I remember the look
on her face and Tricky's just as we all knew we were going to flip. The
noise was so deafening... and then silence. What happened? I snap out
of it with a panic. Chaos. Lili is in front of me trying to squeeze out
the window, but can't fit. I try next... nope. Water is coming in the
car. Are we IN the water? I can't breathe.. She makes it out through
the broken back window.. I'm out too.. my inhaler is just there..under
the broken glass... I struggle to get it and use it. A mouthful of
sand. Then I see Marion come out... she seems functional and okay. I
look back in the truck and Simon and Tricky are out. Vicky is stuck in
the drivers side... people are helping ply her out. The brothers are
still sitting there... I look at them they notice me and start to take
their belts off and scramble out.They got Vicky ... she's okay. Anna is
in shock and crying someone is helping her.. the car behind us stopped to
help. Ours is upside down. Two tour busses drive past. I'm just lost.
Lili is covered in oil and scratches, but okay. Allen is walking around
with one shoe on.. I ask if he's okay ... maybe in shock? He's fine.
Tricky gives me a shirt to wear. I realize I'm shivering like crazy and
only in my bathing suit and sarong. In the car behind us was were two German boys, Alex and Max. Alex lent me a sweater.. and they both went on to grabbing what they could out of the truck and taking it back to camp. W were rinsing things in the ocean and then remembered there were jellies everywhere. The car was still upside down and my clothes were stuck in there. In the end Marion, Anna and Simon
were airlifted to the hospital. the worst was bruising and Simon needed stitces and had a minor concussion. Someone was watching after
us for sure. The tow guy came and flipped the truck over ... I crawled inside and grabbed my things.. a few things covered in oil that I had to call a loss. I saw a couple of jellies in there and got out quickly.... could you imagine surviving a crash like that to die by a stupid jelly sting? We had to give statements to the cop, whose license plate had 666 on it... scary. Since Vicky wasn't registered we listed Anna as the driver. I felt bad that she would have to tell everyone that she was the one driving and having to put up with the quiet judgements... Since the ferry didn't run at night we had to wait until the next day to get off the damn island. We started to talk like we were on Lost or something and stuck on an evil island. A tour bus offered us a ride, he was appalled to hear that two buses drove by without stopping. We had to camp... great. When we headed back all the other groups offered so much help and comfort it was lovely. They even offered us dinner, but we weren't hungry.... We had a couple of beers... some cookies and fruit. The others went on to drinking games and such, but we weren't feeling it completely. We headed to the beach... so many stars out. We sat and talked our hearts out. About how death never crossed our minds, how we all were lucky to have seatbelts, how if the back window didn't break on impact we'd have been stuck... how if it were the others they would have fallen apart... how we were in the right group... even if we crashed. It started to rain and we headed back.. the others were still awake. The camp wasn't putting on a curfew due to our accident. The boys stayed up and mingled, but the rest of us headed to sleep. Right as we were settling in the tent a shadow of a dingo walked around the outside. We three sat huddled and waited for it to leave before we could sleep. They look like sweet dogs, but they're so mean! The next morning we were told to wait for our ride. The other groups packed up and headed off to their adventures. We sat around until 1:00... waiting. Our ride, Chris, was a manager at the 4X4 place. He pulled up in the same car we rolled. Our faces dropped. None of us wanted to get back into that. He promised to drive slow and safe. We piled in. EVERY bump made my stomach turn. For the first twenty minutes the ride was all of us shooting looks to the others as to say 'help me' or 'are we going to be okay?'. Every now and again my arms would fly up.. my reflexes were tweaked.. my nerves were shot. Tricky started to laugh... he said instead of smacking Lili in the leg I should give him some attention too. Then it eased a bit.. we loosened our grips and our hands regained some color. We were off the beach and stopped for a snack. The rest of the road was also non paved, but it was only another ten minutes to the barge. We hopped back in and Chris took one sharp turn where the car lifted of two wheels and our hearts died a bit. We looked pale and scared and he appologized and chuckled a bit. Finally we made it to the ferry... and our wreck was being towed on too. I captured a few last images. Vrett a canadian dood from another group mentioned that there was still two cases of beer.... we looked at each other.. we didn't want it. I told him to help himself. He did. When back at Beaches in Hervey we were requested the same room. Marion, Anna and Simon were already in there when we arrived. We immidiately went to inspect them for ourselves. They were okay =) Lili, Marion and I made dinner... and the others headed off to the bar for our last quiet night together. We joined them for a few beers and stayed up until 2 chatting. Mariona and Lili took off at midnight to head down the coast further... we said our goodbyes and promised to meet up in Switzerland. Allen and Dave were off at 5 am and the rest went our ways by 10. I was a bit sad to say goodbye and head off alone, but it had to be done. We will always remember each other as: the camp trashing, dingo bashing, car crashing, group C.
Tags: Adventures
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