If some days before
we were in the epitomy of relax roasting in the sun while laying in the deck of
the Habibi around the Whitsundays, the experience of Fraser Island is the
absolute opposite.
The thing goes as
such, if you want to visit this wonderful island in a rock-bottom budget style.
You book a tour with any of the thousands of Fraser Island operators in Hervey
Bay or Rainbow Beach. They make groups of 10 with all the budget-conscious
backpackers (fashionable label, by the way) and pack them into steel-hard four
wheel drives, a very bad map and a list with suggestions of places to visit.
And that’s it thank you very much.
And of course, I
very much bet that this combination can result in the worse holiday experience
of your life. I can think about many reasons on the top of my head: the group
you are packed with is horrible; you can’t agree on what to eat; you don’t like
dirty experiences; you can’t stand the cold; you can’t stand the hot; you don’t
like mosquitoes; you are afraid of
driving in uneven surfaces; your driver thinks he is Fittipaldi; you happen to
drive into one of the many washouts along the beach; your cars gets painfully stucked in the sand; you are not aware of the
dramatic tidal changes, … And that was without even thinking.
Ahumm… and of
course, you decide to move your arms frantically while screaming in front of a
dingo.
But in our case,
happy and lucky people as we are, nothing like that happened. No doubt the
thing was dirty, fast, packed and sometimes conflictive, but the sense of
adventure derived from it made it an absolute success.
I need to say that
in our group, besides the 3 catalans we were (my two friends and me) there were
also three basque guys. Some of the few spanishies that I’ve met this year in
Australia (in August there were many more, I must say), what made things
funnier for us and I guess unfunnier for the rest of the group.
Things about the
island: is packed of backpackers. Many of them. And the idea of putting
hundreds of backpackers in a party mood driving hundreds of cars they don’t
even know how is a bit savage. On top of that, is not that many places to go,
so everything is packed. But it is fun, once you get over it.
Second. Is full of
fisherman. Damn! How many fisherman!! But this is good because they spend
several days and they fish much more that they can ever think about eating, so
they are extremely generous with their fish. Australia is an absolute paradise,
for fisherman, and they really liven up the myth of going fishing with the
mates at any possible occasion.
On top of that, some
factual information: Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world.
This means that is all full of sand. The tracks are sandy and all the
attractives have something to do with sand. The Indian Head (which is a rock),
the lakes Wabby and Mackenzie or the Rainbow Valley are good examples of
fantastic places in a strange environment.
If you have the
chance, you should definitely go. In spite of the dingoes and all.
