After the Gatton Incident, I made my way back to Brisbane for a couple days to collect myself and decide what my next step should be. A friend of mine has told me all sorts of stories about a little town up the coast called rainbow beach, and that's where I decide to head. As to the Brits, Lucy decides to spend some time with a friend of hers that lives in the city, and Luke decides to come with me to Rainbow.
The place has definitely lived up to the hype, I've been here for almost a week now, and I've loved every second of it. This is a small town nestled in the rainforest next to miles of sandy beach. The hostel where I'm staying is a pretty sweet spot with a pool, hammocks, a bar and gets a whole new set of backpackers every day. The town serves as a jump off point for people heading to Fraser island, a UNESCO heritage site less then 100km north of here. Its supposedly a gorgeous island with a 75mile long beach, rainforest growing right on the sand and pristine freshwater lakes. To all this good there are only a couple of downsides: the cheapest way to see it is around $300 and involves piling in a 4x4 jeep with 7 other people and then traveling in a caravan of 3-4 more jeeps with a guide in the lead car. Maybe if I find some work I'll do it, but I'd much rather try to explore it with a bit of a smaller group.
Next to the town is a National park and I've already done a 30k hike to a lighthouse on a far point. Got some great shots of that and of the Carlo Sandblow, which is a giant sand dune on top of a cliff that is slowly blowing inland and burying all the trees in its path.
While this has been a great week, the job front is on the wane. I'm having a lot of trouble finding work of any sort. I'm at the point now where at the end of this week I'm going to pull one of my backup cards and volunteer on a farm for a few weeks, In return for 4-6 hours work 5-6 days a week I'll get accommodation and food provided. Not quite the income that I need, but at the very least I wont have any more expenses while I'm there. That and I to learn about farming, and since part of the work is building a new stable for a rapidly increasing number of horses, I really hope to get some of horseback riding in.
Stay tuned for some shots of the area.
