Flew to Hervey Bay and got to the hostel which was quite nice with a pool. I was in a room with another English girl, Kate, who was really nice and also in my Fraser group. The meeting prepared us for what we had to do there, like tips on what to and what not to do regarding dingos (don't run away and never feed them!) etc. Ordered our alcohol, had pizza, yum, and watched Pulp Fiction, fab!
It was a self-drive thing and the next morning we got our 4x4 van and all the food, tents etc.and got tips on how to drive safely on sand (it's a sand island). There were 11 of us, 4 Germans, a Spaniard (or rather, Catalan), a Taiwanese guy, 2 Swedish girls and the 3 of us English girls. Bit of a sqeeze in the van. Driving on the tracks on Fraser was a tad bumpy to say the least, all sand, through rainforest, v. pretty indeed. Our first stop was Lake Mackenzie, absolutely beautiful, crystal clear fresh water lake of a deep blue, and soft white sand. My favourite place there actually. Had fun exploring with Helen, made our way to another shore where we interrupted a number of couples, oops, hehe. After lunch (theirs was frozen chicken drumsticks!! I didn't bother) Helen took her turn to drive so the three of us sat in front and had a good singsong. This time we had to drive on the beach which was more treacherous than the inland tracks and in fact we passed an accident - a 4x4 like ours had turned on its roof, the roof rack was somewhere else and it was crushed up to the windows, really damn scary. The driver got too close to the sea (which we're told not to do cos the salt damages the engine) so swerved too hard to compensate and yeah, flipped. Amazingly, no one was hurt badly. It was really horrible though and when a couple of the guys who I didn't exactly trust were driving too fast or something I just got visions of us doing the same thing, we'd been warned how dangerous it can be, terrifying. But we didn't. Phew. Anyway Helen did a really good job driving and on the way to the campsite we stopped at the Moheno shipwreck. I don't know the story of what happened to it, but there it is. The campsite we went to was run by Aboriginis, and we were supposed to have them dancing and playing the digeridoo and telling dream time stories, cept they weren't there, they were on the mainland doing a performance for some visiting person. Doh! There was only one young guy there, and when we went to ask him where to pitch our tents the house, and indeed the whole setting, was reminiscent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre apparently (i haven't seen it luckily). He was alright though, high as a kite, but nice enough. It took us a while to do the tents and stuff, well actually everyone else put theirs up like a well oiled tent pitching machine, but we (Helen, Kate and I) got a little confused, hehe. Anyway, by the time we were ready to cook dinner it was nearly dark so cooking was interesting! Fun though. Then we sat round the campfire, and Kate joined another group playing drinking games. Helen got bitten by something particularly vicious and yelled 'AIOW! AIOW! I've been bitten!!' But did anyone show an interest? Nooo. It was very funny. Not really though when it turned red and purply a couple of days later. The toilets.....shudder. I couldn't sleep, the ground was just too hard and owie and scary (someone'd nicely told me of a tarantula getting into their tent and them waking up to it...and then there were the snake warnings). So all in all, what with the no sleep, the gross toilets (like everyone was gagging from the smell), the threat of dangerous creatures and the oh so many bites from the irritating ones (21 bites in the space of about 5 inches on my heel, nevermind the rest) I confirmed my suspicion that camping is not for me. I was reassured that this particular campsite wasn't representative and usually they're much nicer. I might do it again in a different country (no deadly things around) and with a nice mat to sleep on but it wouldn't be my first choice for accomodation.
Day 2 and we drove to Indian Head - a view point of the sea and of a long sweeping beach reminiscent of Sandbanks in Dorset i thought! Supposedly you could see sharks and wales and stuff from there but it was pretty far up so I dunno. It was too hot for Helen and I to stick around and look for what may be sharks so we headed for the shade to wait for the others. But somehow we missed them and eventually started the loooooong walk along the beach to Champagne Pools. After a rest stop under some trees we went and had a look at them, they're pretty but the sun was too strong for us so we gave them a miss. We waited for the sky to cloud over a bit then trekked down the beach again heading for the car. By now there were some dodgy looking jellyfish washed up on the beach, blue ringed ones, and herds of migrating people. During lunch on the beach we saw a dingo, the only one i saw the whole time. Kate tried her hand at driving, then decided that was that so I had a go too. It wasn't easy but it was ok, I just went slowly cos the sand was really deep at that time of day. That night at the campsite we had much fun - a new group had arrived including 5 Irish girls who were a laugh. They'd invented a new thing: the no pants dance! Basically you're dancing, someone says 'pants down!' you pull your trousers down, after a bit 'pants up!' and ya pull em up!! Simple yet genius. We joined in playing 'no pants musical statues', hehee! I'd pilfered us a couple of matresses to sleep on so that was great, I did manage a lil bit of sleep til Kate got back to the tent and asked where Helen was - no idea! We'd lost her, very worrisome indeed...it transpired in the morning that she'd spent the night on the top of a 4x4! Good stuff.
Day 3 - BIG SCARY SPIDER by the door to the girls' shower....We made our way to Lake Wabbi, another trek to get there up sand dunes, neigh, mountains! But it was nice. Had a nice swim/paddle (there were fish and eels in there and didn't wanna venture too far out. We had an urge to do the Dirty Dancing lift (since it was a lake and all) but didn't quite manage it! Helen and I scared a couple of Americans with our fabulous singing - we were thinking of songs to sing in the van that'd annoy the others (we didn't get on that great with them). Did our own impression of what evolution looks like on the bank of the lake (think the Guiness add). Walked verrrry slowly back up the many many steps. We had an 'interesting' driving session from the Catalan, unfortunately Helen and I were in the very back of the van - much cause for shouts of 'AIOW!' as he went too fast over a bump and we flew 2 feet in the air - GRRRRR. It didn't help that he'd told us he's crashed 3 cars just from pure stupidity, we reallllly didn't want him to drive. And he was the only one who got stuck. We got marauded by more flies, it was definitely time to leave if only to escape them. It was great to be back on the mainland!!!! Had a great time in the supermarket, got a veritable feast (a reaction to being able to choose what to eat). Went out in the evening, trawled the esplanade for somewhere to have a drinky - a proper mission on a Sunday night in Hervey Bay!! Eventually found a hostel with a bar. Got toooo tired but had to wait ages for a taxi so hung out on the pavement - literally! Lay down on it and took photos, had a no pants moment. The locals thought we were crazy English girls, and yeah they're probably right but we had fun!
