As usual, the comfortable and efficient Greyhound bus took me on to the next leg of my journey: Rainbow Beach. This really is a very small town, apparently of little more than a thousand residents but boosted by the steady stream of tourists. The place gets its name from the different coloured sands around the beach, which range from very light yellow to a darker reddy-yellow. They're very pretty, especially at sunrise, but I think 'rainbow' might be a bit of an exaggeration. However, the Kabi (the indiginous tribe that lived in the area before the Europeans invaded) legend of how the sand came to be so colourful is much more interesting. Apparently the the dunes were coloured when Yiningie, a spirit represented by a rainbow, plunged into the cliffs after doing battle with an evil tribesman.
I stayed at a hostel called Dingos, which is almost entirely given over to getting people to Fraser Island. It's a nice, clean, friendly place with a tiny kitchen containing just four saucepans and four hobs. Two of those were broken while I was there so there was usually some queueing involved any time you wanted to cook.
In the evening, there was a briefing about the Fraser Island trip. There was over fifty of us going, split into groups of eleven. Each group would be assigned a van - basically an offroad minibus - which they could take it in turns to drive while all the luggage, tents, food, etc would be strapped to the roof. We were given slightly ridiculous advice on dealing with dingos (I am now 'dingo safe'. Oh yes) and very practical advice on bush toileting. This was to be Real Camping this time: no washing facilities beyond swimming in lakes, no toilets beyond taking a spade behind a tree.
We got everything packed and ready to go early in the morning. There was room for a driver and two passenger/navigators in the front, and four people on each side in the back. There was just about room for us each to hold a water bottle but not enough room for anyone's legs. We drove along in a strange convoy to the ferry and away to the island. You know what I was saying about reading in/appropriate books at in/appropriate times? I read Treasure Island a few weeks ago... I managed to restrain the worst of my 'yaarrr'ing though, and I can't really remember the tune to Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest anyway.
Pirating aside, Fraser Island is beautiful and off-roading is a fun adventure. A lot of the time we were driving on the beach, which was relatively flat, but sometimes we had to venture onto the inland 'roads'. These weren't even rough dirt tracks; they were barely tame sandunes. We bounced around all over the place, especially in the back. It really was a good laugh. As I say, it's a really beautiful place. A lot of it is covered in rainforest, the lakes are stunningly blue, and it's teeming with wildlife. Unsurprisingly it's a World Heritage site. It's also the world's largest sand island and there was certainly a lot of sand. It doesn't take long before you have sand everywhere: in your clothes, in your hair, in your nose and ears, in your tent, in your food...
We spent three sand- and adventured-filled days camping on the island. We visited Lake McKenzie and Lake Wabbi, both of which have to be seen to be belived; I'm not sure my pictures can really do them justice. Lake Wabbi will have completed disappeared within five years. It's slowly being filled in by, you guessed it, sand. We splashed around in Eli Creek and the Champagne Pools. We saw the wreck of the Maheno, which just sits on the beach quietly rusting away. We saw dolphins and whales from Indian Head, the whales happily jumping out of the water no great distance away. We didn't, however, see any sign of the numerous Tiger Sharks that inhabit the area but that's probably because no one was foolish enough to try swimming in the sea. We did wash up in the sea though, which was rather more fun than regular washing up. Turns out salt water and sand does the job pretty well without detergent. How environmentally friendly we were!
For the most part, we were pretty lucky with the weather. It did rain quite heavily during the second evening/night and we got a cracking thunder storm. Unfortunately, not everyone in the group is very good at putting up tents and unfortunately, I didn't think to check the tent I was supposed to be sleeping in. This unhappy combination let to me heading to the tent to go to bed only to find that the thing was flooded. Luckily nothing got wet that couldn't be dried out and I spent the night in the van. Due to other tent-related problems, five of us ended up sleeping in the van. It was pretty squished but dry and warm and I was tired enough to sleep anywhere by that point. Adventuring really does take it out of you.
The dingos should probably get a mention too. The video we watched at the briefing informed us to cross our arms across our shoulders should we feel threatened. I have no idea at all how that is supposed to help. The guy who organised the trips told us to stamp, clap and should "Go home dingo!", which seemed to work on the few occasions dingos came anywhere near us. Mostly, they didn't bother us at all but I do have one story to tell. On the last morning, there was a lone dingo on the beach that wandered over to the few people doing the dishes in the sea. They did the whole shouting and stamping thing, which brought others from the camp to see what was going on. Now, as soon as they left the camp, a whole bunch (flock? pack?) of dingos came from the other direction to try to scavenge some food until those of us who remained managed to scare them off. Now, there's no food or water on the beach and the first dingo didn't appear to be doing anything beyond wandering around drawing attention to itself. Those dingos really are tricksy little blighters.
One final point on Fraser Island: it wrecked my trousers. I hoped I'd just ripped them a bit but when I got back to Rainbow Beach it was clear they were beyond repair. I looked like I'd been attacked by a dingo. Still, I'd had such a good time that a pair of trousers seemed like a small price to pay. The only problem was that I travel very light and only actually have two pair with me to start with. This meant my trouser situation was critical and unfortunately, Rainbow Beach is so small that it doesn't stock such luxury items. Over-priced designer swimwear? Yes. Singing cuddly toy kangaroo toys? Yes. Trousers of any description at all? No. I considered fashioning some out of the over-priced swimwear and kangaroos but thought better of it.
But anyway I returned safe and sound to Rainbow Beach and spent another two pleasant, if un-trouser-ful nights at Dingos. On Hallowe'en I engaged in the spine chilling activing of... sea kayaking with dolphins. The kayaks were made by a company called 'Viking', much to my amusement (Odin! Guide our ships!), and pretty much unsinkable. It's the first time I've kayaked in the sea and it's a lot of fun, sort of like the boat equivalent off-roading. I saw only two dolphins fins in the two hours we were out and they were quite far away, but it didn't really matter. I was having so much fun paddling around that seeing any marine life became rather immaterial.
Anyhow, eventually my time in Rainbow Beach was done and it was time to head up the coast to Bundaberg, in the hope of finding work, and trousers...
