Left Hervey Bay & headed down to Rainbow Beach which is a very quiet little village I would think more than anything else a couple of hours South of Hervey Bay that is the other gateway to Fraser Island (most people do a self drive tour from Hervey Bay or Rainbow Beach) & the closest point from the mainland to Fraser Island. It is a mere 8km's of water between Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island. So you guys would therefore assume that I was in Rainbow Beach to head out to Fraser Island. In which case you would in fact be wrong as I prefer to go against the grain sometimes and do what the minority do which would be to do a guided tour from Noosa.
So I am actually just in Rainbow Beach to chill & hopefully minimise my less than attractive tan on my back as well as to attend a little boomerang workshop & paint my own boomerang. Unfortunately the weather was not the best so the tan option never happened but I did indeed paint my boomerang and what started off looking a bit yuck landed up looking pretty cool which is indeed an achievement for the un-arty one that is me. Although some of the girls made better ones than me I think mine suits me perfectly I am as pleased as punch with it. In fact, if it gets home in one piece I might even go so far as to put it up on a wall :-)
Noosa is a really lovely little town about 90 minutes South of Rainbow Beach on the sunshine coast that I really liked. Walking around the little town centre just gave me a really good feeling as I got when I was in Sydney. I am told that it is quite an upmarket town which is evident when one walks along the beach and down Hastings Street & I am also told that Hastings Street has the most millionaires in one stretch. I also had the absolute pleasure of bumping into a South African who sadly for me was travelling in the opposite direction but she is heading up to SE Asia next month & we are on Facebook so hopefully we will bump into each other up there.
Next destination Fraser Island which was my absolute without a doubt favourite place on the East Coast. We had the weirdest weather with it alternating continuosly between light rain & sun for the majority of the trip. As the rain was very light and the sun hot it wasn't much of a bother - more puzzled amusement than anything else. Ngari Island (this is the original Aboriginal name for Fraser Island) was truly magnificent. It is the largest sand Island in the world full of varied stunning lakes from red, to green to sparkling blue waters, rain forest, stunning sand dunes, beautiful beaches & ocean & wonderful little clear shallow creeks. We were lucky enough to visit all three types of lakes of which the most fascinating was the red lake Boomejin that looked the colour of tea & looked dark red & copper depending on the light. I was also part of a very cool group & being on a tour that meant sleeping in a hostel with nice beds and showers, having a sober driver/tour guide Brett who was as Aussie as they come, knew what he was doing when it came to driving a 4x4 (there are no tarred roads on Fraser), cooked us nyummy meals & we got to drive back to Noosa along the beach to see the coloured sands of Rainbow Beach up close & personal which just finished the tour off nicely. The big ugly revolting biting Marsh flies were exceptionally unpleasant although funny trying to get rid of them every time they landed but the tour was just exceptional. I think for me that it was so much better than self drive, camping tour would have been & I got back to Noosa invigorated and thrilled to have seen Fraser Island. In fact knowing what I know now given the choice between the Whitsundays & Fraser I would actually choose Fraser.
