Fraser Island
Trip Start
Jul 03, 2006
1
27
71
Trip End
Jul 14, 2007
Rainbow Beach, Australia
Monday, December 18, 2006
The next day we left the hostel in Rainbow Beach and headed to Fraser Island. The first day we managed to see both Lake Mackenzie and Lake Wabby. The latter was probably my favorite! You could roll down the sand dunes straight into the water. I did somersaults down the dune twice. The first time I rolled over my clothes and phone and the second time I finished of with a perfect dive into the water. Later I've heard that doing so can be rally dangerous and many people have hurt themselves doing it but luckily nothing happened to me. Lake Mackenzie was beautiful with its white sand all around. I swam across it and walked back. Swimming took much longer that I expected but it was something I just had to do.
Later that night when we were looking for a campsite on of the girl irritated the hell out of me and the rest of the group. We had made plans to camp together with another group and we decided to meet up at a particular campsite but this girl was not happy at all about this. She briefly knew one guy from another group and insisted that we should drive around the island just to look for him and camp there. We all thought it would be bad manners not to show up where the other group might be waiting and it was late and getting dark so we needed to find somewhere to camp. We ended up just stopping at the first campsite we saw that was free and later the other group came driving on the beach so we waved at them and told them that there were a spot here. This girl continued to boss around the rest of the trip and that was really annoying! We ended the night with some beers. Me and Nick went over to the other group while the rest stayed while Erik was playing guitar. In the other group there happened to be three girls that I saw on the bus from Cairns to Townsville that also stayed at the same hostel as us on Magnetic Island. It's strange all the people you see over and over again but never talk to.
The second day we started of by going to Eli Creek for a ride down with the current. Then we went as far north as we were allowed to go to Indian Head lookout. From up there you can see sharks swimming in the water and all sorts of things if you are lucky. We only saw I big Manta Ray which were cool, but seeing a shark would have been awesome! Today we could only drive until 15:00 because of the high tide so we had to leave and find a campsite. On the way back we got stuck in the sand and two local guys in a pickup stopped and helped us. Someone said we owe you guys a beer, but more about that later. We found ourselves a good campsite so we started making dinner and then started drinking again. Late that night these two guys show up in their pickup again and said that they had been looking for us all over the beach. One of them was a true Aussie! He had the biggest accent ever and he told me he had been overseas three times, one time to Kangaroo Island, one time to another island on the east coast and now this time to Fraser Island. I guess it counts as overseas if you have to take a ferry to the place, even if it's still in the same country! They brought a big barrel and wood and soon we had a fire going. It was a nice night.
Last day we went to the Maheno shipwreck and took some photos. We decided to head back to Rainbow Beach early and clean our car before the other groups got there and it would get all busy. We stopped at Eli Creek once again and went for a swim before we drove back.
I had been trying to call Premier, our bus company, on the island but there were no signal so I couldn't get hold of them. When I called as soon as we got back to mainland they said that the bus tomorrow was full so we would have to stay here a bit longer. They had one seat the day after so I took that but Erik had to stay one more night. There is nothing to do in Rainbow Beach! It is small and has a population of around 1000 so I did not want to stay here one day more than I have to.
The following and last evening we went to Carlo Sandblow which is a big sand dune. The hostel drives there every night and we thought they would pick us up as well but no, so I stood there waiting for 45 minutes before I started walking home. It took about half an hour. I had no idea where to go but I managed to find my way home after all. A bit later a girl that works here took me, Erik and Nick down to the beach to watch the stars. It was not as good as on Fraser Island but still good. Oh I forgot to tell about the night sky on the island. It was incredible! The sky was clear and you could see so many stars, so many stars it was absolutely unbelievable.
Tomorrow I'm finally leaving this town and going to Noosa to see Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo.
