Next stop after Brisbane was Hervey Bay, which is the gateway to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. Hervey Bay itself is a bit boring but Fraser Island is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!

I was booked onto a 3day/2night camping 4WD package. On the Fri morning, the first day, we all had to be up at 6am for a briefing and to be put into groups. It was a self guided tour so the briefing covered things like how to survive, how not to get attacked by dingos, how to drive off-road, etc,etc. We also got given our vans and equipment and were shown how to pack it all up so everything fitted. Clearly my group did not listen as later that night we couldn't remember the correct way of loading the van so we ended up leaving one of our coolers out...and needless to say the dingos got at it!more on this later.

In my group I had two Irish guys, Declan and Ambrose, an English girl, Jemima and three Germans, the only one of which you need to know about was Patric- he was actually a mad man! Plus we had an extra member, mojo, a garden gnome who was travelling with Declan and Ambrose. I must admit he was a bit quiet at first but he proved very popular with all the other visitors to the island, a celebrity you might say!

The guys, Jemima and I all got on brilliantly, we did not get on so brilliantly with the Germans though! I mean we all got on fine with each other but by the end of it we could not wait to say goodbye to them- they were a difficult bunch i tell ye! Patric, who was 45, was quite frankly a bit creepy and he was also the craziest driver there! Everything had to be done his way (I know mum's laughing right now thinking i met my match, but really he took it to another level!) and he ate everything; 5 out of 9 steaks!

The German perculiarities and their obsession with eating (constanltly, i never saw them not eating!), however, did not get in the way of a fantastic trip. If anything i suppose it added to the trip as the rest of us could have a laugh and joke in private about it.

There were 3 vans that left on the Fri, and although our plan was to all stick together one of the vans b*****ed off the whole time. My van and another van did it all together though, which was cool as it meant another 7 people to tallk to and 2 more coolers of food to raid when the Germans had eaten us out of van and home.

Our first day on the island was spent at Lake McKenzie, which was absolutely stunning; white sand and turquoise water. That's it in the picture actually. We left the lake reasonably early to give us enough time to find a place to camp, set up, cook and eat all before it got dark. However, Patric wanted to drive and so what should have been maybe a 1/2 hour drive turned into nearly 2 hours, as he wanted to take the scenic route! On Fraser Island there is no un-scenic route!! And when you spend most of the time in the back clinging on for dear life anyway, you arn't paying much attention to the scenery! Anyway we finally found a good spot and did all the above in the dark. The rest of the night was spent around the fire playing games and talking whist sharing a box of Australia's finest goon! (no goon is fine, its the wine in a box!) The goon turned it into a rather eventful night, with a drunken Patric chasing dingos and Ambrose managing to throw up in one of the tents! Also, as i said, we left one of our coolers out, so in the morning we woke to find the dingos had eaten a whole tub of butter, a whole block of cheese and a loaf of bread; bascially they had some cheese sandwiches! To add to this, Declan let slip to one of the Rangers that this happend and so we nearly got fined, but some Irish charm saved the day, thank God!An eventful night you might think, but that was nothing compared to our 2nd night!

Our 2nd day was spent exploring the island and visiting the various points of interest, but i won't go into too much detail as the pics (when i put them up) speak for themselves. What you really want to hear about is our 2nd night!

It started off well as we managed to find camp, set up, cook and eat all before it was dark this time-woo hoo! But that was the last of the smooth running! As we were sat around talking and drinking again it started to rain; not a problem, we just tied one of the waterproof sheets for the tents to the van and a tree. However, the sheet had holes in and as the rain turned into a storm we all ended up getting soaked anyway. So Declan, Jemima and I ended up making a dash for our tent (Declan was in with us now since we were a tent down). We couldn't get the zip open at first so we spent a few more seconds in the rain; Declan fumbling with the zip, me screaming "get it open, get it open!" and no doubt putting Declan off so delaying us even more! When we did finally get it open we literally dived in head first........only to land in a puddle a the bottom of our tent, which unforutanely, Jemima's sleeping bag was sitting in the middle of! I suggested that we unzip the other two and share, but when I saw that Declan and Jemima fitted under the one I concluded that there was no need for me to share!haha So Jemima and Declan ended up having to share not only a sleeping bag but also a mat too, damm that pole in the middle of the tent sepearting me from them!haha!

We did try to sleep, but a combination of having to sleep with our knees bent to avoid the puddle, the howling noise of the rain and shaking of our tent meant it was impossible to. Then, the top it all off, about 2 hours in......our tent collapsed on top of us! It was ok though, beacause as Declan scurried around in his boxers trying to re-erect it and put the waterproof sheet back on (obviously getting soaked in the mean time!), Jemima and I stayed nice and dry in the tent and also managed to get some cracking pics of it all!haha! By the time Declan got back, us girls had decided to abandon ship and join Ambrose in the van; the look on Declans face was priceless!

So we spent the night 'sleeping' in the van. I was stretched across the passsenger and driver seats with the handbrake in my side, Jemima and Amborse we stretched out on the benches in the back, and poor old Declan was squished up top where all the luggage went! None of us cared where the Germans were!

Needless to say, we all got the early ferry back the next day! Inspite of all the disasters, however, it was actually a brilliant trip. Infact, we all agree that the rain ended up making the trip as we just spent to whole night laughing!