Early start this morning, quick shower and piece of toast before a 7:20am pick up outside the hostel for the eagerly awaited "cool dingo" tour of Fraser island.

Fraser island is just off the east coast of Hervey bay in Queensland. The aboriginal name for the island is "gutti" which translates to paradise...pretty understandable when you get there! The island became known as Frazer after captain james Fraser and his wife Eliza were shipwrecked there, the captain got in some kinda of dispute with the native "buchula" community (something about him refusing to carry firewood I think) and was promptly speared in the shoulder and died a few days later, Eliza however was cared for by the buchula people and eventually ended up in the hands of some escaped convicts living on the island who took pity on her and took her back to the mainland and all the way down to sydney. When Eliza arrived in Sydney locals also took pity on her and raised money for her fare home. Eliza became well known back in England when she was charging 6pence at speakers corner in London for people to her her tale of shipwreck and a mysterious island full of tall trees she had never seen before. It seems that Eliza may have began to exaggerate slightly and was later deemed insane and sent to and asylum.

Fraser island is the world largest sand island and is now a national heritage park, there are no tarmac roads so you have to travel round on foot or in 4x4 vehicles across the sand highways.

We arrived and jumped aboard the cool dingo bus with our fellow tourists, there was 15 of us and a really nice bunch!

First stop was the subtropical rainforest...not the first thing you expect on a sand island! While we were walking through Katie felt something on her foot, a leech! How exciting! It was pretty fat so had obviously had a good old serving of her blood and I had to get it off with a stick, for future reference we learnt that you should burn then off because then they let out some chemical which stops you from bleeding. She was okay and said it didn't hurt too much though.

Next stop, lake mckenzie, one of the most photographed places in the world, understandable when you see the fine White sand and crystal clear waters, I took my fair share of snaps! The water is also amongst the purest in the world and is apparently really good for your skin, we dived straight in and spent a good hour swimming about.

I lost a contact lens in the lake so could only half see the rest of the afternoon but we drove across the island bumping and at times pretty much flying over the sand!

Got to the resort and were given the keys to our lodges, most of the group were in our lodge and we spent a couple of hours sat out on the balcony exchanging travel stories and headed down to the dingo bar for dinner and drinks.

Spent the rest of the night enjoying the local "goon" (cider wine type stuff)

Brilliant day. More fun tomorrow.

Over and out

Han x