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My trip to Fraser Island departed on the Saturday morning but we were asked to stay at the Kookaburras backpackers the night before as well as we got into groups and organised our insurance and bottle shop goodies for the trip!! I endedup in a group with 3 Irish Girls, 2 English girls and a couple who were from Australia and Bermuda. So thats 7 girls and just the one boy! Poor Ian!!! (He coped very well!!) We seemed to be the groupo that had the least trouble getting organised as we had lots of drivers (only 2 of us didn't) and we were repayed for our organisation skills when we got the only 4x4 truck with a working radio the next day!! Niamh had her ipod and thing to connect it to the radio too so we werent without any tunes either which was great!
On the first day we had an early start where we had to check all our camping equipment and load up the trucks, heading off on the ferry at about 10.30am. The driving on the Island was very much off-roading style wiuth no real roads and mostly sand to have to drive on with a few bits of wooden boarding to help the 4x4s get up steep tracks! Pleased I wasn't going to have to drive at this point but I would think that most of you reading this would have loved it! Our first stop on the Island was at Lake Mckenzie which is what the photo above is of - it was amazing, clear turquoise water and white sand. We all went in for a swim before lunch. The whole Island is sand - in fact Fraser is the largest sand island in the world and is pretty impressive. We drove up the beach that runs the whole of the east coast of the island and found a good camping spot for the night. One of the other 4x4s fro Kookaburras stopped with us too which was good (there were three trucks from the same hostel in total) I also saw Guilia from my sailing trip and Steve from mission beach on the ferry which was nice :)
The evening passed pretty comfortably with us sitting around and drinking our boxes of goon (v.cheap wine!) which certainly helped me sleep later on! It was lovely to wake up on Sunday morning to the sound of the sea and the view of it over the beach as soon as I stuck my head out of the tent! The sea at Fraser is a strictly no go area as its a breeding ground for sharks. Many stories were told of people who thought they'd risk it only to see large triangular fins follow them as soon as they got in so i was sticking to lake swimming! Sunday morning was actuallly pretty grim weather wise with high winds and rain (we later found out ther'd even been shipping warnings out on the area!) It was also out full day of sight seeing which was a shame! The day before Anne gad driven the truck into a wash out on the beach pretty fast and we were paid back by it overheating on the way up to Indian heads! Indian Head is supposed to offer amazing views over the sea with sharks, rays and dolphins visible but we only saw three rays and were nearly blown of the heradland in the process!
We also walked up the the champagne pools (well most of the group-Liv, Anne and I stayed back to find a sattelite phone with which to tell the boss about the car problem!) Still when everyone got back the pictures they showed us were pretty dismal so i wasn't too bothered about missing out. We then went back down the back to the Maheno shipwreck and the pinacles and Eli Creek boardwalk - three more sighseeing opportunities. Got some good shots especially at the shipwreck, before driving on back to where the other two groups were setting up camp for the night. Took us ages to set up as the tents were a bit rubbish with too long poles!! but we got there in the end - was much easier the day before when there was no wind or rain!! Saw our first Dingo that night as well - think he came to see what all the noise was about!
The following morning dawned much brighter and we set out to walk across the sands inland to lake wabby. we were expecting something along the lines of lake McKenzie but instead got a rather sludgy green lake which smelt quite a lot! A bit of an anti-climaxto say the least. We all went in for a swim anyway as we still hadn't been to any camp grounds with showers so it was as clean as we were getting!! Theirish rolled down the dunes into the lake which was funny but then it started to rain again so I just stayed at the top taking photos!! We then went off for lunch and to catch the ferry at 2.30pm.
Got back and cleaned out the 4x4's and our cooking gear before reaching Kookaburras at about 5ish. We were happy to get an en-suite room (I don't think i've ever enjoyed a shower so much in my life!!) Had tea outside with Liv and Claire the english girls, they were setting off on the 6am greyhound the next day and I was off to stay with Roy and Jacqui (Friends who've moved out from Ilfracombe a year ago)...
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