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Because we caught the coach in the morning we arrived in the evening this time. It was another long coach journey but this time we had to deal with the sun light. It wasn't great, we all needed to catch up on sleep so when we arrived we were all still knackered. The evening we arrived we had a meeting with the company that would be kitting us out for our self drive 4x4 tour on Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world.
We met the boss Alan, who gave us a 2 talk on what was going to be happening, do's and donts etc, basically all the safty stuff. He was dead serious and shouted at anyone who wasn't listening. This was good because it was quite a serious talk and we had to know what was what. There had been deaths this year on Fraser Island in other companies that run a similar tour because the necessary safety talks were not done correctly or at all. The company we were with, Dingos, had the best safety record and were known as the best company to go with. After watching some funny / serious video about do's and donts on the island Alan told us to ignore most of it, its just the government being the government, for example if your approached by a group of dingos (yes the islands full of wild dingos) don't do what the video says and cross your arms and walk backwards, scare it off by banging and shouting at it!
We still had to pick groups and Kel and Kev still didn't know if they were in yet. Finally just before we got to pick groups they were told 2 spaces were left!! Pretty lucky and awesome that they could come in our group. We put our names forward as a group and were given 4 more to fill the jeep. Everyone had a group of 10 now. The 4 others were girls from the UK too so it turned out that Tuan was the only one not from UK haha but he loved it really! After groups we had to do alcohol shopping, food was set for us already as part of the price. It was awesome, we just had to give Alan our shopping list and they would get it all for us! Everything was set, the next day we were off. We had a few drinks with the group and had an early night.
The next morning we woke up to rain rain rain L Fraser Island was meant to be seen in the sun. We were all a bit gutted at first but our group turned out to be wicked and we all necked some coffee and said screw it, we'll just make it the best it can be. We had another 1 hour meeting with Merve who was going to run through the jeeps with us and explain how they all work etc. We were given Toyota Land Cruisers, they were big old beauties and looked like they could handle off road no trouble. Merve was a funny guy, he looked a tad crazy but good crazy if ya know what I mean. He loved using the words "no drama, too easy, fair dinkum" and kept putting together little rhymes that would stay in our head about safety ha… it worked!
The weather on Fraser Island was pretty bad and Merve was in radio contact with the ferry company who were out on the crossing. The trip was on the verge of being cancelled and it was advised that we shouldn't go anymore but Merve asked what we all thought and all 60 of us still were up for it, Awesome! In the backs of our jeeps were all our kit, food , drink , stove, cooking stuff etc. We had to pack it. We were given a diagram of how to pack and told to get to it. It was still peeing with rain but all of a sudden everyone just got excited and the rain no longer bothered us. We plugged our ipod into the radio cranked up the rock and got to it, I jumped up on the roof and everyone passed the stuff to me while I tried to pack it all onto the roof rack. We were first to finish and went back in for some more coffee, job done!
We were now waiting anxiously for Merve to say that the ferry company would allow us to cross. We were meant to leave at 9 and at about 11am we got the call and everyone jumped in their vans and followed Merve to the crossing. We got down to the beach where the ferry picks you up from and could barely see the island through the weather. The ferry looked pretty hard core, it just came flying into the beach and dropped a ramp down. We all had to reverse up the ramp onto the ferry and then we set of through the channel to Fraser Island. The ferry was thrown all over the place, the waves were huge crashing over the sides and making us feel like the jeeps were going to slide around. We made it to the other side and again straight into the beach and the ramp was thrown down, it was like one of those army boats you see when they deploy troops in beach landings. We all drove off and followed Merve to our first stopping spot, a small village near Lake Mckenzie. Kev was driving the first stage with me as co-pilot and everyone else on the back bench seats. It was truly off road because of the fact, there were no roads. It was really bumpy but the jeeps were great, although everyone in the back didn't seem to like it. I would find out later why. We came of the track onto the beach where we had to drive along to get to our stop. The sea was insane, huge waves crashing into the beach, you really didn't want to swim, you wouldn't be able to withstand the power…plus the fact here are lots of sharks around this area.
We finally got to the settlement and Merve said his good byes and left us to our own devices. Our first task was to find somewhere to set up camp, oh yes I forgot to mention the trip is 3 days, 2 nights. We drove towards an area where we could camp and it was my turn to drive. We were now heading inland from the beach and straight away the track became a really rough muddy, boggy, holey challenge. The weather had completely wrecked the roads but I was looking forward to the drive as it was going to be some proper off road driving. Kev was my co-pilot and we just powered through all the sand and mud one section at a time. These trucks were awesome, loads of power to pull you through with huge off road tyres. In front of us we could see one of the other groups not looking in good shape, the people in the back looked scared and the driver didn't look like he knew what he was doing and it wasn't too long before they got stuck…great. Now we were all in a traffic jam when we were the only cars around. After a while of rocking back and forth he manged to get the jeep out and we carried on. These crazy off road tracks that were really hard core in terms of having to know what your doing to get through were what we drove on for the rest of the trip as well as the beach.
We finally got to our camp ground but the gate was closed with a sign saying "closed due to bad weather", great one, now we were stuck and the storm was about to hit. We had a quick look at the map and saw park area that said no camping. We had a discussion between to groups and decided to go there anyway, a storm was coming and no one was around, we would just clean up after ourselves. Everyone else just followed us which made us the leaders of the whole lot of us now which was kinda cool but also annoying because everyone kept turning to us for answers on what to do next, it was like being the tour guide! We got to the open area and saw that there was a sheltered area that was perfect for everyone to fit under for the evening while we cooked. We parked up and decided what the plan was. Everyone was just waiting for us to decide! They didn't look to impressed with the weather but we just wanted to eat so we jumped out and unloaded our stuff and ran it down to the shelter. I set up all the kit while the others helped get the rest of the gear. Me and Kelly started preparing the food, she told me she was a bit of a cook so I decided to see what she could do. Dingos had given us a load of food with instructions on what to make and how to make it. On the menu for night one was steak!! Wicked!
I prepared veg and everything while Kelly did the cooking and told me what to add and when to add it. She was making some kind of funky potato tomato sauce. While we were doing this the other 4 girls that we joined to our group were setting up the tents in the rain and sand, I was impressed, I thought they were going to be girly girls who didn't want to muck in but they did and they did it well, we had the best group in my eyes at this point, everyone was on the same wavelength and just wanted to have a good time.
Dinner was almost done and the others got all the alcohol ready and cutlery. We were first finished with a pretty decent meal. Steak with some really nice potato tomato and veg sauce. Everyone else was dipping bread into jam twiddling their thumbs but when they saw us sit down with our grub and open a can of nice cold beer they soon started to try and set up their cooking equipment. Soon everyone was cooking and the atmosphere had lifted, everyone was enjoying themselves I think, well, at least our group was. When everyone had finished we washed and cleared up ready for some drinking games. We started of just our group but soon got our whole table playing. It was great, our group felt pretty chuffed that we had managed to get everyone having a good time from the look on their faces earlier.
Later on in the evening after it had all died down a small group of us were left and we started to play some guitar and have a sing. I started chatting to Kelly a lot more and we got on really well. She was a good looking lass with a down to earth mind. We found we had loads in common and in fact she was a singer in Sydney, mainly jazz which was real cool. She was learning to play the guitar and when she found out that I played I think I got some points ;)
We went to check on our tents before we went to sleep and found that they were completely flooded, usually I would have been pretty pissed but it didn't bother us, we went back and carried on chatting for a bit until it really waqs time to go to sleep. Now we had to try and figure out what to do. Me and Kelly decided it would be a great idea to try and sleep in the jeep so we went back up to where they were parked and tried to find somewhere. Someone was already in our jeep!! It was pretty funny so we decided to test all the other jeeps, we finally found one with some room and jumped in. We had no covers but it was warm enough. We were sharing with anotherguy who will be known as Scottish from now on. He was a funny lad and obviously had the same brilliant idea as we did.
The next morning we were up at silly o clock, cant remember what time exactly but it was bleeding early. We walked back down to the shelter and got the stove on the go ready to cook up some bacon and eggs yum! Slowly people emerged out of their tents not looking impressed, they were soaked. Everyone said they slept in a puddle! We laughed a little bit but didn't let them see.
Our destination today was Lake McKenzie which is supposed to be amazing. After breakfast, packing everything away and cleaning all our litter we hit the road, once again everyone following us. It was Tuans turn to drive now and more crazy off roading waiting. It was my turn in the back and now I understood the looks on their faces that first day. You get thrown around all over the place and get a very sore ass within a few minutes but it was all part of it and you had to laugh to get through it.
We arrived at Lake McKenzie and got changed into our swim stuff, well, the girls did, the boys were already in shorts ready to rock and roll. We walked down the steps, the weather still not that great but it wasn't raining at least and when we got to the bottom we were presented with the most beautiful lake I've ever seen. The colour and the sand and the trees….it was incredible. You have to see it in person, the pictures I took don't do it justice. The sand was silica sand once again and was so fine that we were told to brush our teeth with it! Well….we did and we washed everything else too. Me kev and tuan all had a shower with the sand and then rinsed off in the lake. It was crazy, I felt nice and clean afterwards. The water was so clean and clear, it was like the sea with no salt, you could open your eyes and it felt nice. The water had tea tree oil in it and made your hair feel soft. It was one of the best shower / baths id had since travelling. We played around for a few hours and took loads of pics with my underwater camera! (once again, great investment) before getting out and drying off. We wanted to stay all day but we had things to see and do. Our next stop was the ship wreck which sounded pretty interesting.
It was Kelly's turn to drive, I was a little worried but she did really well and no one knew the difference. It took a while to get back onto the beach but then it was just straight all the way to the wreck. We had to watch out for "wooptidoos" and "washouts" - wooptidoos being where the beach rises and falls in quick succession, like speed bumps but very hard to see until its too late, too late meaning everyone will probably bash their head on the roof and the suspension on the jeep with break. Washouts were where creeks from inland find the sea and where they appear the sand is washed away so there is a sudden drop. These have to be driven over slowly and carefully otherwise you'll probably break the suspension or get stuck in the sand. On the way up we drove past what looked like a turtle on the beach so we jumped out to take a look and found it was a fish head!! This thing was huge, check the pics, it had been attacked by a shark, you could see where the body had just been ripped away, then as we were about to get back in the jeep its eye moved and it kept blinking at us, errrr, not nice, how it was still alive i do not know but we couldnt do much for it so we had to just leave the poor b*****. We arrived at the wreck and it was really cool, a massive wreck right there on the beach with waves crashing all around it. We walked up to one of the port holes, had a look inside and saw lots of crabs. When the swell went out you could see the whole thing. As a joke I said shall we see if we can run round it next time the swell goes out, before id even finished Tuan was off, Kev said at this point imagine if he just disappeared into a hole in the sand and at that exact point Tuan just vanished up to his chest into a big dip in the sand covered by the water. He decided it best to turn around and come back rather then drown which was probably the best decision.
After the wreck we headed further up to find a sleeping spot for the night. There was a village marked on the map that apparently we could stay at so he headed there and found a pretty nice patch, we all started setting up our tents when the owner of the village section came over and told us we couldn't stay unless we paid, this was a bit annoying but we didn't let it bother us and packed up and said we'll find somewhere else, I think they just wanted money but we werent falling for it. I remembered on the way up there were some sheltered areas behind the dunes so I said I was heading back there and whoever wanted to join us can. In the end 3 decided to follow the others paid the money to stay in the place. There were 4 jeeps now including us heading back down the beach to find the spot we saw earlier. We finally found it and again our group had the idea of how to set up camp. I know I keep going on about it but I really do reckon our group made the trip what it was for a lot of people J We arranged the jeeps into a V shape with the narrow end pointing at the wind. This gave us shelter for us to set up our tents. We then got our tarps and spread them across the roofs which gave us cover from the rain even though it wasn't raining it gave us a feeling of being sheltered and actually kept us warm.
We cooked up dinner, again a lovely meal that Kell made and had a notehr night of fun and games although this time we were visited by a few packs of dingos, we did what was asked and scared them off, no drama! In the morning we packed up early as we wanted to head back to Lake McKenzie. We packed up and got ready to go but then realised that the tide was in so we couldn't go anywhere. We had to wait till 10ambefore we could move so we just chilled for a while.
Finally we got on the road, or beach if you like and headed back to McKenzie with plans to stop at Eli Creek on the way. Eli Creek is supposed to be lovely and refreshing and very cold. This was my morning shower. Only 2 groups decided to take a look, us and Scottish's group who we had become good friends with by now. We got there and tested the water, ooooo it was cold, we walked up the board walk to the top section and me, kev and tuan threw ourselves in! ya soon got used to the cold and we let ourselves float back down to the washout area and then jumped back in the van. Everyone else was heading back to the ferry but we thought we could make it back to Lake McKenzie so we split off and went back to have some more fun. We left at 3:30 and had to be back at the ferry for 5 which gave us ages to get back…so we thought. Half way from the lake we got stuck behind a fellow jeeper from another company who had managed to get themselves stuck. The lads jumped out and stared rescue proceedings, digging around the tyres and placing wood etc to give the jeep grip but this didn't help as they had not switched the LSD (limited slip Diff) to lock so the other wheel just span. We didn't have toe straps given to us as they also got broken in the past but luckily another tourist drove past who did and managed to pull the stranded out the mud. We carried on way with the weather getting worse. By this point we were really stretched for time so we had to pick up the pace a little but safely as we could.
We got back to the entry track and headed down towards the ferry. We got the beach at 5:10 and couldnt see the ferry…uh oh. Looks like we were spending another night on the island. Funnily enough no one was that bothered, we were getting used to the rough life style haha but just when we were deciding what to have for dinner we noticed a white blob through the rain getting closer, it was the ferry! Woop woop. After 15 mins the ferry landed and we drove on, the only car on board, the skipper didn't look impressed and told us Alan etc were pretty pissed at us. We thought we had until 5 to get the ferry but apparently it was 3. We were certain Merve told us 5 so that was our case. We put together a story of why we were a bit late and all got it remembered ready to tell Alan.
We got off the other side, filled up the jeep with petrol and headed back to Dingos garage where Alan was waiting. We got out ready to explain our story and Alan smiled and said "so how was it?" we told him how much fun we had and he was so happy and laughed at us saying we could have stayed an extra night if we wanted. We couldn't believe it, we told him we thought he was pissed at us but he said he reckons were the best group he's ever had, the fact we all came back smiling even though the weather was terrible and saying how much fun we had made his day. He told us all the other groups had come back looking fed up and miserable. Again, told ya we had the best group ;) That night we celebrated with more drinks and went for a walk around Rainbow Beach area. Kell and I carried on our chatting, got a bit closer and it looked like Kel and Kev were going to stick with us for he rest of the trip J. Secretly I was happy but I couldn't let her know that could I! Not yet anyway :p
Next stop Brisbane!
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