Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Bethany in Australia 2006
Last week was the University Study Week so I took a big road trip up to Fraser Island. I went with 2 friends from Eau Claire, Val and Andy, Willow the Spansih guy and Porisa, a Sweedish girl. Andy and Porisa bought a car so we squeezed the five of us plus tons of gear (packs, tents, sleeping bags, food) into thier tiny little car. We left on Friday morning of last week and just got back last last night (Saturday). It was a great week!!!
Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It's about 6 or 7 hours north of here. Even though it is enitirely sand, a huge rainforest grows on it. The east coast is 95 miles of beautiful beach, but full of sharks, so we stayed out of the ocean. Fortunately, it also has fresh water lakes scattered all over it. As you'll see in the pictures, the water is so clean and clear- the best lakes I've ever swam in! The best way to do Fraser Island is in a 4 wheel drive truck. There are roads through the island to the different lakes and small towns or campsites, but they're only manoverable with the 4WD trucks. The island is also a National Park, so it's pretty much untouched excpet for the few sand tracks and a couple little towns. It was also only really discovered something like 70 years ago.
We made a couple stops on the way up to Fraser. First, I insitsted that we detour 6 kilometers to see the Big Pinneapple. Needless to say it was just a big pinneapple and an excuse to make money from dumb tourists. The first night we stayed in a town called Noosa which has a National Park right next to it. The hostel we stayed in supplied free kayaks so we paddled around the river and canals in the evening. The canals were like roads for these rich neighborhoods- the houses were enourmous and really fancy. When we went to the beach the next day we saw all the people that lived in them- middle aged, tan, good looking women with huge sunglasses, large hats, and designer bags, and their husbands sporting big shiney watches. I felt a little out of place. The National Park was very busy, but still good. We just took one of the trails along the coastline with lookouts over the ocean. We saw a whale and a bunch of speedos. That night we hit up the all-you-can-eat buffet at Pizza Hut (which we thought was a good choice, but turned out not to be) and camped in Hervey Bay.
This trip wasn't planned out very well, but thankfully everything went smoother then we could imagine. The day before we left we hadn't gotten reservations for a vehicle for the island, but we were able to rent a 4WD truck and get campsites easily last minute. Plus between the 5 of us, it wan't really that expensive at all. It was around 4 bucks to camp a night and 100 something for the truck each- totally worth it. We spent four nights camping at beach campsites. During the days we drove around to the different places. The first day we went to a couple of the lakes and played football almost all day in the water. Then we cruised up the beach. Beach driving is so much fun becuase we can just fly if the tide is low. Every once in a while, we'd have to cross through little creeks. The second day we took a 36 km track though the rainforest. It was so beautiful! The trees were enormous and so green. The road was really rough and bumpy though. When we finally got back to the beach we stopped at one of the bigger creeks for a swim and saw on old shipwreak. On the third day we forgot to wake up in time and the tide was already coming up too much, so wesat around and played A LOT of cards. Finally after lunch we booked it all the way up the coast until we couldn't go any further (the sand got too thick and we kept getting stuck, so we walked the rest) This was the best part of the trip. We climbed up a bunch of rocks that make a cliff out into the ocean called Indian Head. From the top, the view was the best I've ever seen and we could see below us fish, sea turtles, a whale, dolphins and sharks. It was absolutley amazing. I took a video of the 360 degree view. We saw a bunch of sharks surrounding a huge turtle and the dolphins riding the waves and catching fish. It could not have been better. We spent a long time here, but eventually kept walking up the coast to the next point called Champange Pools. It was a place within the rocks where the water splashed in and you could swim. We spent some time here too, but had to head back becuase it was getting late and we still had to go a ways back down the coast. Each night we made a campfire, roasted sausages and marshmallows and looked at the starts. We saw so many shooting stars. On the last day we went back to our favorite lake and just relaxed there sleeping, swimming and playing more cards (we played a lot of Uno). We caught the fairy back to Hervey Bay and went directly back to the Pizza Hut. Hervey Bay is a really boring town, so we spent about 2 hours at the buffet and just had a blast talking about out trip and eating ALL WE COULD EAT. Then we had some more dessert and camped again in that town.
We also took our time on the drive home because no one was looking forward to getting back to campus. I insisted that we take the scenic tourist drive through the glass-house mountains, but it wasn't much to see. We stopped breifly at the Australia Zoo just to see the Steve Irwin memorial. It was pretty impressive. People had stacked so many flowers and posters and letters for him and his family. Last, we spent much of the afternoon in Coolangatta. It's a ver nice, built up town that makes up the southern point of the Gold Coast with a great beach and view of the Surfer's Paradise skyline. After eating at another Pizza Hut (I'm done with pizza for life now) we watched the surfers for a long time and went to an outlet surf store. Everything was factory second clothes so they were dirt cheap. I bought a pair of board shorts, and the guys bought practically the whole store. We got home really late on Friday night and have plans to hike the nearby mountain, Mount Warning tomorrow.
I only have two more assingnments that are due in late October, so it's starting to feel like the semester is winding down, but at the same time I still have 2 big trips left too. I'm giong to miss the fall leaves and all the colors in Winona. It's still spring here and getting hotter and hotter everyday. Today it's already 80-some degrees.
- comments