Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Okay, so I'm going to attempt to write up our time in Hervey Bay, and our Fraser Island Self-Drive Camping 4x4 tour!... bear with me cuz it was about 6 days or something ago now…So basically after Whitsundays boat trip, we headed for Hervey Bay where our self drive tour left from. We arrived at our hostel 'Palace' (hardly, but decent anyways), dropped our bags and checked in with the nice and very friendly guys in reception, bit full on but it was nice to have a laugh. Our room was okay, a 4 share, two other girls already in there, so we dumped our bags and pretty much headed to the pool. At the pool we met Emma, a girl from Scotland, so wondered if we might be with her tomorrow on the self-drive cuz she said she was doing it too, however, so were about another 30 people so it was hit n miss. We had a bit of a sunbathe by the pool and a dip, then I think, we went and grabbed some supermarche' action and made some tea. There was an all you can eat $10 dominos pizza night on, but me and Sam resisted… well not entirely true… we did resist, and made our jacket spuds (which took forever cuz there was no microwave like we are used to these days) but then got talking to a girl whose name escapes me I the TV lounge well we wrote our journals like geeks, and she basically kept running off n bringing us pizza, so in the end we actually had tea, and THEN all you can eat pizza, bad, very bad. I blame whitsundays for feeding us so much! Lol.So, I don't think we got up to much that night, if we did its not worth talking about now cuz I have 3 days of camping trip to write up already! So lets leave that out. The next morning was an early one! We had to be checked out by 6:30 am (hideous!) and ready for a briefing about the trip at 6:40 I think. Early, very early! Lol. After a couple of boring DVDs about camping safety and rules n stuff for the environment, o, and the fact that you have to remove and bury any traces of food, food waste, even washing up water and not leave any loose items lying around because dingos will come get it, great, we were going to be in the middle of nowhere surrounded by crazed wild dogs. The dvd said don't b aggressive if they come over, but, if they do attack retaliate violently! O holy crap!After all the DVD nonsense and a bit more chitter chatter we got put into our groups! Eek! The first group got called, two American guys Johnny n matt (who we thought it might b cool to be on the trip with) followed by 6 American girls and a Chinese guy. Hmm. Next group, Emma from the pool, 2 Irish girls marg n jen, then me n sam, followed by Steve, an Irish guy with a very ginger beard!! Woo, these guys seem okay so far! Then a German couple Jonathan and Isabelle, and then ADRIAN… a 30 odd yr old bloke who throughout the briefing kept asking boring annoying practical questions, the ONE person we didn't want. O well, at least he could drive, so could jen, and steve, so me n sam were in the clear if we wanted to be… and we wanted to be.Grouped up we signed and paid all the relevant stuff and got into the jeep ready to go to the supermarket on the way… only we had to sit there with an empty drivers seat for a while whilst we waited for ADRIAN to pack his back…tick tock. We finally set off with jen driving as Adrian was too tired, seriously. The shop went surprisingly well, thanks to women and a suggested shopping list from the hostel and we were in and out in good time to catch the ferry.The ferry was short and before we knew it we were officially on our own, the 9 of us, strangers to each other and about to spend 2 nights, 3 days camping and couped up in a jeep. O dear. Adrian finally took to driving us off the ferry and we started following our itinery, stopped off to let air out the tyres and pick up our camping permits, and then were off up a big sandy track… well eventually. Adrian had a bit of trouble 'engaging the gear' (we heard that a lot f times) up the hill, it didn't appear to be going into the right sand setting, and instead of going up we just kept rolling back. So, in turn, in different words, ad increasingly sharp ways we all suggested he roll back to the flat bit just behind and try there to get a bit of a run up. He didn't listen, well not for about 15 minutes, everyone quietly bit there tongue and waited. eventually Steve got out ad did it instead, yay, all hail steve. He passed on his hero knowledge to Adrian and we were on our merry way.On todays itinery was central station (where we basically just stopped for the loo) then LAKE WABBY. Which we had to trek up to in the sand, bit tricky, but in my opinion well worth it, it was beautiful! We stood and looked onto what seemed lack endless untouched san, it was crazy, then at the bottom was the lake, a few of the others got in for a paddle, the rest of us just sat at the edge n looked out onto it in the sunshine, it was nice n chilled out. We were however, way behind schedule, the itinery included tide times of when we could drive along the beach and we needed to be at camp for 4:30 pm, we didn't leave the lake til about 3:45 and had to trek back down the sand first.
Long story short we got to the beach too late and had to camp at the first site we came to, literally just on the beach, but luckily the other two jeeps from our hostel trip were there too, so it wasn't all bad. We pitched the tents n got the bbq going in record time! We were naturals! The camp site was basically just a patch next to the beach, no facilities what-so-ever! Nothing. No loos, shoers, civilisation. O crap. I was a bit freaked by the middle-of-nowhere-ness of it all. The bbq went great, the food was ace and there was loads of it, sausages, burgers, steaks, friend onions, coleslaw n potato salad. Mmmmmmmmm. We stuffed ourselves! As it went dark quite soon because of our rubbish time keeping we tried to rig up the light they gave us from the car cigarette lighter, only it didn't work,, just like the radio, so we had to huddle around the other groups lights. Toilet trips were pretty creepy, but we stuck together to fight of dingos, lol, and didn't see any. We were tired early but fought the urge to go to bed, for a couple more hours at least. After a can of bourbon n coke off steve, followed by a couple of cereal bars or snickers for sam n steve we went ti bed. Me n sam were sharing with steven Adrian cuz there was not enough room for the 5 of us girlies in 1 tent, luckily, steve allocated Adrian to the edge of the tent. Happy days.We slept ok, not great but ok, but felt like id bin beaten with a stick when I woke up, talk about uncomfy, and we literally had to peel off the sleeping bags…nice! We got up, washed last nites dishes out the jeep, breakfasted, and packed up. We wandered onto the beach but the fact that you cant swim in the water cuz of stingers meant we didn't go in, instead we just pointed out the stingers washed up o the beach, little, bubble wrap lookin blobs with stringy bits hangin off. Nice.We set off on our second day in a jeep full of sand to hit our itinerary destinations… Elli creek, Some old famous ship wreck, the Pinnacles, and Indian head. Eli creek was really sweet! We all loved it! Basically a creek off the beach, that you could kinda lie in, and some toilets! Wahoo! Real toilets! We stayed there for about an hour I bet and then moved on. The shipwreck was also kind cool! Not everyone was impressed but I quite liked it, its like tis big ancient shipwreck, that you can still make out parts of, it was weird, a titanic moment methinks! We stopped there for about half hour and made and ate our sandwhiches before moving on to the pinnacles, with no idea what they were. The pinnacles… were rubbish. Just some big rocks that you could walk up to at the bottom, but they were sectioned off so you couldn't walk up the route, so basically we walked all 20 metres over to them, took a couple of photos and went on our way. Ace. Indian head was actually on tomorros itinerary but we were way ahead of time. Apparently, according to steve its where captain cook first saw the aboriginals and called them Indians or something, I cant remember, something like that. Lol. So basically we walked to the top of a big rock, took a few photos and walked back down again! The view was pretty cool, but weve seen so many sights here now and beautiful scenery since weve bin away that I think im starting to get picky about what I appreciate! Lol. We left Indian head to go find a decent camping spot, fingers crossed.We found a camp site on the beach with toilets and an outside shower just 30 metres away, yesssssssss. It was a great spot and all three jeeps met up there n parked together, it was a little community. We pitched tents again and started boiling the water for our pasta tea… it took ages! Eventually we just plopped the pasta in anyway n left it for about an hour! Lol. By which time some of us were rather tipsy. Ahem. I nominated Adrian to cook cuz he'd done nothing else to help any other time, just stand around being annoying and critical and making inappropriate comments, lets just say none of us actually liked him, harsh but true! He looked like id suggested god knows what but speechless he did as he was told… for about 5 minutes! Eventually tea was cooked and we all tucked in, me and sam pretty hyperactive at this point and the others not really knowing what was going on. Lol. Steve was pretty drunk and the otherswere trying.There was loads of pasta left which we tried to give away. Then the rest of the night, sorry relatives, we basically spent drinking, and finding things out about each other around a camp fire, it was really good actually! We enjoyed our little selves! A little too much personally…I had to go to bed early, like ridiculously early, because I had drank a little too quickly, lol, and am now too old to take the pace! Lol. The others stayed up. Steve got together with Britney, an American girl, sam lost her flip flop for a while, and her camera for a while and was getting piggy backs! Adrian, helped himself to our goon (boxed wine) without asking, hiss boo hiss. And everyone had fun!The next morning saw a bunch of zombie backpackers attempting to wake up and pack up… in torrential rain. Just what we needed! We eventually managed it, and set off, wet and sandy, the back if the jeep crammed with stuff and a bunch of hungover backpackers! Happy days!Last day, today all we had to do I think was go to lake Mckensie and be at the ferry for 3:30 as it leaves at 4. The drive to the lake was extremely long, not what any of us had anticipated! And a lot bumpier than we anticipated too! As we started to hit signs for the lake, and Adrian continued ignoring advice (back in the drivers seat by request, even though we were all much happier with steve n jens driving, speeding up every time Adrian advised we went slow, ha!) we realised time would be short for us tro get the ferry and a debate came up with us deciding if we had time to go or if we just hit the ferr instead. Adrian, lol, and the german couple, wanted to see the lake, the rest of us wouldn't have minded seeing it but were more concerned with not having to pay extra to get the car across on tomorros ferry when it cant make it onto the last one that night. As we had stopped on route at a shop to get fags for jen n marg and ice creams for the rest of us, isabelle brought this up and said how she had not come here to buy cigarettes she had come to see the lake, and how we would have had time if not. As isabelle did buy stuff at the shop and never suggested we leave earlier her comments didn't go down well, particularly with marg, but a silent jeep made its way to the lake. I didn't make it down to the lake, it was about 3pm, and I needed dinner, I was hungover, so, me marg n jen stayed at the car and made crisp/ham butties while the others ran down… but took ages so we could have gone down anyway ourselves! They all said it was amazing and beautiful and took photos. They then all made sandwhiches and we headed for the ferry!Luckily we had al miscalculated the route to the ferry and we made it with time to spare, saw a dea fish in the decking and a loads of crbs on the beach. Lol. We got on the ferry and managed to lose Adrian for the first 20 minutes or so while we were still all reeling from whatever annoying things hed done that day! Off the ferry we went back to the workshop to unload the jeep, o I forgot to mention us packing that at the beginning, we basically had to pack it bit by bit in a certain way… not that it was like that we we got to unpack it! Lol. Then, we all headed back to the hostel in the jeep.On the whole the trip was great, frustrating at times, lots of times in fact, but also amazing and we made some good friends. We managed to ge into a room together, minus the german couple and Adrian, hehe, and were set to go outr for a couple of farewell drinks that night… which I will have to write about when I edit this in a day or so because this has taken me over an hour and theres noone else left in the internet café and its 20 to 8 im getting peckish! That should keep you all going for a while anyway…Til the next lot, much loves, miss you all, more so than ever lately and I kno sams the same. Bye for now. XxxPs, mumdad, those keyrings weren't for you as I still have ur ones here… so take them off your keys ad make room for the one iv got you here! Lol. O, and expect a little surprise soon, as a big thankyou for helping me out with the insurance fiasco and anything else. Lots of love xxx tessxxxAnd sam xxx
So… that night in hervey bay… we sat outside, after our second no-need-to-pay all you can eat pizza night, thanks to steve and jen. Lol. Me and sam were like the dingos of the pizza scene, scrounging for what we could get. Lol. We sat and drank a bit of goon (wine remember) but only a glass or two, we weren't really in the mood to go out, but sam was trying hard! Lol. We ended up going out into town, to beaches bar where very annoying people with bad bo, ok so just one person, was annoying us, and a bunch of old-enough-to-know-better blokes were dancing on the tables. A few of the others joined in, me n sam sat that one out. Lol. We did however for some reason acquire some ridiculous hats.. as you will see in the photos wen I catch up with uploading them. When we left beaches we went on to koalas hostel and their club called morocco's. There we danced, we drank, and had a really good night! I got into the spirit in the end, and sam got into the spirits…lol, and the cocktails! Half of us went home, and sam, steve, Britney n Leticia stayed out. Me, jen, marg, em and Adrian all walked home, jen did penguin impressions and marg sang loudly, me too.
The next morning was disaster day… as we were getting ready to get on the shuttle bus to our greyhound to Brisbane sam couldn't find her purse… so we all changed our times to get the later bus, and jen marg n steve donated their phones to the lets find sams purse fund. We left without the purse andwaiting on a lot of returned phone calls, mum cancelled my spare card for me from sams purse, so I had to report that at the police station, sam didn't yet.
On the bus to Brisbane sams phone had been found, very good for sam, pretty crap for me as I now had no spare card away with me and my car insurance refund was due to go in it asap, but now I have to wait til my new card comes thru and mum has to ring n sort it all out again, which I very verymuch appreciate mum. But, on the whole all was well, it would have been a lot worse if sams purse was gone as it was her main cashcard with free withdrawals., so on the whole… happy-(ish) days.
- comments