Ho hum, today was a let down again, booooooo!!
Instead of swimming in Lake Wabby and Lake Birrabeen, we only got to swim in Lake Wabby. I guess one out of two isn't so bad (and I guess the bus didn't break down in the morning and so we got to see something!!) but it would have been fantastic to see one of the crystal clear lakes. Especially as it was meant to be nicer than Lake Mackenzie and that's the one in all the photographs and the postcards.

The day started off nicely - we filled our tums at breakfast in readiness for more sand walking and hopefully some swimming.
We found out that one of the girls who worked at Happy Valley had gone back to the guys house as well and hadn't got back until about 1 in the morning, and still had her shift at Happy Valley in the morning!! Yikes! Who's triply glad she and her friends didn't go? Me, me, me!!

So, on we got to the bus looking forward to our Lake Wabby trip. Fritz warned us that it might be a little rough out there still as there was a storm overnight and so there were lots of big waves still crashing about. As we drove out to the sea front, it did look extremely choppy out there! Shame we couldn't have stayed to shark spot!
Had to walk through some rainforest and through a sand dune to get to Lake Wabby - more rainforest!! The sand dune was pretty amazing though, and just absolutely massive - I didn't think it would end! Then suddenly it just drops over the side to Lake Wabby! The Lake is a lovely greeny colour and nice and refreshing to swim in! After a big sandy walk, who wouldn't want to swim in a big lake?
It was also nice to have sit down and admire the view. Rainbow got to try sand surfing as well as she said she'd wanted to do that for ages! A kid had a little board there that she borrowed and so she took a few rides. The sand hill to the lake is pretty steep so she was able to get up a bit of speed if she lay down!

We didn't have that long there unfortunately, as we had to hike it back through more rainforest to get back to the bus. Double shame we didn't spend longer there considering that the bus broke down again. We were on our way to have lunch after Lake Wabby and the bus juddered and then wouldn't go any further. %$&*£$!!@/?$^*@
We got off the bus to walk to the little picnic area for lunch (Fritz showed us how to make wraps, just in case we didn't know.....I guess there could have been someone there who didn't but it was funny at the time) and our worst nightmare came true in that we went back to the bus and it still wasn't going anywhere.
Double *&$"!%$@#~&^£")*"%^&

So, we all trundled back to the picnic area to wait. Sigh. It only took about 45 minutes or so I guess, as we did have a mechanic on board, obviously just in case something like yesterday happened again. I guess that was a good idea. Changing the bus would have been even better but who am I to comment?
Finally, we're allowed back on the bus (at least we didn't have to walk about 15 km in the sand) but Fritz gives us the bad news in that we're not going to be able to go to Lake Birrabeen as the bus has a problem with its gears and can't shift through them easily. Going to Lake Birrabeen means a lot of gear changes as the terrain is pretty up and down and so the bus just would break down again. The terrain there is too difficult and dangerous for us to walk as well and he said that even before any of us piped up wanting to walk there!
So, he'd be taking us to the ferry terminal early, and that would be it. Sigh. He wasn't even sure if the bus would make it off the ferry so we would have to walk on and off the ferry ourselves.

We had agreed in the morning that if anything did happen to the bus today, that we'd have to make some sort of complaint altogether to hopefully get some money back. So, once we got off the ferry and were picked up on the other side, we all wanted to go to the office to make a complaint. We got there and they had obviously been warned we were coming as we were given a pretty useless answer as to what we had to do. We had to put our complaint in writing to management and they would deal with the issue. So, we came up with a small but accurate statement of what happened and so on, we all signed it, wrote our emails and trusted that it would get sent to management. We were given a phone number of the manager to call for follow up and that was it. Not a lot really, considering that we'd had a couple of pretty tame sightseeing days compared to what we were meant to have seen!
We knew we wouldn't get a full refund, but considering that we hadn't seen the things that the people on the one day tour had (there were some on the bus back to the office and they'd seen Lake Birrabeen) we felt a bit cheated. One day tour people paid as little as $159 and we'd paid $279. A fair difference, don't you think?
Yes, we had spent two days on the island and had a nights accommodation (we even got some free drinks whilst in Happy Valley - though a maximum of two) but we kept being promised sights that we didn't get to see. We all understood that the weather wasn't something we could control, so the things we didn't see on the first day because of the erosion were fair enough. But for the bus to break down, and on both days? Surely they should have some better buses? Especially for the kind of money that we were paying!

So, we'll have to wait and see what happens I guess. The girl at the office didn't or couldn't say whether we'd get a refund or what would happen, so we all felt a bit bummed out. Rainbow and Ida were also not staying at the YHA, though Rainbow had arranged with another couple of the tour that she would hitch a lift with them to Rainbow Beach, so that was cool.
As for me, Canada, and the two other Norways, we consoled ourselves with pizza, chocolate cake, Tim Tams, and crisps back at the YHA feeling that we'd earnt it all! The two Norways had to be up early to catch their bus too, but seeing as we were all feeling zonked out, I think we all wanted to get our heads down and try to forget about what we could have seen!
Canada is going back to NZ where she's working, and I had booked my train to Townsville for the evening. My train doesn't leave until 6:20pm, but I have to catch the early coach connection to the station as there's no other way for me to get back to Maryborough West!! A taxi would cost me about $70 (ha, no thanks), there's no local bus, and so I'd have to while away 4 hours in Maryborough West. MW is basically a train station, and that's it. Oh, goody. What a good end to an interesting Fraser Island trip!! I'd also have 14 hours on an overnight train to look forward to!! Groan. Why didn't I fly? Why do I prefer travelling by train? Luckily, this is my only overnight train, so I guess I can experience it just this once!
I just hope that there's a local bus between Maryborough (where at least there are shops and cafe's apparently) and Maryborough West, otherwise I think I'll just have to go mad at M West station....in any case I'm going to phone the train people tomorrow and see what they say.