Fraser Island 02/12/2009

2 nights, 3 days, 4 wheels.

We arrived in Hervey Bay at 6 in the morning and got picked up by our hostel shuttle. The hostels in Hervey Bay are all tour operators at the same time and we would start our trip to Fraser Island in one of their pink 4WDs the next morning.

The WEDNESDAY (Nov 25) in Hervey was a really lazy day. Washing laundry, swimming in the pool, watching a movie whilst exchanging photos on our laptops… At 6 pm, we had a briefing with all the other guys that would go to the Island with us – 36 people as a whole, reparted into four groups. The briefing was all about how not to roll over and die when driving in the sand and how not to get eaten by a dingo…very long, very boring…but nessessary, I reckon.

On THURSDAY, we took the ferry to Fraser at 10 am, our pink car ‘Eli’ loaded with all we would need for the next three days. Rich, from Bristol, England, was the first (and, as it turned out, our main) driver. He travelled with Matt from Switzerland and Monika from Germany (near Regensburg!!). Then there was Juliane, from Germany as well, travelling alone. And the three German boys Sebastian, Marco and Steffen. And Amy and I. Which makes 7 German speaking people in a group out of nine. But we gave our best to talk English all the time, except for some singing sessions in the back of the van…how to translate ‘eisgekühlter Bummerlunder’ into English?

Arrived on the island, it took us about 10 minutes to get stuck for the first time. Rich was a bit rude in his driving style and the wheels kept overturning. Fortunately, another ‘pinkie’ was just behind us and we managed to get out of there quite quickly. This whole way from the west to the east side of the island was a really bumpy experience. It was good to arrive on the beach at Eurong, then! Beachdriving is fun for you can drive on the wet parts between the ocean and the soft sand. Not in the salt water though, “you will loose your bond!”. We had to be off the beach by 1.30 pm because of the tide. So we picked a campsite behing the dunes and then walked, as suggested by the organisators, to lake Wabby. They had talked about a “15 minutes” walk which really was a bad joke. It took us about one hour to get there, one hour in the burning midday sun… I was soooooooo exhausted! The lake was quite nice, though. Dark green fresh water right next to a huge sand dune, kind of a strange mix but normal for Fraser island. We spent there about one hour, running down the dune and into the lake, sitting in the water, relaxing…then we had to go back to put our tents up and start cooking before dark. We had very nice BBQ, a few beers (or whiskey coke in my case), played some card games and went to say hello to the three other groups as well. They were camping a few metres further down the beach.

Got up at about 7 in the next morning, FRIDAY. Unfortunately, our breakfast wasn’t as nice as planned as the dingoes had drank our milk over night. I don’t know how they managed to get it out of the esky but obviously, they did! No mueslie then, just bred with jam and peanut butter as well as black coffee. Never mind. Monika, Steffen and Sebastian had decided to sleep outside and now told us stories about nine dingoes surrounding them when they woke up. Scary… even if the dingoes aren’t probably really dangerous, “just dogs” as Rich said.

Our first stop was the (??) shipwreck where we all took loads of photos. Then up to some sand formations and we also bought new ice in ‘Happy Valley’. Our main aim for the day was Indian Head in the north of the island. I don’t know why it’s called like that, it is just a huge rock that you can climb and from up there, you’ve got a beautiful view on either side of the beach. A walk along the beach north from there took us to the ‘Champagne pools’, a natural rock formation filled with sea water. The swimming was a bit of a rush because, again, we had to be off the beach by 2 pm and as our group was full of Germans + Amy, we absolutely had to stick to these times… Fair enough though, because the way back wasn’t exactly easy, the tide already being pretty high. Rich was struggling with the soft sands and said he didn’t enjoy that drive at all. But he got us safely down to Eli Creek where we had a quick bath and then to the Campsite to join the other pinkies. We didn’t do much that afternoon, everyone was pretty tired. I slept in the dunes for a while, Amy went for a run, that crazy girl. After my sleep, I absolutely wanted to swim but there was no lake, so I decided that the ocean couldn’t be that dangerous, that the jellyfish and tigersharks were certainly far away…). So I dared having a quick bath (rather then a swim) but I felt nervous and didn’t stay in there for long. Matt was sitting on the beach next to me during that time so he could have rescued me in worst case. (Well, he probably could not have, but it still felt better not to be alone there.) We had pasta that day and then, same procedure as the day before, a few drinks, a few games, chats with the people from the other groups. I went to bed a bit earlier that day for I wanted to see the sunrise the next day.

On SATURDAY, my alarm rang at 5 am but it was already light outside so I decided that I might as well sleep a bit longer. We were the first group to leave the camp, without having breakfast. Stopped at Happy Valley, the rubbish depot and Eurong to buy some milk and then had breakfast on the parking area next to lake McKenzie where we were gonna spend the whole morning. Lake McKenzie, in the middle of the island, is Fraser’s most beautiful lake. The water is so clear that you can see straight to the ground. It is turquoise as well and the sand is nice and fine (as everywhere on Fraser). We had lots of fun splashing around in the water, doing summer saults (?) and swimming to the other side and back. You could even leave your eyes open whilst swimming and see the ground at every moment through the bright blue. At 12, we had to leave the lake in order to catch the ferry at Kingfisher Bay by 2 pm. It first seemed ridiculous that we’d need two hours for 10 kilometres but we soon understood that they were well necessary. After about five minutes, we all had to stop because of a car that had been stuck for about one hour. And it took about one hour more to get it out of there, thanks to a big truck that pulled it out which hadn’t been possible with all our shovels and wood sticks. After that, we got stuck once more because of some silly girls that obviously didn’t know how to drive a 4WD. We were all getting quite nervous but in the end, we got to the bay at about twenty to 2 and got onto the ferry without problems.

What an adventure!