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Hervey Bay Fraser Island
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Next day we drove on to Hervey Bay to complete the second half of our tour package, the Fraiser Island tour. It was another touristy spot basically making its money on the Fraser tours. The weather was awful and we were confined to the car and tent for a lot of the day, but we had a very early start next day so we didn't bother checking out the town. We met our groups next morning at 6.30am and got a little talk on the Island and how to drive our jeeps on the sand etc. Fraser is an Island off the coast of Hervey Bay and is entirely sand and forest so most of the driving is done on the beach.
There are huge stretches of beach, some inland lakes and sand dunes. We got our group together, 10 of us in total, mostly German (the east coast is crawling with German students!). one (mad) Irish guy and one UK guy. We had to buy all our own supplies for the three days and the company provides the equipment and the jeep. It was a sight to behold in the supermarket with about 6 other groups like ourselves all tearing around trying to get the supplies before catching the ferry...a bit like a supermarket trolley dash! We ended up with about 500 slice pans, and plenty of spuds (obviously Tadgh had a good hand in writing the list!). By the time we got the jeep packed up there was food, lots of drink (in case we ran out!) and ourselves mingled in between both. After the ferry we got lost immediately, even though our destination was about 100 yards from the terminal. Eventually we got going again and made it to Lake McKenzie after a good bone shaking journey.
The Lake was stunning, it had a white sandy shore and clear blue water and just seemed completely out of place after driving through boring forest. We spent a while there but it was a little nippy so we didn't last too long when the sun went behind the clouds. We got very confused as to our destination for the camp that night, then we got lost, then we started arguing because the Germans had made their own plans without telling us...the Irish guy was going half nuts cos he thought he might miss out on the "craic" with the "girls"! It was all looking like it was going to be a great trip...not. Eventually we found our camp on the beach along with the rest of the jeeps, conveniently beside the jeep containing friends of the Germans. So we set up our tents, they headed off drinking with their buddies.
Myself and Tadgh cooked dinner for everyone and then they arrived back, ate and off they went again. I think Mammy had been a bit too nice to these boyos! Naturally when we woke up there was a load of dirty washing, nobody had checked the tide times so we couldn't make it up the beach to follow our itinery and the Irish guy was by now, having a panic attack cos there would be no "craic" with the "gang"!!! AHHHHHhhh! We stopped for breakie after an attempt at driving on the beach (if we got salt water on the jeep they'd take a 1000 bond from us), the Germans helped themselves to the food while I had to tackle the washing up with the help of only one of the girls....what a useless bunch! We ended up going to an inland lake for the morning to wait until we could drive the beach again, and we all just fell asleep from the exertion of the morning! Later we got all our planned activities done, nothing amazing, a creek, a shipwreck
and the champagne pools that would only have got my interest if they had actually been filled with champagne!
The weather still wasn't great so that wasn't helping either. That night we camped up again this time with the "gang" and all the "craic"! Myself and Tadgh cooked again while the rest of them went off to another campsite to shower (not hardcore like ourselves!) and two of them stayed back to moan to each other and watch us doing all the work! We had a nice night sitting around the tents after dinner chatting, Irish guy was in his element chasing girls around the place as he had already alienated the three in our jeep. We ended up sharing the tent that night with the UK guy who, as I had spotted immediately, had some suspicious bites on his arms. We had no qualms in questioning him about them after our boat trip from hell, and it turned out one of the couches in the hostel was rampant with bed bugs and he had been sitting there the night before he left. We made him check his sleeping back since there were a few new ones on his ankles and sure enough there were a few freeloaders in the sleeping bag so we promptly ordered him to hang it outside in a black sack!
Next morning it was onwards again after we had a stand off over the washing up (I washed my own and then left!). We arrived Lake Wabby, after an awful journey where Irish guy drove into every hole on the track.
It's a beautiful lake in almost a crater surrounded by dunes, which, over time are slowly filling the lake with sand. Next we took a side trip to Lake Boomanjiin, supposedly the highlight of the Island. It was a long journey inland especially with Irish guy driving and it turned out to be somethink like we'd see at home minus the duck poo! It was all cover with reeds and the sand was very thin and hard on the ground and we were devasted after the battering we had got from the journey. We decided then to head back to Lake Mckenzie before we left, which had been the first, and best thing we'd seen on our trip. We borrowed a few Santa suits and took our Xmas photos there to make all of ye very jealous!
We got back to Hervey Bay and had to thoroughly clean and unload our jeep, (I don't know what we had really paid for in the end!) then we scattered, not really bothering to say goodbye or have a few goodbye drinks since we couldn't care less if we ever saw half of them again! That night was our first in a hostel since Cairns and I nearly got weak with the sight of a proper bed again....I didn't have any intention of moving once I threw myself down...bed bugs or not!
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