A busy few days!
Trip Start
Aug 01, 2007
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66
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Trip End
Jan 11, 2009
Hervey Bay,
Australia
Saturday, May 24, 2008
I started off with the koala photo, and got my hand pooed on in the process. kramer, the koala, was supercute but his claws are SHARP! Then it was off the feed the elephants, before the "Wildlife Warriors" show in the "Crocoseum". Lots of snakes, birds, and a croc... it was really quite cool, the staff seem to really be into their jobs and it makes it more fun. After that, I went for a wander before catching the camel talk, and then the koala one as well. more wandering, got to pet the kangaroos and check out the elephants once more, and then the Tigers. It was actually a lot smaller than I was expecting (given that I'm used to the Toronto Zoo which is massive!) but it was good because i pretty well got a chance to see everything.
On Wednesday, we caught the bus to Hervey Bay to head off on our Fraser Island (largest send island in the world) adventure. By fluke I looked at the forms, which we hadn't really done properly before, and noticed we were supposed ot be there for 3pm, but the bus didn't arrive til after 5. We called the hostel, and Gill got an earful but they said (grudgingly) it would be ok to arrive late and our group would wait for us.
Once we checked in, we met the team. After some grocery shopping, it was back to the bar to get to know each other. Thursday saw another very alarm, in order for us to get all packed up and the car loaded. What a process! The people who run it just bark orders and are pretty rude, put us off a little bit. What happened to being nice? Finally, after one last feed on the mainland, we piled into the 4x4 (henceforth known as the "truck", "van", "car" or whatever!) and drove to the barge for the short ride over.
Basically the next few days were spent driving a LOT, catching a lot of air going over the bumps, and trying not to get carsick. Fraser has tons of cool freshwater lakes, the first and best one being Lake McKenzie, where we also had our first dingo spotting of many. It is just stunning!! White sands, blue water. After a few more lakes and some aimless driving, we found a campsite for the first night. A horrible goon hangover ensued. (Goon, for those who don't know, is the cheapests of the cheap wine, a 4L box around $10). Also, a lot of rain came down. I was lucky to be in the middle of the tent, so only the bottom of my sleeping bag got wet (which didn't feel so good the second night!)
On our second day, we headed from our campsite to the Maheno shipwreck and the champagne pools. This involved tons of beach driving which luckily was a LOT smoother, except did not feel like it to my poor tummy. We found a little town along the way, Eurong, we stopped for a feed and some watering to perk up our poor hungover selves, not to mention use a real toilet. (I don't know if its anything to be proud of, but I had my first experience of "bush toilets" on this trip- I'm a true camper now!) the shipwreck was pretty cool - 75 years ago, the ship got screwed over in a storm and beached themselves on the island. the elements have reduced it to a lot of rust now. We headed furthur on up to Indian Head, which is a bit of a alk up to a lookout point on a cliff. it was stunning for about 3 minutes before the rain started lashing down, so cold it was physically painful. We all ran (carefully) back to the car, and then drove a little but furthur up to Champagne pools. They are an area of the beach blocked from the sea by soem rocks, but the waves fill them up with water hence they are "pools". Really stunning. Then we drove all the way back, with another stop at town for some fual in food form, before finding another campsite for the night. I opted to just chill out with only a few beers this time, and just enjoy people's company.
Saturday morning, we headed off in search of Lake Wabby, this really cool lake that is at the bottom of a massive sand dune. We chilled out there, had a picnic lunch, before making the longish drive back to the barge... our Fraser Island adventure was over!
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