Dingo Island
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2004
1
14
23
Trip End
Jul 01, 2004
Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
The first night in Hervey bay (the Ferry point for Fraser
Island) started off pretty well as after we had just checkin in we
realised that two guys, Ben and Martin, from our room in Noosa were
stayin in the same hostel!. However we soon realised that Hervey Bay
must be one of the most boring places in Australia, just to give an
idea, the best bar and pretty much the only bar in the area was in fact
the youth hostel bar!!, but somehow we still managed to have a pretty
good time, obviously with the help of a few beers!
On the second day, still at Hervey Bay, we had a briefing for
Fraser Island. We were bascically told everything that we couldnt and
could do on the Island, we had to watch about three videos, one on how
to be "Dingo Smart". Dingoes are wild dogs inhabited on the Island and
apparently we had to be wary of them as only last year they ate a small
child!! We were then put into groups which was awsome because we landed
ourselves with this great group of two Swiss lads, a Scandinavian, and
four Mexicans!, which came together to form team "Ol el Paso!!!" The
same evening we all went shopping and decided as a group what food and
beer we would buy for the trip, before heading back to the Hostel to
get our stuff packed for the 5'oclock start!!!!!!! which would be
officially the earliest weve got up in three months, and about what
time we went to bed in Thailand.
Anyway after a well deserved early night, we woke up to find
our Jeep parked up waiting for us and another lecture from the Hire
compnay about how we must drive it, but we did actually learn alot
about 4x4 cars all the same. We all packed our stuf into the van, and
soon realised that the next three days were gonna be pretty cozy as we
had 9 people, plus camping gear, plus food, plus Beer and
everyones clothes all cramped into a van, little bigger than a Land
Rover!!, all part of the adventure though!. We set off to the Ferry in
convoy with about four other Jeeps and boarded about 9 oclock. After
about 40 minutes we hit Fraser Island. To to fill in, Fraser Island is
an almost uninhabited Island, I cant say exactly how big it is but I
know that nearly 100 miles of beach ran along one side. There are no
roads, only dirt tracks and the beach acts as a Highway, which also
doubles up as a runway, meaning you literally have to just keep your
eye out for planes. Other than that there are no rules, you light your
own fires, camp where you want and hope that you dont see to many
Dingos, even though you cant really avoid them!
The first day was awsome, after about an hour everyone in the van
was pretty safe with each other, and we managed to make our way to Lake
Mackenzie. Not to be too soppy, this was the most beautiful lake weve
ever seen. It was fresh wateer with sand so fine you can use it to
clean Jewellery and the water is completely clear. We chilled out here
for about an hour before heading back to the van about midday.
Completely misinterpreting the size of the Island we thought we would
try and make along the beach/ road/runway to a place called Indian head
were you can usually see sharks feeding. Unfortunatly this took about 4
hours and we ended up trying to make our lunch in teh back, whilst
driving, which turned into even more of a mission!. Anyhows after
dodging a few planes and very nearly reaching our destination we were
caught our by the tide coming to far in! so at manic speed we raced
back to a safer area were we wouldnt get washed out. However all was
not lost as here we bumped into another van with a few lads from North
Hampton, a few Americans and a couple of class Brummies which turned
out to be a good laugh. Such a good laugh we laughed all the way back
to the beach and camped the night with them. That night we simply all
made one huge campfire and all of us chilled around it getting merry
and finding things funny, all good.
The next moring came around a bit too soon as we all were dragged
out of bed by the fact that the tents tend to turn into Sauna's as soon
as the sun comes up. Anyway with heavy heads and, we managed to wash
the dishes and clean up what mess we could before making a somewhat
mopre succesful trip to Indian head. Whilest teh rest of the team were
a bit tired and our car had got stuck in the sand too many times, the
moral was slightly lower and the whole team bar me and charlie didnt
bother going to Indian head. However, its was all in our favour as all
though we didnt actually see sharks as such, we did manage to see about
20 dolphins!!.
The same day we all made it to the Champagne pools, another
beautiful site, they are bascically large pool with sea water
flowing into them turning them into a sort of natural Jacussi. We all
headed back to the van at about three, and made tuna and sweetcorn
sandwhiched for the second day running, not bad grub when your on a
budget tho.
The rest of the day was pretty much spent making our way back to the
beach where we chose a spot for camping. We pitched up and then made
the grub, realising that the mexican girls were actually bloody good
mexican cooks and made some really good steaks and other things that I
cant pronounce, all done over an open fire aswell!, mad. We spent the
night doing pretty much as we had dont the night before however we did
happen to get a small game of football going on the beach with the help
of improvised floodlighting from the van.
The final day was one mad rush, as we managed to see the final three
lakes remaining. After having eaten al the food from the day before we
found we only had crisps to last us untill 7 that evening, so after a
crisps breakfast we headed up to the first lake which was assome. You
could swim with small turtles here and we also managed to spot a guana.
Secondly we managed to make it to lake wobby, another nice spot with
sand huge sand dunes and a small desert like atmosphere to it. Finally
we found ourselves at the fourth and final lake which was equally as
nice as lake Mckenzie but somewhat more remote. After chilling here we
realised we were seriously pushed for time and made an absolute mad
dash back to the ferry, which on the roads we had available to us was a
pretty hary ride, pretty funny stuf tho. We finally mader it the ferry
and our trip all of a sudden seemed to have finshed before it had
begun.
When we got back we soon realised that the all the fun had to end as
we had to clean out an absolute stinkin van, and somehow with the way
the Swiss drive we did not lose any of our deposit on the van which was
all good. And after that, that was that!, Fraser Island was over. (Mike)
