Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island
Trip Start
Apr 30, 2007
1
16
69
Trip End
Nov 29, 2008
Rainbow Beach,
Australia
Sunday, September 9, 2007
We arrived in Rainbow Beach at 8.20am on Wednesday 05th September. We hung around in the lounge area at Dingos's munching on free pancakes (result!!) and cups of tea until we could check in at 11am and then headed to our 7 bed dorm to get some sleep. After a few hours sleep and a much needed shower we headed to our meeting at 4pm to discuss the 4x4 safari around Fraser Island where we bumped into a couple of ozzy guys we were on the Clipper with! After watching the safety video about how to drive and be Dingo safe, we had a few drinks and then headed to bed for our last night of decent sleep!
We were up at 6am, packed our stuff into the jeep in the pouring rain and then headed off for our adventure to Fraser Island.
There was 10 of us in our jeep, me, Stef, Kev, Glenn, Maria, Liam, Anushka, Natasha, Matt and Rosie
Abo Dancing
. The lads shared the driving between them but Kev and Glennn mainly drove as they have 4x4's so know how to handle the cars.. although i fixed the problem when the jeep broke.. i am soooo my father's daughter!! Anyway, we headed off in the pouring rain to Lake Mackenzie. I will post a picture of what it is meant to look like! It is breathtaking, the water is crystal clear and the sand is pure white.. however when we were there the sky was grey and so were all the pictures!! Oh well... it's only another beach! hahahaha!!!
The main road on Fraser Island is the beach so you can only drive when the tide was out. The tide was coming in at 2pm but as the winds were so high it was coming in faster.. therefore after Lake Mackenzie we needed to head towards a camp for the night. The one we were due to stay at had close due to flooding so we headed further north and ended up booking into an Aboriginal camp for the night. Thankfully it stopped raining whilst we put the tents up, although hammered it down after that!!
We all tucked into peanut butter sarnies and then relaxed under the shelter for a bit chatting to other travellers who had taken refuge at the camp as well
Abo Dancing
. After the sun went down we decided it was time to cook some dinner so i headed over to the so-called kitchen and started cooking.. unfortunately the lights in the kitchen (which was actually a wooden bench and a sink) went out 10 mins after i started chopping everything up, therefore i cooked with a torch shoved in my mouth!!! Not an attractive sight!! I cooked potato salad (yes it was warm and mashed Bev!) and steak and made a garden salad. I had a tiny bit of steak for dinner... yes you heard right, minging, gross, disgusting steak. I hate steak... i still hate steak. Eeeewww it was horrid. At least i tried it though.. so that's steak, fish and sushi i have tried since being away!! So anyway, everyone enjoyed their dinner, i make a sharp exit before having to wash up and then we all sat around the camp fire and waited for the Aboriginals to do a dance for us. Smily, Aaron, Aaron & Justin (the abo's) had painted themselves in tribal paint and were wearing what can only be described as an over sized nappy!! They sang aboriginal songs and danced around the fire for us. There were only two rules for the evening... no spitting in the fire and no whistleing as the spirits would be against you!! It was brilliant, they also told us stories and played the diggereedoo!
After that we sat around chatting, playing card games, drank some goon and had a go at fire twirling!
Abo Dancing
! Well Stef did, i thought it would be wise for me to leave it well alone.. i probably would of burnt my eyelashes off!!!Then it was off to bed... well it was off to a tent crawling with spiders to lay in a thin sleepingbag with nothing undernearth you but earth, stones and twigs. Needless to say, we all slept really well!! (NOT)
We were up bright an early, packed everything away and tried really hard to stay away from the lovely toilets (which was a hole in the ground) and the shower (the shower was next to the toilet, you couldnt stand near the toilet for more than 20 seconds otherwise you would pass out) and headed further north to Indian Heads.
Once we were at Indian Heads we pulled the jeep over and ran up the hill to see the view. We had a few pics taken altogether and then it started to rain so it was back into the jeep and heading south back down the beach to find Lake Allum.
At Lake Allum you get into the lake and tap the water and wait... about 10 little turtles come over to you, they are soooo sweet!!
Abo Dancing
! Stef decided she wanted to keep one so she got into the water and tried to get one, the turtles weren't having any of it though and swam off!!! Again as the winds were so high we didnt make it to another camp site, instead we had to camp out beside the beach. We found a sheltered area just off the beach and quickly put up the tents and started cooking before it got dark or rained as we had no shelter and only the head lights from the jeeps. The tents were up within minutes and i had started on the asian chicken stirfry.... which was lovely by the way!!! We then spent the night sitting around drinking goon, playing card games and chatting. We had to pee in the bush which was scary as Dingo's were roaming around and i was scared they might bite my bum!! hahaha!!! One by one people started to go to bed so Stef and I gave in and went to bed, got all tucked up in our very uncomfortable tents and then looked at the time.. it was 7.55pm!!! hahaha! It honestly felt like 4am, the day had been sooo long and with barely any sleep the night before we were shattered! We still didnt manage to get a decent nights sleep though, who's stupid idea was it to camp?!? haha!
Up again at 6.30am, egg sandwich for breakfast and a cup of tea (with sand), packed up and headed further south to Lake Wabby
Abo Dancing
. On the last day the sun was out and it was boiling, as it had been raining we had only packed long sleeve tops and trousers so we ended up walking a million miles through the rainforest to Lake Wabby in a tracksuit in 90 degrees!!! It was worth it in the end though, Lake Wabby was amazing, on one side was the rainforest and on the other side was huge sanddunes. The boys ran straight up the sanddune and rolled down it into the water... the girls stood, pointed and laughed!!! The Lake was beautiful, so quiet, still and so picturesque. We paddled for a bit and took some pics and then had to walk all the way back to the jeep so we could catch our ferry back to Rainbow beach.Once back in Rainbow beach we had to unpack everything, wash all the utensils they supplied us with and count everything up.. we were missing a knife and fork but thankfully didnt get charged for it. They checked over the jeep and thankfully didnt spot the broken door or the few added dents that we had managed to pick up along the way and so we walked away without any charges!!!
One of the other jeep wasnt so lucky though, they were driving through a washout (where the sea comes in and pulls big bits of sand back out to sea, leaving huge holes in the sand) a bit too fast and managed to roll the jeep.
Whats going on here then?!
. therefore incurring a nice charge of $4000!!!!Anyway, back to the hostel after sorting the jeep out and straight into the shower to try and get rid of all that sand!! I have never been covered in so much sand before! Now i know how Gemma Redman feels when she goes on holiday!! haha! What is it with Gemma getting caked in sand?!?! haha!! It is however a brilliant exfolient isnt in Gem's?!?! haha!!!
So all in all Fraser Island was amazing, the lakes and views were beautiful, everyone in the jeep were lovely and we had a million giggles a minute. It was a shame that it rained so much but we still carried on and made it fun. It was gutting saying goodbye to everyone but thanks to facebook i've managed to keep in touch with them all and will probably bump into them all again at some point along the coast.
We then stayed at Rainbow Beach for a further two nights after Fraser Island, we were meant to go dolphin kayaking but it was cancelled due to the high winds. It's a shame it was cancelled but we can still use the money towards another trip so all is not lost.
Rainbow Beach it's self wasnt very big, there were a few cafe's close to the beach front and a surf club but no bars or clubs so we stayed in the bar at Dingo's (the hostel) for drinks. We headed down to the beach the day after Fraser Island, it wasnt the best beachm really damp for some reason and the sand was hard and black in some parts! So we sat on the edge and read for a while whilst the sun was out with some of the girls (and Matt) from Fraser Island.
We then boarded the Premier bus again for a 4 hour trip to Noosa.
