Fraser Island and Hervey Bay

We got here in the late afternoon and immediately got lost! Haha, it seems a daily occurance that anywhere we drive to we get separated from each other and spend about an hour texting and ringing to try find out where the hell we are!

Luckily, along our aimless driving trying to find the others, we found a nice little caravan park close enough to the water. It had nice facilities and they gave us a nice little corner to ourselves for our camper vans.

Back inside in the bar/restaurant, we ran into a dublin couple who we'd bumped into back in Airlie Beach. They were travelling down the east coast by bus, and had a 14 hour bus journey to get here. It only took us a few hours!! Apparently the bus goes all over the place! Remind me never to get a bus over here!! Thats as long as our flight from Thailand to Australia!!

Luckily, the lady at reception was able to hook us up with a deal to go to Fraser Island. We'd be picked up in the morning in a big 4-wheel drive heavy duty bus that would drive us to the boat, and would also act as out transport on the island too. The bus driver was pretty eccentric. I suppose thats part of the job description, as he was also there to entertain 50 or so people on his bus!

We got over to the island anyway, and the bus drive off the boat directly onto the beach, and off into the jungle! The early part of the tour was the driver telling us all about the local plants and trees etc etc...which was quite boring. The only entertaing part was the numerous mounds and hills which sent the bus almost airborne. We got flung out of our seats and if it weren't for the seat belts, we would hve all been splattered on the floor! I was loving it! It was like a rollercoaster!

We finally got through to the middle, where there was a lake, slap bang in the middle of the mountain side on the island. He explained it was there because the rain water gets stuck and doesnt go through the sand, or something like that. We went off looking for snakes while the girls stayed to clean their jewellery and exfoliate in the sand, which incidentally was the same sand from the Whitsundays (99.98% silica). Needless to say, we didn't see any snakes! :(

We left the lake and went to the backpackers resort in the centre of the island where we got fed. It was a nice little place, powered entirely by solar power. As its a national park, they cant really be building powerlines etc on the island, so solar power is their only option. The toilets were "natural toilets" too, as there wasnt really a sewer system on the island. Nasty business, but ya'd get used to it easily enough.

After we had our grub, we went on again in our big bus, this time to 74-mile beach. This was the main attraction of the island. The beach was actually only 54 miles long apparently (what a ripoff!), but it had a shipwreck and they ran a service where you could get in a small plane and fly the island for 70 dollars. The girls went for it but we stayed in the bus.

The beach was nice. The shipwreck was cool, and we also saw some clearwater river that you could walk up, with little or no chance of a crocodile biting your ass off!! It was fun.

After seeing the rest of the landmarks on the beach, it was back to the backpackers resort to clean the bus, then off we went again into the depths of the jungle. We stopped off for tea/coffee and muffins in amongst the trees where our bus driver partook in a Q&A session with us. After a few minutes we boarded the bus and headed back to the beach to await the boat. All in all, we enjoyed the island. Nice scenery. Nice tour. Its some thing I'd do again anyway.

On the way back, we saw dolphins doing tricks in the wild, which had everyone on the boat interested. They were jumping out of the water and doing back flips and stuff. Definately one of the highlights of Fraser Island.

Anyway, we got back to the caravan park and checked out the following morning. It was gonna be a long drive to Brisbane, so we left early and got back on Bruce.....more driving ensues.