We shared a lift to Hervey Bay with Liam and Tom in their Ford Falcon a real Beaut from the early 90's that they had brought to drive the east coast!! Hervey Bay is the jumping off point for Fraser island. Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world. We had booked a 3 day self drive trip in a 4 x 4 with camping gear included.
We arrived in Hervey Bay to find out our booking had been lost so we were only on the standby list for the next day. This was not a big issue as the weather forecast was for rain and we were told we would have free accomodation if they couldnt get us on the next day!! We had to wait until the morning to find out!!
We arrived having heard a few horror stories about the driving including crashes where people were air lifted to hospital so Liam and I decided we would ensure we would be the drivers in our group. Liam seemed a pretty good person to be with as in his real life back home he is a mechanic and also has spent some time in 4x4's. We also saw a few people from the previous trip arrive back on crutches following Dingo attacks!! The only thing for it was to prepare ourselves, so we headed to the nearest camping store and stocked up on torches, fishing gear and mosquito repellant.
We then returned to the hostel and cooked a big roast to ensure we would not starve over the next few days on the island camping if the Dingo's bullied us and stole all our food!!
We had to await for the first day to find out who we would be sharing the 4x4 with as we needed another 4 people to fill the Land cruiser!! So we had a tentative look around that night for possible people to share the ride with and kept our fingers crossed that we would be on the next days trip and we would be put with some nice people!!
We woke up at 7am to find out we were on the trip as some other people had cancelled. We went along to the morning presentation and were taught all the rules and regulations, given advice on driving on the island and warned about the local wild life (Dingo's)!!
We met the rest of our group 4 Argentinian girls and immediately we all hit it off, things looked promising!! Laura was pleased to get some girl time and Mike pleased to get a chance to practice his spanish!!
We took our Land cruiser to the shed and met some inbred "mechanics" who showed us where to stick all the camping gear and then we headed off to Woolworths and filled it with food and drink. The girls were deployed to get food and did a great job. The boys just brought a load of goon and beer. We drove onto the ferry and our adventure began.
We arrived on the islands west side. Liam drove the first day, along some pretty extreme tracks, certainly more extreme than we had bargained for. We stopped at Lake Wabby and all had a swim in the fresh waters!! 6 trucks in total left the hostel and we all stuck together so we had quite a big group to mess around with!!
We drove onto the East side and up the beach to find our first nights camping spot. We put our tents up with another van in the same spot, set up the camp stoves and sat around eating and drinking late into the night, no Dingo's to be seen, but we were ready for them with our big dingo sticks. Liam and mike went out digging for bait to go fishing with the next day at about mid night as it was low tide.
That night we had a bit of rain which tested the tents claims of being waterproof to find they were very false claims. Laura was well medicated so slept well but Mike awoke to the Dingo's outside tearing chunks out of each other and thought it was lucky for the drunken swiss guy we found lying asleep on the sand outside and stuck him in the van. He would have been attacked for sure and was in no fit state to fight!! A little scary!! When anyone needed the toilet we went in pairs and took the Dingo stick for protection. Luckily it was only ever needed to dig the toilet hole and never used in anger!!
The next day started as it meant to go on- rainy!! We hastily packed the tent up and headed north up the east beach. This time with Mike driving. We stopped at the pinnacles a really cool look out along the beach and champagne pools, a rocky area where the huge waves crash in and form a really nice champagne effect over the rocks but protected enough to swim ie no sharks!! Swimming in the sea is strictly prohibited due to stingers and more worringly tiger sharks!! The girls looked after the boys very well and made lunch to keep our strength up to do man things like make camp and fish.
Liam and Mike did some fishing catching a couple of fish but unfortunately not big enough to feed everyone for diner that night!!
We headed back south to find our camp site for the night and took some pics of the ship wreck along the way etc. The rain made driving the beach quite hard work as it was difficult to see the changing surface. We found a nice sheltered spot trying to protect ourselves from the elemenents as best as possible. We helped the others set up camp. The rain was heavy and almost horizontal with the 30mph onshore winds!! We made pasta and had some beers with some of the other people from the other trucks that had parked up in the same area. NO Dingo's that night, obviously they only attack the tourists in the good weather. We slept in the van that night as the tent was soaked through.
The final day brought with it sunshine, we slowly packed up camp and dried out a little before heading to Lake Mackenie. Laura drove on the beach doing a great job. Mike then took over to head in land through some pretty exreme off road track- he loved it!! Lake Mackenzie was a beautiful place to spend the day in the water and on the lush sands. We had some lunch then headed back to the ferry!!
We got to the ferry in good time, sad that our adventure was nearly over, but happy to have met some realy good people and had a great little adventure!!
We got back to the hostel, all jumped straight in the nice warm showers and passed out for a good nights sleep, safe in the thought we had survived the Dingo's, sharks and dodgy roads!! :)
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