15th December – Fraser Island Day 2

As expected I woke up today hungover like quite a few other people.  It was about 7am and the sun already was far too strong for us to stay in the tents.  I managed to open the zip with my eyes half shut and then stick my head out to go straight back to sleep on the sand.  That didn’t last too long though as I soon felt myself getting buried by people.

After a while everyone was up and we started to cook some scrambled eggs for breakfast, once everything was packed away we started to walk down the beach until we got to Eli creek.  Before that though Keith was hiding under the jeep in search of some shade, for a laugh one of the guys started the engine which scared the shit out of him and he cut his foot trying to get out, hilarious!

Anyway,  Someone told us it was about a 30 min walk to the creek from where we were camping.. turns out that was just a huge lie!  It was just over an hour and the worst thing about the walk was knowing we had to go all the way back as well.  As the tide was just going out the sand was really hard to walk on as you just sink in it, and the fact last night was quite a heavy one it didn’t help either!  If the tide wasn’t so high up we would have obviously driven!

When we finally got there, we walked to the top of the creek along some decking which was so hot everyone was jumping on to the shaded parts to get to the top.  Basically once you get there you just jump in and float all the way down to the bottom.  The water was Icy cold but nice and refreshing after melting in the heat.

After going down a few times and having a shower in it (that was our wash for today) we noticed there was a sign for disabled toilets, but to get there you had to go up like 100 steps!  How does that work?  Eventually after a couple of hours we made our way back to the jeeps where Dave drove us up the island until we got to some shop where we all bought some ice to sort out our now warm beer and get an ice lolly.

On the way up to the shop we had to go up a fairly steep slope though which got us stuck, so once again the 10 of us had to get out and push the jeep while the driver floored it!  Once on our way back down we soon got to Indian point which is as far north on the island we are actually allowed to take the jeeps.  We carried the cooler to the top of the hill where you get an awesome view of the turtles and stingray in the water below.  At one point there was a shark as well, but I didn’t get to see that.

SO yea, we spent another few hours there relaxing on the edge of a cliff drop with a beer looking at all the cool sea life.  We were the only group that bothered to drag the cooler up to the top, everyone else was jealous of us especially the Irish being the alcys that the are!  After a while Dave found a secluded spot just around the back of the cliff edge which gave you an awesome view of the island so you could see around the corner as well.  You need to see the pics to know what I’m on about!

Apart from me and Dave everyone else in our group was up for leaving.  That sucked as I could have stayed there much longer but I suppose we didn’t really want to have to start cooking in the dark again.  After taking a few more pics we all met up at the jeep and made our way to tonight’s campsite.  Once there we pitched up the tents and noticed there were quite a few people having a kick about on the beach.

A while later we had a huge beach footy game that consisted of English lads vs rest of the world.  We won 2-1 yeaa!!  It soon got dark and we went back to the jeep where we got our stereo to blurt out the 3 lions song.  While doing this the girls had finished making dinner, awesome!

After dinner we played ring of fire again or ‘kings’ as it’s more commonly known over here with a few Swedish and German girls.  One of the rules that was made up is to refer to everyone as their mums name. One of the guys in our group (John) was called Sheila which everyone kept chanting, haha!

The music coming out of our jeep was by far the best which attracted a large group of people after a while which was cool.  Later on in the evening we played a Japanese game called ‘Ping Pong Par’ which was quite simple but hard when drunk.  Then after that we played another game called ‘1 smart fellow’  It is officially the hardest game I’ve ever played.  You start off saying ‘there was 1 smart fellow, he felt smart’ and then it goes round in a circle until someone messes up.  So the 2nd person says ‘there were 2 smart fellows, they felt smart.’  Obviously reading it back isn’t so difficult but try saying it after you’ve had many drinks!

After all the games had died down I remember Keith and I started chasing a dingo down the beach.  Then waking up on the beach sometime later on my own with no one else around so I went to bed!

14th December – Fraser Island!

So, today was the start of our Fraser adventure!  We checked out of our room at 8am or so before heading around the back of the hostel where the 6 jeeps were waiting for us.

We met the rest of our group and then started to pack everything on the top.  After 45 mins or so everyone was packed up and ready to go.  Before we headed off we had to check the vechile for any damage so that we wouldn’t get charged for anything that wasn’t done by us before hand.  Then the guy in charge of all the jeeps told us all how to drive them properly saying a thousand times ‘momentum is your friend’, and when to use the 4 wheel drive gears.  He also loved to rhyme far too much, his favourites being ‘turn those frowns upside down’ and ‘put a smile on that dial!’.  It was quite amusing listening to him but we all though he was some failed motivational speaker.

He went on to tell us that he loses nearly 360 jeeps a year on Fraser by people driving at the wrong times and getting washed away by the tides or going to fast and hitting a drop off in the sand.

Apparently only a couple of weeks ago a group didn’t notice a drop off and ended up flipping the jeep on it’s roof and 5 had to get airlifted to hospital… not good!  Anyway, after all the talk I had the chance to drive first out of our group.  Just before we got on the ferry we had to stop to turn some dial on the front wheels to make the vechile 4×4.

Today was officially the highest the tide has been this year and the instructor wasn’t sure if it was possible to get on the ferry or not.  After waiting around a bit he gave us the all clear to go.  We drove onto the sand which was very boggy, it kind of felt like driving on snow – sliding all over the place.  We all made it onto the ferry apart from 1 jeep who got stuck in the sand.  We all cheered when they eventually got on and then shortly after found out that a women was driving it… haha that just made it funnier!

Once on the ferry the Irish guys lost their rugby ball over the side which unbelievably the ferry went back for!  There was another loud cheer by everyone as soon as it was picked up haha.  After a 5 min journey to the other side i gave the keys so someone else to drive off.  We followed the other jeeps in convoy down the gravel track while drinking a few warm beers that were in the back as there was no room left in the cooler.

After a while we got onto the beach where we laughed at a few cars that had got stuck as we went past… a few mins later we got stuck ourselves and then we all got laughed at!  When we tried to get out but it only got worse, after a few attempts half the wheel was under the sand.  Luckily a passing 4×4 stopped for us and offered to pull us out which we were all thankful for.

Once back under our way we carried on our drive until we reached lake Mckenzie.  The beach there has been rated as one of the top 10 in the world.  The lake was more impressive though – the water was crystal clear and actually tasted like bottled water.  We had a kick around on the beach and also played some skim ball which was cool.  I aimed a hard shot at Dave which went through his hands and ended up smacking some girl on the head about 20 ft later… whoops!

After staying there for a couple of hours we drove further up the island until we reached the Maheno shipwreck.  Had a look around that for a while and took quite a few pictures.  Then Andy drove to the campsite where we would stay for the evening.  Talk about flooring it, everyone was smashing their heads on the roof as he bombed it across the sand, overtaking a fellow vechile to the campsite.  Was good fun though!

Once there we set up the tents and started to cook some steaks that were provided for us while having a kick about on the beach.  We ended up doing most of the cooking in the dark though – didn’t really time our meal that well!  After eating the drinking started properly.
In our own little group (group D) we played the game ’21s’ or buzz – whatever you wanna call it, they are pretty similar.  After a few games of that we eventually all split up and mingled with the other groups.

A few of us ended up in the Irish guys camp where there were many different games going on.  There was some box game which I have no idea if it had a name or not.  But you had to bend down and pick it up without using your hands or knees touching the floor.  I was completely crap at that game.  After that every just talked to each other for a while before all joining in in a few songs.

Near the end of the night, well 12:30 or something – which is quite frankly appalling.  I have no idea why but everyone had gone to bed stupidly early… so anyway it was just Keith and I left up with 2 girls from group B.  We played ring of fire which we seem to do a lot and then decided to call it a night after that as no one else was around.  Keith ended up going to sleep in someone elses tent and woke up in the morning having no idea where he was, haha classic!

13th December – Fraser Briefing

This morning was pretty much a replica of yesterday.  We checked out of the motel again and had another look around town before we were allowed to check into the hostel.  We went into Peter Pans where we were entitled to some free internet as we booked a package through them.

Once 11am came around, we officialy checked into Dingos this time.  We shared our room with 2 german girls and a short time after that everyone that was going to Fraser tomorrow had to have a briefing about what was going to happen.

We had to watch some DVD about how to live on Fraser, and what you should do in certain circumstances.  Like when a Dingo should approach you for example.  It was really poorly made, just like all the educational school videos you see and most people just laughed while watching.

Shortly after getting through that, we were all put into groups of 11.   In our group we had 3 other English lads, 2 German girls (not the ones that we shared a room with) and another 2 French girls.  Once in our groups we all had to sign various papers that stated if we damaged the vechiles we would have to pay etc… and then of course had to choose all the various alcohol we wanted to take with us.

As a group we spent $430 on alcohol which was mainly between us 7 guys which was a pretty good effort!  Turned out later on we found out that a load of Irish guys had spent over $800, but then again that comes as no surprise!  Oh yea, the guy giving us the briefing was mega enthusiastic about everything, every other sentence he said he came out with a rhyme as well.  The ones he used the most were ‘turn those frowns upside down’ and ‘put a smile on that dial’ – absolutely shocking!

So, after getting to know everyone for a couple of hours and buying all our alcohol for the trip everyone went their separate ways for the afternoon.  We decided to head back to Gympy again as there was nothing to do in Rainbow.  None of us could be bothered to sit on the beach as we are going to have 2 whole days of it come tomorrow.  Once there we had a Pizza Hut buffet, thinking about it – we have eaten a shed load of pizza while away…

We got back a few hours later and had a couple of drinks with the German girls we were sharing our room with before heading to the bar to meet up with everyone else going on the trip tomorrow.  The Irish guys were already plastered and dancing to the live music provided by 1 man and his guitar!  Most of the people in the bar that evening had just come back from the Fraser trip, so we didn’t really recognise anyone else.  Again though, after an hour or 2 we decided to head back to the room as we had to be up at 7 tomorrow ready for our adventure!

12th December – Rainbow Beach

As soon as we woke up we had to check out straight away which isn’t unusual which you have probably guessed by now!   Once that was done we tried to check into our hostel just down the road called Dingos.  They told us it wasn’t possible until 11am though – so until then we had a look around the town.

After going into a few shops and managing to find some free internet somewhere we went back to the hostel to check in.  The girl on reception told us that we had turned up a day early and we in fact be checking in there tomorrow.  Turned out when we ordered the trip back in Cairns they had entered the wrong return date so we ended up just lazing around for the rest of the day really.

We got the same room back that we had last night in the motel we stayed at (Rainbow Sands).  As soon as that was done we drove to the nearest town again which was called Gympy to have a look around there.   It was 80k’s away which was quite far, but it was something to do.  We ended up getting a dominos after having a walk around.  On the way we went into a pet shop where we saw a load of kittens and puppies that must have only been a few weeks old.

Once we got back to the motel Andy and I decided to make use of our putting set again.  We made an obstacle course which kept us entertained for a few hours before heading down to the Dingos hostel bar again.  We met Kirsty and Anne down there as they were doing their  Fraser trip one day ahead of us.  After a few drinks and games of pool it quietened down and we all called it a night.

11th December – Amended Flight

We checked out around 10am this morning and straight away got back in the car to continue our journey to Rainbow Beach.  After a while we turned up at Maryborough, we decided to stop off here for a while and have a look around the shops as there wasn’t going to be much at Rainbow.

All of us stocked up on supplies in snack form before carrying on.  While driving through we tried to look for a flight centre so we could amend our flight to Thailand for obvious reasons.  There didn’t seem to be one around so we ended up just going into a local travel agent to get some advice on whether or not it was still worth going.

They told us that if we still wanted to go to Thailand it is now safe to do so and that we shouldn’t change our plans if we did want to go.  After having a think about what we all wanted to do, we decided to see if we could delay the flight to Thailand by a week so we had more time to travel around Oz.  Not only that, since travelling we have met many people that will be in Sydney for Xmas so it would be cool to catch up with them all again.

We phoned up Qantas on my phone which turned out to cost $40, luckily i got a fair bit of credit free because that just sucks.  Anyway after being on hold for absolutely ages we managed to get through and after discussing various options of travelling to Hong Kong, China, Singapore or some other country instead we eventually ended up moving our flight Thailand flight to the 29th instead, so we are still going.

Nothing else was available, but thinking about it – it actually worked out quite well, as now we can still attend the full moon new years party! Also Keith will be in 2 country’s on his birthday which will be a cool thing to say.

After sorting out all of that we carried on driving again.  We arrived at Rainbow beach later on in the afternoon, it’s a quite a small remote town.  There are a few beachy like shops, a motel and a hostel.

We stayed at the motel for the night as the hostel was already fully booked.  It was actually an awesome place to stay.  For just £12 each we got spare beds which obviously weren’t needed, a kitchen, dishwasher, TV etc – and even a laundry room to clean our stuff which was very handy!

Once unpacked we went to the local supermarket where we tried to find some dinner for tonight.  Andy and I got a load of pasta as it was fairly cheap while Keith splashed out on a steak hah!  Dave on the other hand got a n 8ltr box of ice cream which we said as a joke we would give him £100 each if he finished it.  Realistically it was never going to happen but for £100 he was well up for it so the challenge was on!

For the rest of the night we just relaxed watching TV and seeing Dave suffer forcing Ice cream down himself.  Fair play to him though, he did get rid of 4ltrs or so…

10th December – Rockhampton

Once again I got up far too late for breakfast, I value my sleep too much, every minute counts when you get up at that kind of time!  The boat came to pick us up at the same time as yesterday again, 8:15.

Once we all got on the boat we headed to a much better snorkeling destination this time around that was a bit further away.  There were quite a few more people staying out of the sun today, me included – the sun is so strong out here and even at 8 in the morning it was too much after being in it all day yesterday.  After an hours or so boating we finally got there.

Once again we jumped in off the boat and swam to a mini sand island.  When we started to snorkel we saw another couple of turtles which we could reach out and touch.  Just like the last snorkel place there were a lot of other cool funky coloured looking fish.  It’s go to be said though, the snorkeling that we did in Fiji was so much better.  We did hear afterwards that the reef is better up near Cairns but still.

After swimming around for a couple of hours or so we got on the boat again and headed back to Airlie Beach.  After looking around the town for a little bit, we carried on our journey down south and ended up staying at a place called Rockhampton.  It was the biggest place that we were going to pass on our way down to Rainbow Beach.

We stayed at some motel for the evening, and the staff were really  nice to me for some reason and gave us all 10% discount and a card to get accommodation cheaper for travellers elsewhere.  Later that night we went to get a dominos which we seem to be having a lot of recently.
Once there it was probably the gammiest place I’ve ever been in.  It was run by a bunch of 16 year olds and had dead bugs all over the floor.  If it wasn’t so cheap we would have gone elsewhere but for $5 a pizza, everyone is happy!

Once back at the motel we watched ‘The Fugitive’ which they happened to have available for free.  Keith hadn’t actually seen it which I still can’t believe!

9th December – Whithaven Beach

After last nights antics getting to sleep wasn’t a problem but when we woke up in the morning the room was stupidly hot.  Probably because we couldn’t shut the door properly last night so the A/C which was crap anyway didn’t work properly.

At 8:15 we got back on the boat which took us to Whitehaven beach, which has been officially rated as the best beach in the world.  To be fair, it was amazing.  The sand on it isn’t like anywhere else we have been.  It’s kind of like stepping on freshly fallen snow, very powdery, well the texture anyway!

Once we arrived, there was a boat that took us to the shore but most of us just jumped in off the boat and swam there.  We had to wear ’stinger’ suits to protect us from getting stung.  I think these stinger things they were on about are actually mini jellyfish.

While on the beach Dave and Keith decided to go climbing some rocks to get a better view of what was around the corner, after not seeing them for a while they came back with burnt feet as the rocks and sand was just way to hot to stand on without sandals and Dave also got bitten to shreds by something all over his feet!

After we all met up again we had a kick around on the beach while getting baked by the sun, none of us had any sun tan lotion on us so yea, we felt that after a while!  Once we got back on the boat we travelled to Hook island.  On the way there though we passed Hamilton island which is a mega expensive place to live.  We got told that one of the Beatles lives there and his place is worth around 9.5 million.

A bit later we arrived at a decent snorkeling spot where we actually got a lesson on how to do it.  Usually your just given a mask and off you go, so that was funny.  While in the water we saw 2 giant sea turtles among lots of little fish and a couple of larger ones.  A few looked a bit evil!

On the way back to the boat we had to swim through a thick layer of brown muck which was horrible.  Later we learned it was something the coral does this time of year.  When we were back on the boat one of the crew gave me a water pistal to go and squirt everyone with.  That was great fun, the power was all mine!  One guy pretended to throw me off the boat, as he was foreign I had no idea if he was serious or not at the time!

When we got back to South Molle island Dave, Andy and I had a round of golf as there was a 9 hole course on the island.  I officially suck at golf, although the scores wern’t too far apart near the end.  Andy won, damnit!  For dinner we had the same meal as last night, more steak again, yay! This time after dinner the bar was pretty much dead though which was disappointing.  We headed to a swimming pool some 10 min walk away where we spent most of the evening.  As we had to be up at 7am again tomorrow we went to bed around 11pm after that.

8th December – Whit Sundays!

Today is a sad day, now only 1 month left of our travels before we have to face the real world again.  We checked out of the hostel early in the morning again before getting briefed about our Whit Sundays trip.

It was about 37 degrees today I think, definitely the hottest we have felt yet.  We met everyone who would be on our trip, about 50 people.  Turns out at the ‘meet and great’ everyone was either hungover or just weren’t up for talking.  It appeared we were going to be stuck with a really crap group of people.

After that we had to wait to get on our boat for about an hour and a half in the boiling sun.  It was only supposed to be 20 mins, that was a horrible wait!  Eventually we got on and started talking to a group of American girls while we travelled to the South Molle island where we will be staying for the next 2 nights.  In the end on the way to the island we met some  pretty cool people on our boat and the drinking games started quickly.

Once there we shared our room with 2 Danish guys.  They turned out to be quite a laugh, after getting to know everyone a bit at the bar it was dinner time where we got given steak!  That was such a nice chnage from what we had been eating.  Not so long after the meal we started to get some more drinking games going.  There were 8 of us around a table about to start a game of ring of fire or ‘kings’ as a lot of people seem to call it.

Before we started the skipper of the boat came over to our table and asked us to get the other 50 odd people involved.  After a while of explaining to him you can’t play that game with 60 people we managed to find 6 different packs of cards and had the same game playing on every table.  We had to write out the rules for some girl to blurt them out to everyone as well which was funny.  Later on we had a massive game of flip cup with 3 tables lined up.  My side sucked… damnit, and after that we played some the horse racing game.

After many hours of fun we went back to the room where our sliding door came off its hinges.  We kind of fixed it but it never really shut properly after that and as a result I got bitten a fair bit throughout the night… excellent!

7th December – Won Some Champers!

Today we got up and checked out of our hostel as usual.  Before we left to drive down to Airlie beach we took some photos of Mission beach.  Coming from Fiji it definitely wasn’t as good but then, that’s Fiji!

After 20 mins or so we stated the drive down south once again.  On the way down we passed Townsville which we stopped off at as it was the biggest town that we were going to pass on the way to Airlie.

Keith decided to get his haircut while we were there.  The only one open was some salon which turned out to be quite expensive, he should have had it cut when we all did with a free beer!  After that and having a quick look around the town and stocking up on some more supplies we headed back to the car to carry on our journey.

As most of them are it was pretty uneventful until we got pulled over by the police for speeding.  I won’t say which one of us was driving but we got caught doing 142k/m in a 100 zone.  For that we got a $700 fine.  Turns out if we had an Oz license we would have received 8 points and a 6 month ban.

Absolute madness, 142 isn’t even that fast!  Not to mention you only see a car every few mins, very harsh!  Turns out we later learned that in Oz they are very open about trying to catch people speeding as it’s a good source of their income while us Brits try and make out it’s for safety reasons.  After that we stuck to the speed limits a lot more and it took us bloody ages to get anywhere.  Anyway we eventually turned up at Airlie Beach where we checked into our hostel and also our trip to Whit Sundays.

In the evening the hostel provided us all with some entertainment.  We all ended up doing some general knowledge quiz, and believe it or not we actually won!  Seeing a group of 40-50 year olds faces after they were beat by us 4 getting a near perfect score was priceless.  We got some champagne for winning and then proceeded to get a dominos to carry on the celebrations!

Later on in the evening we watched Chelsea vs Bolton as it was on in one of the pubs close to us and had a few bevvy’s before our trip tomorrow.

6th December – Kuranda

We got up at 9:30am as we had to check out of our hostel.  Why is it always so early!  Once that was out the way we drove to Kuranda I think it is, which is about a 30 min drive from where we were.  You get a nice scenic view about 5 mins away from her place where we stopped to take a few pics.

Once we had done that it was into town where Andy and I decided to buy a mobile.  There is a deal going on where you buy a phone which has $160 credit for only £35 or something.  As we are going to be here for a month or so it was a good idea to get one.

While we were talking to the girl that was sorting out the contracts she mentioned she had a kid.  We both gave each other a dodgy look as she looked about 16, shocking!  After about an hour the phones were ready to be used.

After that was all sorted it was straight back in the car, A/C turned up and then started yet another long drive down to Mission Beach.  After many hours we arrived at the place and checked in at the hostel we had booked.  It was one of the worst ones we had been to unfortunately, but then we are only staying for one night so it wasn’t such a big deal.

By this time it was around 4pm so we decided to head down to the beach until the sun went down.  The water over here in Oz is mega salty, it stings the eyes so much, it’s not like anywhere else.

The water was probably the warmest we have experienced though which was nice.  It’s like being in one huge bath.  After a few hours we got out and headed to the nearest town that had some food as nothing took our fancy here.  We drove to a place called Tully which was a small town in the middle of no where really but it had to do.

We went into some random place where they served various things.  Dave got a pizza which looked disgusting, I’m glad I didn’t ask for one of those!  I decided to get some chips which turned out to be quite interesting.  Once given them I asked if they had any vinegar to then be shouted at by the fattest women you will ever see for not telling her originally that I wanted some.

She then went on to moan about how she would now have to go all the way out the back and find some for me.  Of course I apologised but once she had waddled about 7 ft away from the till to pick some up I just started laughing to myself.  What a state she was…

After that we just drove back to the hostel where we watched a film before bed.