Day 66

Thursday 6^th January 2011

………what we’d actually done was hang the bag over the jeeps wing mirror and gone to bed, instead of putting inside the jeep and locking it away, oh dear. Within two minutes a pack of Dingo’s were in camp, when Dingo’s find food, they howl and growl to alert the others to their find. They tore the bag to shreds devouring our scarps and when they had finished with that they took some towels off the trees that other campers were drying and ripped holes in them, I thought that was rather rude.

Luckily I didn’t hear any of this as I’d passed out the moment my head hit the pillow (well, sand) but listening to the rest of the campers, it gave them all quite a fright, at least two sat up for the rest of the night with torches, I actually overslept and didn’t surface until gone eight, when Bryan, who was sick of waiting for us, beeped the horn on the truck, let’s just say there wasn’t a cup of coffee waiting for me.

We’d decided the night before that we would throw all the gear in the jeeps and head straight to a campsite for brekkie, a wash, etc etc, so we did.

We went to a campsite called central station which we had been booked to stay in. This place is a national park and a really nice place with huge trees and lots of wildlife. We ate breakfast, which by this point in the trip we were down to almost nothing, bread, nutella and cereals, there was supposed to be 2 muffins each, somebody had eaten my second muffin and that made me mad!!!

I took myself off for a wash and decided that I would have cigarettes and coffee for breakfast instead. On the way back I spotted a huge Iguana on the tree outside the toilet. Mint!

We made a short trip in the jeeps to the middle of central station, when we pulled up Marco found the missing muffins in the jeep, joy of joys, I have scarcely been happier!

We took a walk through central station which had another unbelievably clear creek running through it, it also had a tree trunk that had fallen across it, well, I just couldn’t resist!

Afterwards we went to the most famous lake on the island lake Mackenzie. This lake was beautiful, green water around the edges and whiter than white sand.

We did some more playing and then a huge black cloud rose above the trees. We gathered our belongings and rush to shelter as the heavens open in fine style.

 

Back aboard the Barbie jeeps Suz took the wheel and after one or two hair raising moments everybody held on extra tight. It appeared that Suz couldn’t manage to drive the jeep in a straight line. At one point she took one hand of the wheel to scratch her face and we went careering towards a tree…. SUZ!!!! Jesus!! I think we were all grateful when we arrived at the lunch spot.

We munched down the remaining supplies mainly nutella sandwiches with coco pops sprinkled ontop. Times were getting hard!

Seeing as everybody had now had a drive of the jeep we drew lots and Marco won the prize of driving us back to the ferry. The weather was now in, the clouds were thick and milky so we all sat inside on the ferry. We got back to fraser roving backpackers and arranged to meet for dinner at 19:30 after a nap.

Sadly the nap never happened – grrrrrr! Back at our hostel we checked to see if our Greyhound bus to Airlie Beach had been cancelled. It had. We were informed that the roads through Rockhampton would be closed for the next 10 days at least. Bugger! We already had everything booked up there – accommodation, a 3 day cruise out on the reat Barrier Reef and our flights back to Sydney. We NEEDED to get there. It seemed we had a couple of options.

The first was a bus, a ferry round the flooded areas and another bus. This was going to take a minimum of 40 hours travelling and cost around 500 bucks. As you can imagine this was not too appealing.

The second involved heading back down to Brisbane and getting a flight up to Proserpine which was about 30 mins drive from Airlie Beach. The next available flight was Sunday night which would just about get us there for our cruise on the Monday morning. This was much more appealing but also much more expensive – 80 bucks to get to Brissie, then 600 bucks for thr flights – and we’d need somewhere to stay until the flight on the Sunday.

It was 8am at home and our travel insurance offices had just opened so we decided to give them a ring to see what, if anything we were covered for. After eventually getting to speak to someone helpful – there is nothing so distressing as being on hold to a premium rate number when you’re calling from Australia –  but it was good news! Apparently we are covered for up to £1000 each to get to where we need to be – this includes accommodation, transport and food!!!! Result! We quickly booked the flights as they were selling out faster than take that tickets did on our wedding day and went out for tea with a smile on our face.

Everyone except Esti met up for tea. We were told this was because she had already made other plans to meet up with friends…. I think it might have been Bryan’s inappropriate jokes. We had been given walkie talkies to communicate between jeeps in case of emergency. Bryan, always the joker, decided that there was an emergency every 10 mins! On this occasion he was addressing Hans – our German guide. ‘Hans, Hans, come in Hans! Why did Hilter commit suicide?’…… no reply……. ‘Because he couldn’t afford the gas bill!’. The realisation of what he had just said sank in in our car and we sat in stony silence…. Bryan was sat in the front of the jeep next to Esti – the Jewish Israeli girl!!!!!

Anyway we had a good meal in the Torquay Hotel whilst listening to the WORST guitarist I have ever heard. Those of you who frequent the Tiger – remember skiffle playing Jim? Well like that – Aussie Jim!!! Suz was almost asleep on the table so at 11.00pm we called it a night and headed back to the hostel.

It was still pouring with rain and the forecast was the same for the next few days. We’d already seen what Hervey Bay had to offer – not much! So we decided to head to Brisbane on the bus and have a couple of days there waiting for our flight. Since the insurance company were going to be footing the bill for this we also decided we wouldn’t be staying in hostels either. I hit late rooms to see what was on offer. We toyed with the idea of a suite in the Hilton but worried that the insurance company might contest that claim so settled on a 4 star apartment over looking the river. Happy that we were sorted for the next leg of the trip, exhausted after 2 nights sleeping in a sandy sweat box we fell asleep.

Day 65

Wednesday 5^th January 2011

Hands up if you like waking up in a tent with the sun blazing in, at 05:30, with a march fly buzzing around your head???

Yep, me neither, but that’s the situation I found myself in on this hot and humid Aussie day, I woke up breathless, dripping in sweat with a banging headache and with eyes that appeared to have been glued together in the night, I fought my way out of the tent and bleary eyed, staggered over the sand and into the sea, praying that Jaws was having a lie in. I ventured in as far as my knees and threw the cold water all over me, then I washed my face and sat on the beach taking in the morning air.

On a beach on the other side of Australia almost thirty four years ago the reigning Prime Minister – Harold Holt - did exactly the same thing apart from that fact that he decided to take a swim instead of have a wash, a swim, as it would turn out, that required no towel. He swam out 100 metres or so and without so much as a lazy wave, he vanished, never to be seen again. I decided against the swim and headed back to the tent to see if I could get Suz to slide out of her sleeping bag.

Buy the time I returned to camp about 6 ish, people were up and about, the breakfast ingredients were out and I helped myself to a choc chip muffin and some orange juice. Suz – who had slept with clothes on (!) - asked if it was cooler out of the tent than in it, I can imagine a chicken asking the same question about an oven.

We finished breakfast and washed last night’s dishes, I dug a hole for the dirty water so as not to attract any Dingos,

then we packed up the jeeps and headed for our first stop of the day, lake Allom.

It didn’t have a beach like the others we had seen, instead it had steps. The water was brown and not very inviting, Hans informed us that this is due to the large number of Tea Trees that line the lake, their oil seeps into the water making it brown but actually very good for the skin. Unconvinced, we sat on the edge where turtles came up to greet us,

there was also little fish that nibble the hard skin off your feet We submerged our sandy feet into the water and watched the fish get to work on our impromptu pedicure.

We sat for maybe an hour and the fish were still finding bits to nibble on, some people ventured into the lake for a swim, we sat and watched. Then, as more people began to arrive, we went back to the jeeps and set off for Indian Heads, a headland at the end of the western beach where sharks have been seen. This was straight down the highway which is also used as an airport, you’ve got to have your wits about you if you’re going to drive on Fraser (mirror, signal, check the sky, manoeuvre!).

We trekked up the Indian Heads in the searing midday sun, the views were great but unfortunately it appeared that Jaws had not only had a lie in, but taken the whole day off.  We didn’t see so much as a big fish from the headland.

Now, from here we were supposed to go to ‘Champagne Pools’ but it was getting on a bit and it would have taken us the rest of the day to get there and back and we still hadn’t had lunch. We decided against it and instead headed back down the beach to a creek where we could cool off and have a buttie. Myself and Marco (one of the Italians) discovered that we had been working on the same kind of half and half tan on our legs.

We had a bit of a kick about on the beach (notice the beer in hand, classy!)

and then piled in the jeeps, we were going to see the Maheno shipwreck. Suz says it has sunk considerably since she was last here five years ago, we overheard a woman telling her kids that when she last came thirty years ago, there was an upper and lower deck and you could get inside it! We walked around the outside making sure we stayed more than 3 metres away (this is finable too to the tune of $1800) and found some very strange growths on the ships stern.

They were shell fish of sorts that spat out water from a nipple if you touched them, there were people cutting them of to use as fishing bait (very good they are too apparently) and inside they are bright pink, very odd but it amused us for at least half an hour, I had to do some pretty good blocking but I managed to stop the gathered throng of kids having a go until I had finished my fun.

The sun was beginning to fade so we headed further down the beach and found another spot for camping. The camp was a little better than the previous night, we parked the jeeps either side of a big grey tarpaulin, and me and Suz dashed off to find a tree to pitch under so I didn’t have to wake in the same circumstances tomorrow.

We got the stove out and this is where the problems began. The Italians have a reputation for being a little aloof and slightly arrogant. Well, these guys were no different. We had to buy, on their demand, courgettes for the spag bol, as well as peppers for the French and Dolmio for the Brits. We should have seen it coming……

The Italians set about making tea and we thought good, this is bound to be nice, spag bol cooked by Italians. Perfecto.

Well not quite, Stefano, who had elected himself head chef chopped all the veg up (onions, garlic, courgette, tomatoes) and put them in a pan. He then enquired as to whether we had bought salt to cook the pasta in. We hadn’t, but, it shouldn’t be a big deal, after all, were camping right? Wrong!

Stefano - about 1 hour into making spag bol

 

He sent his sous chef off to the sea to collect salt water to cook the pasta in, some people began to question, well, firstly his sanity, then his eagerness to put sand directly into our tea. At this point it also hadn’t gone unnoticed the 2.5 kgs of beef mince was still sat in its bag. An hour in and Stefano is cooking the living shit out of the veg, which has now gone sloppy but apparently still isn’t ready. Then the pasta goes on with a few cupfuls of sea water. Again questions are being asked, why is he putting the pasta on before the mince? Will we get tea before breakfast? What kind of medication is this man on?

After twenty minutes more he starts serving up the pasta and veg slop, he has put the four jars of Dolmio in the middle of the floor as some sort of dip and the mince remains uncooked. Suz, who by this point as had a few mugs of red wine,

storms up to Stefano and demands that he stops serving the pasta up, she says “you’re ruining everything, the pasta is going to be shit, the mince is raw and Dolmio is not a fucking dip!” or words to that effect. It’s now two hours since he started making spag bol and patience is getting pushed to the limit. Stefano tried to explain himself by saying that in Italy you serve the pasta and veg as a starter then you brown the mince for the main. I’m sorry but that sounds bloody awful, who has just mince for a main?

Hans got himself involved in a very quiet and understated way, he just started cooking the mince, once that was done we added the Dolmio, mixed in Stefano’s veg slop and served it up and to be fair it wasn’t half bad, although by this point I would have ate a live Dingo if one would have been fool hardy enough to waltz into camp.

We finished our tea/ supper and carried on tucking into the beers, the music was on, and we chatted and sang into the night.

Again, people began to fade but me and Marco stayed up assuring everyone that we would take care of cleaning up the camp before bed, anything, ANTHING left out will invite Dingo’s into camp. After a sterling effort to finish all remaining alcohol we walked around camp with head torches on and meticulously picked up everything, cig butts, onion peel, the lot. Then we put it all in a bin bag and went to bed, a nice evening (despite “Spag Bol Gate”) had by all and a job well done by me and Marco, or so we thought……..

Day 64

Tuesday 4^th January 2011

We met at Fraser Roving backpackers at 07:30 and then headed to Woolworths to buy provisions for the next few days. Its an odd experience trying to shop with 14 people from all over the world when you don’t even know their names, let alone what they like to eat! We had 2 Swiss, 3 Italians, 2 French, 2 Dutch, 1 Israeli, 1 Irish lad, a Kiwi, us two English and the guide was German/ Aussie. It doesn’t come more eclectic than that!!!

Suz took control and decided to split the group into 3, one group for each meal of the day. We took the tea’s and headed to the butcher. We gave breakfast to the Italians/ Israeli and lunch to the Swiss/ French. The butcher was doing a “Fraser Pack” consisting of 8 burgers, 8 steaks, 8 sausages and 1.2kgs of mince. We figured we’d get two packs and have a BBQ tonight and spaghetti bolognese for tomorrow. The ‘spag bol’ was a bad idea, we just wouldn’t find out why until tomorrow.

We finished the shop after collecting burger buns, salad etc and found that the other groups had done well also. There were muffins for breakfast as well as cereal and fruit. Lunch was going to be sandwiches with cheese, ham, beef and salad with a selection of sauces. Not bad for a group who had only know each other an hour. We tilled up and we’d spent $300, so about $25 each. Bingo!

We chucked the stuff in the car and made our way over to the more important task of buying the booze. It was each to their own now so me and Suz grabbed a 30 pack of beers and a box of wine, everybody else bought something similar, we would definitely have enough beer to last two nights.

With nobody else volunteering I put myself forward to take the first leg of the driving, we drove down the coast to the dock and without the aid of mirrors (the jeep had mirrors but they were floppy and wouldn’t stay where you put them) I had to reverse my new toy onto a boat, which I must say I did rather well.

We crossed over to Fraser Island, disembarked, put the jeeps in 4x4 and headed into the forest via the well worn sand tracks of other jeeps. Driving on the island is amazing, the trees rise high above you and to the left and right, so dense your can only see 10 or 20 feet into the jungle.

The terrain is smooth, soft, sometimes bumpy but always exciting. The sun was in blistering mood so the breeze through the open windows of the jeep was more than welcome. The first stop was lake Birrabeen, Hans (our guide) figured that most people would head to the more famous lake Mackenzie so we would go in reverse and see Mackenzie last. This turned out to be a good plan from our efficient and punctual friend (you can take the guy out of Hamburg….) as we seemed to miss a lot of the crowds.

Hans informed us that all the lakes on the island are fresh water and safe to swim in, there has been confirmed shark sightings off the eastern beaches and crocodiles are known to roam in certain parts too, Aussies have a funny use for the word “safe”. That’s the thing about Australia, almost every creature wants to bite, maim or kill you, still, keeps you on your toes I guess.

Lake Birrabeen was crystal clear, about 20 degrees and absolutely gorgeous to get into. The sand was so white it was blinding and a huge rainforest surrounded the lake, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky - I turned to Suzanne and said “well this is pretty close to paradise, isn’t it” it is as close as I’ve been anyway.

Soon Frisbees and balls were being thrown about and everyone was getting to know each other a little better. Irish was a bloke called Bryan who was travelling with his Kiwi girlfriend Eileen, these two were great company, Bryan was a prankster (i.e tickling behind your ears with a leaf so that you think your getting bitten, or banging the side of the truck when you’re reversing. These kind of jokes never got old….. for Bryan) and he had a tale for every occasion the sort of fella your want around the campfire.

We had lunch at the benches at Birrabeen and everyone mucked in with chopping tomatoes and lettuce it was all going swimmingly. After lunch we jumped in the jeeps and headed to lake Wabby. This was down the beach, which is classed as a highway, I was still driving and having a wail of a time, there’s something naughty about driving on a beach like your not really supposed to be doing it, I put my foot down and in the words of Irish Bryan, ‘drove it like I’d stole it!’

We stopped in a car park for lake Wabby and walked the 2.5 km to the lake through the jungle, halfway there the trees abruptly stopped and we came out into a desert.

About another kilometre after this you go down a very steep embankment and down into a secluded lake. Again the water was wonderful and after a walk in the sunshine nobody paused for even a second before throwing themselves in head first. Again the Frisbee and ball were out and everyone got involved splashing around.

....and a bit of bombing action too!!

Me and Suz decided to swim to the other side of the lake. What is that about human nature? - there was nothing on the other side but still we wanted to go and see for ourselves, so we did. There was nothing there of note, so we swam back.

After that it was time to find somewhere to pitch the tents, we were booked into a campsite but Hans said that you have to be silent after 9pm, any noise after this time incurs a $150 dollar fine, per person! So, feeling in the party mood we opted for the more liberating option of setting up camp at the beach. We found a nice spot behind the dunes and set about making camp,

then the march flies came. These are huge flies, about as big as your thumb but fatter. They don’t bite but instead use their sharp front legs to kind of saw open your skin, they don’t feed on blood or anything, they just do that for a laugh. Well, I wasn’t laughing. They are so persistent, flick at him as you will and he will just fly out of range and then come straight back and land on your arm or leg or head, it is simply not possible to deter him. You have five seconds to stop him sawing into and if he does, you bloody well know about it, I couldn’t help thinking it was going to be a long night. Mercifully as darkness fell the flies left us alone, evidently satisfied with their days work. Bryan continued to brush grass behind my ears for an hour or so much to the amusement of our fellow campers.

As the big red disc fell out of the sky we fired up the Barbie and chucked the sausages on,

everybody had already begun to make a dent in the booze and the night was going well. Hans had some speakers that connected to the cigarette lighter so I connected up the iPod and we had ourselves a little beach party.

Ironically, shortly after 21:00 people started to fade and make there way into their tents, this left me, Suz, Bryan and Eileen up chewing the fat but as the long day took its toll on us too, we called it night and hit the hay (sand).

Day 63

Monday 3^rd January 2011

ANOTHER early start cos we had to get the rental car back at 7.30am. We dropped it at the airport – which was deserted at that unGodly hour and grabbed a taxi back to the hostel, Skpyed Frankys’s folks and had a bit more sleep.

When we woke up for the second time of the day at a much more respectable 11.00am the sun was shining brightly and I couldn’t wait to get out in it.

It’s only one month til we’re home now so Franky needed to get to grips with the reality of looking for a job. I left him after breakfast looking at the NHS jobs his Mum had sent him and went out to check out the second hand book shop. I’ve been after a copy of ‘The Marching Powder’ about the San Pedro prison in La Paz since we visited it and finally got hold of one – result!

By 1.30pm he’d applied for 2 jobs and we were ready to hit the beach. It wasn’t the most beautiful beach in the world but it was hot and sunny. I mean really, really hot. Even the sea was like getting in a tepid bath – not really much good for cooling off!

Franky decided he couldn’t hack it and went back to the air conditioned comfort of the hostel bunks – I’m made of sterner stuff than that and stayed melting on the beach.

We reconvened at the hostel in time for our Fraser island briefing. There are 14 of us heading to the island to camp for the next 2 days. The briefing was full of danger this and illegal that, I guess since so many people have turned the 4x4’s over it has to be that way, anyway we’re looking forward to it regardless.

We went for some tea at the Irish bar, I had the Irish stew mmmmmmm and Franky had two humongous sausages.

As an added bonus we saw this best mullet since the 1990 world cup!

After that we went back to the hostel to catch up with the blog, Skype one of Franky’s mates and hit the hay. It’s a very busy life to say we’re not doing anything!

Day 62

Sunday 2nd January 2011

An unfamiliar early start for the Franks, but today we're heading for Hervey Bay via Steve Irwin's zoo. I couldn't wait to get there, we had heard so much good stuff about the zoo that in my haste i got pulled by the local fuzz for doing 118kmph in a 100kmph zone. Oooooppppssiiiee!! I wasn't quite saying oopsie when he told that doing 18kmph over the speed limit resulted in a $200 fine.

£135 for 10mph over? JESUS!!!

The constable (this is no time for jokes) asked if I was in a rush today and I replied "not really, just keen to get to the zoo!" I'm not sure if he was an animal lover himself but he decided to let me off.... PHEW!! So I rejoined the motorway at 100kmph and we carried on our journey. We planned to get to the zoo for 10:30 in time to feed the elephants but with gaining an hour going to Queensland we actually arrived at 09:00, just in time for opening. Yeah!

 

 We set off around the park with our map, we had an hour and a half to kill before the elephant feeding so with a spring in my step and the sun on my back we went off to explore. We first came across these incredable Iguana, there just behind a hip high fence and could wander all over the zoo if they felt like it, in fact nothing (apart from the tigers) are "enclosed" at Australia Zoo which makes the whole experiance a bit more real.

Just around the corner from that little fella was the aligator pens, there were about 7 or 8 of them in seperate pens but this old gal born in the 1930's was my favourite!

As we turned around to move on we noticed that one of the larger aligators had escaped, we were shocked (not too shocked, I still managed to take a picture) as he made a beeline for Suz....

not really! Although this is a life size replica of one ol' Steve saw out in the wild.... CRIKEY! Around the next corner were the turtles, tortoise and bearded dragons.

 and then as we headed over to grab a drink from the food court there were four trees in the middle of the walk way with Koala in them, how cool is that!

We got a drink and headed over to the Kangaroo enclosure, this was just a park with trees and loads of "roos" chilling out in the sunshine. We were able to buy some roo food before entering and then blow me if they didn't just hop on over for some brekkie out of my hand, unbelievable! I've wanted to see one for years and then all of a sudden I was feeding one, he took his time too, holding on to my hand to make sure I didn't get away!

There was Mummy kangaroo with a Joey in her pouch. They give birth to them when they are just the size of a jelly bean. Bald, blind, deaf and furless they crawl up a trail of Mum's saliva into her pouch where they suckle for 6 months without even popping out to say hello. This one was just 7 months old and had begun to check out the outside world. They then start to spend more and more time outside until they reach 12 months old when it's time to go it alone.



It was almost elephant feeding time so we dashed back across the zoo, on the way we spotted them being walked across to the feeding point.

Now, unfortunatley me and the wife hadn't figured out why the park was so quiet, in the baking heat, in the middle of the school holidays, because up until this point we'd basically had the run of the place. It turned out that everyone was queing around the block to feed the elephants so we gave it a miss and headed over to the "Crocoseum" to get prime seats for the "wild warriors" show at 11:00. This was truly incredible. Steve's wife Terri now runs the show and they brought out a really angry Croc called Charlie who didn't look like he was in the mood for any messing about, they stomped about to attract him to them and then ran away as he struck, it was ace. Then they got on to the platform and got him to jump up for some dinner, really really good!

We caught the shuttle over to the South East Asia enclosure and caught a glimpse of a Red panda from the Himalayas, they aren't used to the heat so they have an air conditioned log to cool off in.

In addition to the koala's just hanging around (no pun intended) they also have a koala walk where you can get really up close and pat them, Suz was very excited about this.

She was delighted to hear there was a joey in there too, nine months old and unbelievably cute. We couldn't pet him though because Mum was still pretty protective and they can be pretty viscious.

Afetr the cute and cuddly we went to the other extreme and checked out the snake house.

This is another viscious inhabitant of Australia, a cassowary.

By far the best bit of the day was the tiger demonstration.



The tigers have been at the zoo from being babies and spend the first 3 to 4 months with the keepers 24 hours a day to build up a relationship. Consequently they are tame enough for the keepers to get into the enclosure with them. They jump up onto the keepers to demonstrate how they would check their teeth and claws.

They also had one of the girls climbing up the tree for a meaty treat.

The last treat of the day was one of the cheetah - they aren't in an enclosure at the zoo yet and live 'behind the scenes' but are brought into the zoo on a regular basis to get them used to the public in a graded exposure programme. What a job! 'I walked the cheetah today'!

After an awesome day at 3.00pm we had to bid the animals farewell and hit the road as we still had a few hours driving ahead of us. Suz decided to take the wheel in the intersts of budget (avoiding $200 fines!). So I made good use of the time by having a nap!

This was our last journey that we would be doing the driving. We spotted a few of our favourite signs along the way....

'Stop, revive, survive!' to combat tired drivers on the road!

.... and instead of a 'No Entry' sign which would do just nicely the Aussies have the far more explanatory 'WRONG WAY - GO BACK'!!!!!

After a quick KFC stop (beacuse we could find it!) for tea we rocked up in Hervey Bay at 6.30pm and checked into our hostel. And joy of joys we were greeted with another bunk bed..... well a choice of bunks really! We had booked a private double room with en auite and got a private room with 3 bunk beds in it - so a choice of 6 beds!!!! The lady on reception explained that this was all that the hostel had. Too tired to argue we made our way out into the town to see what it had to offer..... Not much! This is largely a retirement town with some backpackers waiting to head off to Fraser Island and not much else. After a couple of schoobers of beer we were done in after an exciting day and needed to sleep.