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).