And so onto Fraser Island, one of the definite highlights of the east coast! We stayed at Rainbow Beach which was really nice, the hostel put on a free walk to see the sunset which was really lovely, after we got over the shock of having to trek up the sand blow, such hard work!

We decided that a guided tour was the best way to go rather than the self drive 4x4, anyone who has been in a car with me will appreciate that this was a wise decision. Susannah + 4x4 + 10 passengers+ sand = a complete and utter mess! Anywhoo, the bus picked us up brightly and early and off we went onto the barge for Fraser Island! Joey and I bought a little too much attention to ourselves by managing to get in the way of the captain of the unit taking photos 'you are beautiful Girls, but I do need to see where I am going!' Oooops! Onto Fraser Island we went and within 5 minutes we were bumping all over the place and had seen a few cars stuck in the sand and I was immediately very pleased that I wasn't one of the people driving those vehicles!! We also got a taste of some, albeit dead, australian wildlife, on 75 mile beach, a lovely slimy sea snake!

We were setoff on a lovely walk through the rainforest for our first activity, it's so amazing that there can be a rainforest on an island made entirely of sand! Very cool! A lot of the island was logged a while back as the wood was really useful for building up the bombed docks in London so you can be walking along and on one side there is a really densely populated rainforest and on the other its quite space because of the loggers.

We then went onto see the Mahino Wreck. The Mahino ocean liner was caught in a cyclone on its way to be destroyed and has since been wrecked on the island and is now very much a part of the landscape. Its hard to imagine when you see it here all dilapidated that it was once a mighty cruse liner but its really mighty to see there on the beach. We also had time to visit the 'Chmpagne pools' so called because of the bubbles and colour of the water and Indian head at the northernmost point that we can access.

The last activity of the day was to have a walk up Eli creek, the water is green to reflect the algae and made for some pretty cool photos. We also saw a wild Dingo on the beach, apparently pretty unusual for the middle of the day! As we were on a guided trip we had a lovely buffet dinner laid on for us and had a lovely evening chatting to the girls that were on our trip about their travels so far and what they are planning to do next.

The following morning we head off for Lake Mackenzie so spend some time in the crystal blue waters, simply stunning. We got there so early that we had the lake to ourselves for about an hour which was pretty special. We then head onto lake Wabby, via a long walk and a humungous sand blow, after we managed to get past the fact that we were pretty tired as it was all done at the hottest part of the day, we took in the scenery and it really makes you appreciate what an amazing place Fraser Island is! The lake that we were headed for is another very green lake and the different shades are amazing. We took great delight in getting into the lake as the shadblow was so hot on our feet that we had had to hop all the way along exclaiming the odd 'ouch'! After a time there we head back to the bus where we saw whales out to see, there was, according to our guide, a mother and child out there leaping from the water and splashing, such a lovely moment and a great way to cap off our Frasier Island experience!