The next interesting part, which I can be bothered to talk about, is Fraser Island.

We arrived at Rainbow beach on the dutiful Greyhound bus. Rainbow Beach is a very small sea side town with not much to offer more of fishing and the gateway to Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world and our home for 3 days and 3 nights.

The hostel was running the whole thing. They assigned us groups and a vehicle and went through all the do and don'ts and we left the following day. Our group consisted of 4 Brits (ourselves included) 2 Irish fellas, 3 Canadian lads and a horrible German girl.

The Canadian lads were a little 'young' but were great fun and always up for a laugh and the Irish guys and two Brits were lovely so it promised to be a good trip. Dave drove to begin with, and ended up doing most of the driving. FINE BY ME!!! He was the only one with experience and kicked that track's arse! We caught the 7 min barge ferry across to the island and went on our way. The main road on the island is the Eastern egde beach. It is so cool to drive along the beach. The vehicles were so spread out you felt like the only ones there most of the time. The sun was shinning, the waves were crashing and everyone was fantastic.

We had been 'advised' on a route/itnerey. The guy that did the briefing Luke, was a care free, mother earth loving, hippy type. He stressed that he wasn't "telling us hat to do" but that if we did it his way it was best! Fair enough, we had no idea what to expect or where to go. We followed a inland track to Lake Mackenzie. After a spot of lunch we walked the short way to the most beautiful lake in all the land. It was almost hard to believe your eyes. The water is SO clear, it looks more like a swimming pool. The beach is white and its surrounded by rainforest. We stayed there for as long as we could before heading back to the beach road inside 'safe driving time'. Obviously being a beach, the tid ecomes in and out leaving windows of time to drive along the beach. We had been told the times and that we were to stick closely to them or we could end up in the ocean! Our first nights camp was to be in a camping area off the beach. We didn't however make it in time for the tide, whoops. Nevermind, we caught up with 3 other groups and decided to head for a campsite slightly inland. After a lot of 'dicussion' and wrong turns we found it! We were slightly concerned that we should have booked, but hey, 30 drunk people are quite hard to move on! As it was it was fine. We rocked up to a group camping area, got the tents up, had dinner and got drunk! An early night followed, I think possibly around ten, but everyone was shot!

The next morning we were up ad away after breakfast in the hope of keeping to the tides slightly better with practice! We headed to Indian Point or Head or something like that. The view from the top was beautiful. We also went to the Maheno ship wreck. It was a criuse liner that was being moved to be stripped and dismantled but ran aground and was left. Its beautifully eerie. We set camp just south of there, as soon as possible, not making the smae mistake twice! Shortly after we saw the familiar view of another Land Cruiser with a yellow tarp and flagged them down, the same from the previous night. Then another, reunited! Then another! Then another! Then another! In the end we had 7 trucks all camped together. All with the same trucks, yellow tops and all with the same tents. It looked like a surreal Glasonbury or something similar. We had the best night. The lovely Canadian lads cooked a yummy meal and we commence drinking, heavily! From what I remember there was lots of laughs, luckily no tears and many trips down the track to the 'bush toilet'! On one of my many trips 'out back', I think in the middle of the night, we came across a whole pack of Dingos surrounding the camp! FREAKY! They kept themselves to themselves though, or so we thought!

We woke earlt the next morning to find no brekkie! THE DINGOS ATE MY BREAKFAST! Argh well, we weren't bothered, it was our own fault for not putting it away, and I figured it would be at least 12 hours before I could stomach food again, and I was right. We packed up and went to Lake Wabby. It took a little effort but we got there and it was worth it. A massive dune led down to a green lake. Just what we all needed to wash away the cobwebs! We didn't have much time there coz we were booked on the 1 o'clock ferry and it takes an age to get anywhere through the tracks. As we got to the beach we came across traffic! ON FRASER! Not thinking anything of it, we continued on to the ferry. What seemed like hundreds of cars were lined up waiting to leave the island. When we made it back to the workshop to return the truck and find out how much we owed them in damages, we were told that Fraser was evacuated due to wather warnings, including swells of 7 metres. We could not have been more lucky. The groups that we had camped with the night before who had left the day after us, had to return a day earl, no refund and the groups on the way there that day were refused, with no end to the weather insight, so many lost out all together. Once again we count our blessings.

xx