We headed off back up the coast in Sophie's 4WD, hoping that the weather had improved and the storms hadn't eroded away too much of the sand island Fraser Island, which is apparently beautiful - as long as the sun is out! We were really lucky with nice days and the rain saving itself for over night. Fortunately our tent didn't leak although the wind was strong enough one night to snap a tent pole! For our second two nights we camped right on the beach, with no one else in sight! Amazing to wake up in the morning and just look out the tent to the sea.

We drove from Brisbane straight up to Rainbow Beach, where we caught a 10 minute barge ($85!!! - outrageous but worth it!!) across to Hook Point, the southern most point of the island. From here we drove along Fraser's main road - the beach - for a while before heading inland onto the bumpy, soft sand tracks. It was here that we met our first pack of dingos - nice to see them in the wild rather than just scavenging off tourists! We headed to the southern lakes, stopping first at Lake Boomanjin - a golden, tannin stained lake reaching right up to the edge of the bush, and at Lake Birraboon - a stunning lake with crystal clear dark blue and turquoise waters, very similar to Lake Mackenzie, but we were the only people there! We finished the day up at Central Station, a campsite in the middle of the island, so we set up camp amongst the rainforest. We assured ourselves it wouldn't rain and didn't bother putting the rain cap on top of the tent - regretted it in the middle of the night!! Should have learnt about the Sunshine Coast weather by now!

The next morning we headed to Lake Mackenzie, the most famous spot on the island, which was unsurprisingly more crowded than we are used to, but still beautiful - see photos! We relaxed there for most of the morning before driving on to Lake Wabby, which is at the bottom of a large sand dune, has very steep sides and is apparently home to lots of catfish! We walked to a lookout where we could see down towards the lake, but didn't have time to go all the way down to it, as the tide was coming in and we wanted to drive further north before the 'road' became impassable! We made it over Eli Creek, a fresh water creek that runs out into the sea, before the tide got too high, so spent a bit of time wading up and down it before heading on to the Maheno shipwreck, and our camping spot on the beach. As it was high tide the sea ended up only a few metres away from our camp - very cool!

Once the tide had gone down sufficiently the next morning, we headed further north to Champagne Pools and Waddy Point. Waddy Point was ahuge, windswept, almost deserted beach, with a small, shallow looking channel running parallel to the sea (cue trying to cross it and getting soaked!) Champagne Pools were rock swimming pools just above the tide line, and every so often a wave would crash over and into the pool, creating foaming, fizzy water! We then headed back down the beach to Eli Creek, which we walked up and then floated back down, to wash the salt water off us, before calling in at Eurong, the island's only township, with a tarmac road (!), before finding a camping spot on the beach again.

After a final walk along the beach, we drove via the inland track (due to high tide) back to Hook Point to catch the barge back to the mainland, and then headed back to Brisbane to help Jeff celebrate his birthday!