Hi again. I'm back from Fraser Island, and I have had a really mixed time, like both good and bad. Imagine: we are a group of 10, only girls. And by girls I mean girly girls. So, we get our car packed, get from Rainbow Beach over to the Island with a ferry, and what is the first thing that happens? Come on, a car full of girls? It breaks down of course - the car! I sit in the back and see these pieces from underneath the car falling off, and there we stand, all really stupid, and look at each other. Now?? Did I mention that there is no reception for mobile phones on the island? We waited 4 hours for the guy to come and rescue us, and he was really cool; got our car changed and offered us to follow all the way to the petrol station (the car we got was just a random car with a group on their way back, and exchanged over with them, but the fuel levy was low, of course). It was really kind and we started finally our trip, and we managed all the way to the beach. On this island one has to drive on the beach to get from one spot to the next basically, but since most of the day the tide is so high it makes it impossible to drive there, one has to drive there only at certain times as well. Which was of course first in the evening again. Team bad luck! Well, the guy said that "he would lead us" and we drove out there in the deep, soft sand. The car was sliding around, and since none of us ever drove under that "sandy" circumstances before, you can probably guess that it didn't take long (approximately 1 minute) before we got into trouble. We ran out of petrol causing the engine to stop, and within shorter time than we could close our eyes, we were stuck!! We tried to manoeuvre the car away, but the more we tried, the closer we got to the shore, and the waves came closer. Our 'rescuer' tried to drag us with his vehicle, but the outcome was just TWO cars both stuck in the sand, getting deeper and deeper buried. With stress from the knowingly "raising" water, we lowered the air pressure in the tires, used shovel and arms to get the cars free a bit, and then we pushed them so far away from the water, that the risk for loosing the cars to the waves were minimal. Then we waited for the next passing car to tell at the nearest petrol station to sent us a third car with petrol. We waited again until dusk and after our troublesome day we just managed to set up the tents in "Camping Zone" along the beach. We even had to cook in the dark (funny, it gets dark really early down here, like already at 7pm), and the mood had gone remarkably down since the morning. It was a beautiful evening though, stars all over and I found now the first star-picture I recognise from home: Orion! I felt really good after the found, and then I even discovered that the white "foam" from the waves get like neon-light-coloured when lightened up by the nightly sky, it looks awesome!!! I fell asleep listening to the waves in a spacious tent I share with Julia.

Next morning we again wasted half a day on boring car-stuff; we had to refill the tires with air before we could continue our trip. But there where we were told it would be possible, they just sent us onwards, and around midday we finally could really start our trip. We drove then to Lake McKenzie, a lake situated in the centre of the island made of so pure water, that it is drinkable (No salt, no animals, nothing!!). We jumped directly in, and I got some exercise swimming around in the clear water, not even chloride in. It was perfect! After some time lying in the sun (wow- I get browner =) we drove on and stopped at Central station, where we made a rainforest walk. It was so beautiful, with a creek in the bottom. We saw dingoes on the beaches and huge lizards in the forest, not to mention all the birds. When we drove along the seashore, we could often see the whales splashing water not far away from us, and in general, it's such a wonderful Island. We had a barbeque after our walk and went back to our camp. And as the dark surrounded us, we sat on blankets and told ghost stories or talked about superstitious happenings, a really girls "night-in". It was nice, except for the fact that I got eaten completely (again!!) from mosquitoes. I slept well again and we woke up early, because we had decided finally to get something out of our trip! We had packed up the camp and were ready to drive already at 6am, and as the sun rose we drove all the way along the coastline to Indian Head, the furthest north one can get on the island. Indian head is a look-out point surrounded by enormous sand dunes, and we arrived there as the first people in the morning! One just needs to look down and there are masses of dolphins, whales, turtles, sharks and all sorts of fish swimming right underneath, close to the shore. It was absolutely amazing - indescribable, must be seen to understand!!

Then we drove past a lot of huge coloured sand stones and bush growing on sand dunes on our way to the famous "Maheno" shipwreck. It was not really interesting, just a lot of rusty iron, but well, everything with history…

Then we made our way back to the ferry and with only one more "getting stuck in the sand"-game (again saved by a nice guy), team Bad Luck managed to survive 3 adventurous days on the sandy island, with all what comes along when only girls are free to talk, argue, be stupid etc. I think for the next couple of days I have enough of girls!!

Tomorrow we will head to Noosa Heads, just under 3 hours by bus. From Noosa we have a bush camp before a 3 day canoe tour around the beautiful surroundings of Noosa National Park, so we have time to gain a bit of energy!!