The next leg of the trip took me to Hervey Bay which is one of the gateways to Fraser Island - the largest sand island in the world. I was joining a group to do a self-drive 4WD tour - the only mode of transport suitable for the bumpy tracks on the island. The tour was organised by the hostel so when we arrived they told us to get to know each other in order to choose our own groups for the trip, so I bonded with a couple of swedish girls and Johan from Switzerland over all-you-can-eat dominos and a box of goon. Unfortunately after being put in their group the following morning I was then moved as another girl was complaining she didn't know anyone, so I was put in a group with people I hadn't met! Luckily, they were all really nice! There were me and Nic, the only brits, then four germans - Mareen, Nora, Franci and Richard, one Austrian - Patrick, and one Swede - Eric. They were all younger than me and nearly all smoked, but it didn't bother me, we just got on with it. Before we left we had to watch lots of videos about driving on Fraser, keeping the island clean and how to be "dingo safe"!! Its a crazy place but from the videos looked beautiful and clean so I can understand why they are cautious before releasing random tourists!

Our first activity was to drive to the camp shed and pick up all our camping equipment and pack our vehicles correctly. After this we headed to woolworths to do a group shop supermarket sweep style. By this point I'm not quite sure if I'd taken command voluntarily or been forced to, either way, I seemed to be organising people... After rushing through this and possibly buying way too much squash and toilet roll, we sped down to the ferry and were just about there at the correct time. So far Nic was driving and I was navigating, a set up I was pretty happy with! we had to reverse onto the barge and once we were under way we went back to the truck to reduce the tyre pressure to make it suitable for driving on sand. We seemed to have to release a lot of air, but our gauge didn't seem to be moving otherwise! Once on the island, Nic remained at the wheel and we collected our permits and set off up a very bumpy sand track. We got a little bit lost after checking out a view point and thinking we were back on the wrong road, but eventually re-found the road towards East beach and were back on our way. When we finally got to the beach, which is 75 miles of beautiful golden sand and crashing waves (and tiger sharks, and rips and other reasons not to go in the water!) we parked the truck and got out to take a look. At this point an empty crisp packet which had been lurking by my door blew out and was blown down the beach. Already paranoid by the "keep fraser clean" videos I gave chase, flipping off my flip flops as I ran and trying my best to keep up with the fast moving rubbish! Every time I caught up with it I was moving so quickly I'd land on it with one foot, but not be able to stop and so keep running, releasing it as I did. This happened at least 3 times before I finally caught it, shortly before it reached the sea, and about 300m from the truck! I returned sheepishly, much to the amusement of the group...

We headed off on a bit of a trek and arrived at Lake Wabby which is the deepest lake on the Island and is bordered by a massive sand dune - I've never seen so much sand! We spent a while swimming in and jumping in the lake and then set off to find a campsite further up the beach. We'd been given time limits for when we could drive on East beach that were 3 hours either side of low tide, so again, the race was on to get up to Eli Creek before we ran out of time, watching out for creeks and washouts (big ridges) in the sand as we went. Arriving at the camping area we found another of the trucks from our hostel so we camped with them and after we had set up camp the third van arrive - having had to stop to change a wheel after they blew a tire on a protruding root. We had a great BBQ/grill type dinner with some grilled (???!) frozen veg - actually pretty good and then sat around with some goon and beer. After it got dark we headed down to splash in the sea and watch the phosphorescence of the plankton when they were disturbed - beautiful! Camping was not comfortable - canvas tents were hot and sticky and we woke up covered in sand and really wanting to jump in the sea - but not enough to be eaten by the many tiger sharks lurking there!

After a sleepy breakfast we headed up the beach on foot - the tides wouldn't allow us to drive til noon - until we reached Eli Creek. This was like an oasis in the desert, it was amazing! Crystal clear, cool, freshwater, which we happily washed off all the sand with and floated around in for ages. We couldn't bring ourselves to trudge back to the truck so I hitched back with the other group who had just been to pick up theirs and brought it back to the Creek. It was the first time I'd properly driven on the Island so I found it pretty hard to handle and it didn't seem to want to steer where I wanted it to! As I got closer to the creek I got more confident so went a bit faster - just in time to splash through the creek which was deeper than I anticipated splashing water right over the roof and in the open windows!- oops. We collected everyone up and headed up towards the champagne pools, stopping off first at the Maheno wreck - an old and rusting passenger ship from the 30's - and then to have lunch, do last nights washing up and deposit our rubbish at a proper campsite with running water. We met up with lots of other groups at Indian Head and headed up to the viewing point where you can look down on turtles and tiger sharks in the sea. After this we headed back to the truck to drive to the champagne pools, which were pretty underwhelming - possibly not enough water or sun! I stuggled a bit with deep, soft sand and had to put the vehicle in low range and not steer so much so as not to get bogged - Nic's instruction! felt like such a useless female! Again we left it late to leave and were racing to get back over Eli Creek before the tide was too high. Eric took over driving and he added to our stress by insisting we stopped at a campsite for showers, so we let ourselves into a campsite we're pretty sure we shouldn't have been in, paid our $1 for three minutes hot water, speedily showered, then drove away as quickly as we could! We had a pretty long drive down the beach to the suggested camp site but we made it over the creek safely - at least half an hour after the recommended latest crossing time - and arrived to find there was no space with the other groups, so we had to go and camp alone. We had another great meal, this time mainly Nic cooking but I helped. I preferred this campsite as it was sheltered from the wind by a small sand dune and there were trees so we could attach a sheet as a wind break to protect the gas cooker and stop it blowing out! After dinner a few of the nearby groups - not from our hostel -joined us. We went down to the beach to watch the sky which was was amazingly clear as there were no clouds, no moon and no street lights. We could see milky way and lots of shooting stars as well as Venus and Mars. On the way back up the beach we thought we saw a person fallen over so walked towards them - only to find it was a massive dingo! I didn't do a great job of being "dingo safe" but we managed to get away without making it too angry. Nic still thinks it came and licked his toes through the open tent door during the night!

We woke up on the last day baking hot - the clouds had cleared. it was absoulutely beautiful on the beach - the first time we'd seen it in full sunshine. Again we were covered in sand and sticky so keen to get to the swimming point - Lake Mckenzie. It was the perfect day for this place, scorching sun, but the water looked beautifully clear and was gorgeous to swim in. We stayed too long - again - and after another silly decision to stop and have lunch AND a rather large detour after we took a wrong turn we ended up 18km away from the ferry port, at the time we were supposed to be there. Patrick had taken over driving and did a grand job driving at 65kph on a 35kph track to get us there in record time, meanwhile I had been trying to stop kitchen equipment falling out of the roof space most of the way and so had been bumping around in the back gaining myself a few new bruises and a very sore elbow! Luckily, we got got the barge 4 minutes before it left, but we hadn't had time to re-pump the tyres. At this point I agreed to take over the driving on the mainland as Patrick more than deserved a beer after his off-road driving! We finally found a petrol station, pumped up the tyres and returned all our equipment before returning sleepy, sticky and in much need of a good bed, to our hostel, having had an amazing time but slightly sick of the sight of sand!