Well we escaped the cyclone that hit the Queensland coast through sunday night, monday morning. We were very lucky as if we had been driving down just a day or two later we would have been stuck right in the middle of it and not had the chance to see the whitsunday islands or go back out to the reef. It was strange seeing the banana plantations on the news that we had driven past a couple of days before, they had all now been totally flattened as well as many buildings losing roofs, trees and power lines down everywhere. We headed down the coast taking a dodgy detour to Eungella Nat Pak. With the weather taking a turn for the worse the lookouts were none existent and there were no platypus in the rivers as we were not there at dusk. We did see a coupl eof turtles swimming though. We stopped the night in a town called Rockhampton but not before I jhad a brush with the law. Yes I got a speeding ticket, I was doing 120kmhs in a 100 zone, this cost me a massive $150, if I'd been going just 1k faster it would have been $250, so I tried to justify it to jill that I'd actually saved us $100 by not going quite so fast, but she wasnt having any of it, not that Jill "Rally" Burns had ever gone over the speed limit while she was driving!! Our next stop down the coast on Monday was Hervey Bay basically the gateway to Fraser Island. We found a place stay that went about sorting a trip onto Fraser island for the following day. We headed out in the evening and were amazed to see the sky was full of thousands of bats. We had no idea where they had come from or where they were heading but they were all swarming in the same direction as us! On Tuesday we headed out on a barge across to Fraser Island. There was no way we could have gone on our own as the whole island is one massive sand bank. All the tracks were deep with sand so it was 4wd only. We were on a purpose built coach with huge tractor like tyres, luckily it was only half full so there was only 18 of us. Our first stop was a swim in Lake Birabeem. A huge fresh water lake like in the picture. The water is crystal clear as it fills up from rainwater only but turns to a lovely deep blue the deeper you go. The surrounding sand was pure white. It has a very high silica content and is ideal for polishing your jewlery or for those who wanted to, exfoliating the skin. The guide even said you could use it to brush your teeth but we gave that bit a miss. The water is also a perfect hair conditioner, shame I havent got any hair!! Next stop was a walk through the rainforest before stopping for some lunch. It was then onto the famous 75 mile beach which is the main road on the island. There were lots of jeeps shooting up and down it as its the quickest way round the island. It was at this point we got the option to take a short scenic flight over the island. It was dead funny taking off and landing on the beach especially as we had to dodge the 4wd's already using it as a road and people actually using it as a beach. We flew over the lake we had swam in earlier and got to see huge sand banks blowing inland submerging the forest. We flew out over the sea to try and spot some of the many sharks which swim just off the coast but couldnt spot any, before landing to get back on the bus. As we headed back down the beach we passed the Coloured sands, which were meant to be 74 different colours, I could basically see one colour, the yellow sand and not a lot else. Further down the coast we passed the Maheno shipwreck which was quite funny to see. The boat is almost fully buried in the sand now and it was strange seeing the water crashing over what was left of the ship and coming out of the portholes. The final stop for the day was Eli creek, a fresh water creek coming from the centre of the island and washing out to sea. The idea was you walked up it inland and swam back down. We didnt get to far in after somebody saw a very long fish ie an eel or snake. You also had to be careful not to caught in any of the huge spider webs stretched across the river. It was still nice to be in the clear fresh water though. We then headed back to the mainland on the barge and spent another night in Hervey bay trying to avoid the huge swarm of bats that appeared again as it went dark.