Hi everyone!

We have had the most amazing three days exploring Fraser Island! I have to say this is the most remote place I have ever been and it gave us a real authentic Australian experience...I have over 30 bites to prove it eek!

So we headed out of Debbie's Place early and went for our pre-departure safety briefing, which to be honest had me doubting exactly how prepared we were for camping on this kind of level..extreme to say the least!

Here are the basic dont's:

1. DONT swim in the sea....the sharks will eat you

2. DONT feed the dingos....they'll bite your arm off and then steal your sausages

3. DONT drive on very soft sand near the sea...you'll get stranded or drowned

4. DONT go anywhere other than where they say otherwise who knows where you'll end up and what will happen to you!

Scary stuff, especially when you realise that you really are going to be out there all alone!!

We packed up our new ride the Suzuki Jimny with all our camping stuff and headed out to the Manta Ray barge. This was fun as you have to drive across extremely soft deep sand to get to the boat and so it was very good practice for Chris :)

Once on the barge it only takes 10 mins and we were on the island! Two very excited explorers headed along the beach cheering in excitement...that was until we found the inland track and immediately got stuck on the sandy incline to join the road aaagggh! Chris managed to get us back going after having to reverse back up the beach a while and take a better approach! This didn't happen that much throughout our 3 days you'll be surprised to hear :) Chris did really well and if it wasn't for the constant shakiness of the inland road (which is basically just a strip of rocks and sand in massive bumps) it would have been plain sailing...well nearly ;)

Day one: We drove inland all the way to Eurong, picked up some snacks and then headed to Lake McKenzie. When I say we did these two things it actually took nearly 4 hours to get from A to B as driving on a massive sand dune is hard work and very slow progress!

Lake McKenzie is the most beautiful crystal clear water I have ever seen! It just glistens and there is nothing in it apart from gorgeous white soft sand, we could have spent our entire time here except it started to rain and we decided to make our way to our first campsite. Central Station was our first base for the night and after pitching up and making a nice tea we found that we were ready for bed as it was pitch black outside...the only problem was it was only approximately 7pm!! The entertainment of the evening was that I managed to sit on a toilet with a giant spider inside...very scary and it really freaked me out!

Day two: After getting an extremely early night we got up and about and decided to re-visit lake McKenzie before breakfast. This was one of the best ideas ever as we had the whole lake to ourselves at 7am! The sun was shining, there was no one else there and we just swam and relaxed and it felt like we really were stranded on our own tropical island,absolutely magical :) We had an hour swimming and then made breakfast in the carpark while people were just starting to arrive!

From here we drove along the beach to the start of the trek for Lake Wabby. It was yet another hot sticky day and so found the hike hard work...however when we reached the end a massive sand blow greeted us and a glistening green lake at the bottom...which literally looked like an oasis in the middle of the desert!

Chris jumped straight in and started splashing around however I was a little more hesitant as there were several big catfish swimming around. I did get in for a short swim but decided to spend the rest of the time taking pictures of Chris swimming with the fish :) Next stop along the beach was Eli Creek, another gorgeous water hole which trickles through the rainforest and people just swim or wade along it (just like the lazy river at Typhoon Lagoon!) The was so clear and refreshing we walked along it back to the beach.

Carrying on our beach tour, we came to the Maheno ship wreck which had apparently been washed up on the beach during a cyclone many years ago. It was really impressive and HUGE! just sticking up out of the sand it looked quite spooky but made for great photo opportunities!

After a very fun-filled long day we camped up at one of the beach sites (sand dunes) and started to make some tea, whilst swatting away giant green bugs that bite...nasty things! Thank goodness we weren't cooking meat...as 5 mins into our meal preparation a massive Dingo strolled past our dining room table! Chris promptly told me to 'Stay Calm and don't panic Netti!' I was backing up at this point and shouting at him to give me to keys to the car...although thinking about this now it probably wasn't the safest place to go as the dingos would probably be headed for our boot full of food! A second dingo strolled past and they didn't give us any trouble but we were both a little shaken up by the experience and decided to eat our tea in the car..just in case..(they can be very nasty animals so the rangers tell us!)!!!

That night we had the most horrendous rain storm, it really was a miracle that the tent managed to keep us dry...but it did! We woke up really early again to the most amazing sunrise..the sky looked like it was on fire! we managed to get a bit more sleep and then decided to get everything packed up ready for our long journey back to the barge.

We have had the most memorable enjoyable and fun filled three days on Fraser a definite highlight on the trip so far! Glad to be back on land though now where there are clean toilets and a lot less bugs and dingos!

Speak soon everyone

netti and chris xxxx