After spending very little time in rainbow beach, mostly due to bad weather conditions, we headed off on an unscheduled bus to Hervey Bay, where our Fraser Island adventure was to begin. After spending two nights in Hervey Bay (koalas resort) building up to our adventure, and eating too much chineese--all u can eat!!, we headed off very early the next morning to Fraser Island. A long meeting was held the night before where we met our 11 strong group who would travel with us in the 4x4 truck, and we were informed of the rules and regulations of the trip. With our crew of 11 people, some of which we befriended beforehand, we crossed over onto the island with dan driving, and guess what-claire navigating!! Fraser island is the largest sand island in the world and is known for its beautiful rainforest, the many Dingos that inhabit the island, and the man-eating shark infested waters!!! aahhh! We spent two nights and three days here in total, driving along the very dodgy dirt tracks and the beach (which is oficially a national highway of Australia!), rocking in our very unstable truck! There were many times when gasps and screeches were heard from the group as we thought we were going to topple over in our top heavy truck!! In the three days we saw and swam in many beautiful lakes, all of which are fresh water, and some are so pure you can actually drink them as you swim! It was amazing, Lake Mckenzie was especially beautiful, just like a paradise beach with white sand and beautiful pure clear turquoise water. We also went for a walk through the rainforest, explored the huge shipwreck on the beach, ran down the massive sand dunes in Rainbow gorge and the coloured sands, amongst other beautiful sights. The evenings were also very eventful if that is the word, as camp has to be set up before sunset, so we usually stopped to put up the tents and cook at about 4.30pm. By 8pm both nights, everyone was drunk from the numerous drinking games which are proving to be very popular, hunting down the Dingos and hiding from them once they were found (Dingos can be very dangerous!), and paddling in the shark infested sea (literally our toes though, as any deeper we would have been munched!). We were one of four trucks which were sent from our hostel originally, and the trucks came together at the end of each day to camp together on the beach, forming a large campsite which always turned into a party! In the mornings we always arose early to make the most of the day, and one morning we drove to Indians Head for sunrise, a large cliff point at the end of the beach where you can see sharks, mantarays, dolphins and other sea creatures swimming below. It was really stunning. The great thing about Fraser Island is that its not developed, so there are no proper roads or anything, it is just all about the wildlife, the beautiful lakes and numerous natural sights to explore and see...it is so untouched. So after three days, we headed back to Hervey Bay to continue our OZ adventure up the coast to the Whitsunday Islands. P.s. If you want to see pictures of us from Sydney, look on Vicki p's website at www.offexploring.com/squirrel and click under 'Sydney' where you will find us in the ice bar amongst pther things!! xxxxx