When we finished our three days camping at Gagaju we were glad we had done it but also very glad to have a hot shower and a clean bed to get into that night! We stayed in a Nomads hostel in Noosa and generally just chilled out and recovered from all that canoeing!

The next day we caught our Greyhound bus up to Rainow beach. This is where you can do Fraser Island trips from. We had a 2 hour long briefing at our hostel, where they basically told us what we would be doing for the three days, where to camp, what food to cook and how to drive the 4x4s. This briefing was given by none other than Merv-the legend. Everyone who weve spoken to up the east coast knows Merv, hes practically a celebrity, well known for his famous quotes such as "we'll get the d*** tick out" and "thats the GO guys". We also got put into our groups as we couldnt go by ourselves as none of us are old enough to drive in Australia! We got put with three guys- Mark (who ended up being known as Dad due to being the oldest) Jan and Alex. After the briefing we went up to the top of this hill which was actually a sand dune called the Carlo Sand Blows to watch the sunset. It was so cool! One side of the hill you could see miles into the distance and the sun setting and the other side was the ocean!.

We had to get up at half 6 the next day to go to Fraser Island. To be honest none of us were hugely excited at the prospect of more camping but we knew we would enjoy it when we were there. We had a free pancake breakfast before we left and that of course got us excited! There was 5 cars with eight people in each, so a group of 40 of us all together. It was very exciting leaving the hostel in convoy. Although there was a bit of a disaster when one of the cars drove into a wall before we even left! But after that everything went smoothly and all the cars crossed on to fraser island on the ferry. When we first hit the sand (fraser island is made entirely of it!) everyone went crazy and wound all the windows down and drove along the beach waving at the other cars! After a bit we went inland on the bumpiest journey of our lives, we were very glad we had mark driving as he was used to driving 4x4s, we would have had no idea how to get out of a pot hole! Eventually we arrived at Lake McKenzie. It is beautiful! The water is literally crystal clear, if you open your eyes under water all you can see is this bright blue colour going on forever! In the afternoon we drove to our campsite and made a pathetic attempt to set up camp which didnt really work as we had a tent but no poles and a lack of tarpaulins to shelterunder! however a few hours after it got dark we sorted things out and really enjoyed cooking outside. We had a big sing a long and one guy had brought a ukele which was cool. It was really nice being in such a big group because we met up with all the other cars throughout the day and obviously camped with them. By the end of the trip everyone was really good friends! Sleeping, however, was not the most enjoyable with 5 of us squeezed in one tent but it didnt matter as we had to get up early anyway to drive whilst the tide was out. On our second day we drove up to Indian head where we were supposed to see dolphins and sea turtles but what we actually saw was some waves! It was still an amazing view though! Afterwards we went to the champagne pools, it was quite a walk away though and alex told us we werent allowed to take our car any nearer. It was a very hot day so vic and em decided to stay in the shade and wait for us. so the 6 of us set off to walk there and just as we arrived after our long walk vicky and emily appeared looking very cool and happy-turned out they had got a lift over whilst we had been sweating our way along the beach-not cool! However the champagne pools were worth the walk. we swam with loads of little tropical fish.