Hello people! After a three day hiatus I am back to describe the fun and games on our trip to Fraser Island!

We had a very early start on Saturday morning to be briefed on safe camping and driving on Fraser Island before being divided into our groups for the duration of the trip. There were two groups of seven (the other group comprised of six lads who pretty much drank heavily the entire time and one very lovely girl called Lisa - poor thing!) and ours was Jim, me, two sisters called Jodie and Frankie, and three Scots - Stewart and Lindsey from the Isle of Lewis and Lindsey's boyfriend from Fort William called Allan. After signing our lives away on the contract we collected our 4x4 van from the garage, did our grocery shop for the weekend and got on the car ferry/barge.

We drove in convoy, with Jodie at the wheel for us (I managed to flukely get out of driving at all by virtue of the fact I'd given Donald my driving license to take home with him on his last night in Tokyo). The terrain was pretty hair raising being a sand island, especially inland where we bumped through forests, in and out of pot holes. Our first stop was Lake Wabby, a huge lake surrounded by vertiginous sand dunes. We approached it via the lookout first, affording us an awesome panorama of the lake. The sand looked absolutely pristine from that distance and we could see little specs in the lake that turned out to be people swimming. After that we headed down and got involved! The water was so clear and cool and went very deep within the space of about 2 metres.

We piled back into the van after that and headed to the Eastern Beach to hammer it up as far up the coast as possible (we were restricted to driving at low tide). Beach driving was so much fun! You could reach speeds of up to 80km/h and the whole beach was like a highway, with 4x4s whizzing past each other. Very surreal. We flew through pools in the sand and went flying over bumps!

We stopped at the Maheno Wreck, this rusty shipwreck moored in the sand at the edge of the sea, before setting up camp for the night. Unfortunately it was already getting dark and we were the most inept campers in the world, not helped by the shoddy equipment our tour operators had provided. One of our tents (think a disgusting old tipi) had a hole in the top and another had a tiny pole so was completely redundant - we had a cosy night crammed into two of them! Then we tried to set up our stove so we could barbecue but the gas hose caught light. Fortunately we put the flames out with sand but it could quite easily have blown up the gas cannister, killed us all and destroyed the World Heritage Site that is Fraser Island (doom-mongering there!). The other group were kind enough to lend us their stove so we enjoyed steak sandwiches and lots of beer/goon under the most awesome canopy of stars. There's so little light pollution there that you can see every constellation in the sky, it was beautiful.

After a night of drinking games, we crashed out and got up very early for our beach drive (we could only drive from sunrise until 8.15am), heading for the Champagne Pools. Lindsey was at the wheel this time and took to it brilliantly straight away.

The Champagne Pools are an outcrop of rocks that fill with water when the tide comes in, forming natural pools that are safe to swim in (you can't go in the sea for sharks/jellyfish/riptides). I think they're called the 'Champagne Pools' because of the way the sea foams when the water flows into them.

We relaxed there pretty much all morning before walking along the beach to Indian Head which is a cliff that sticks out into the sea and gives you an amazing view over the ocean and Fraser Island. From there we saw more migrating humpback whales, some dolphins and sea turtles. We could also see a school of fish, which looked like a shadow on the ocean.

At 4pm we got back in the van for beach driving and tazzed back down to our camping spot. It was a bit more organised this time and we managed to cook a mean spaghetti bolognese before the sun went down. Everyone went to bed really early because of the heavy one the night before but I stayed up chatting with the Scots until 10pm (rock n roll!).

Today we got up early (AGAIN) and drove to civilisation where we found a bakery and I got a cup of tea (there is a theme developing on this trip - it all seems like a relentless pursuit to find me tea). Then we headed to Lake Mackenzie for the day.

Lake Mackenzie was beautiful. It's the largest lake on Fraser Island, with white sand and clear water. We went swimming and pretty much relaxed there all day before heading back to the mainland to return the kit this evening.

That's really only a brief synopsis of the last three days because there's too much to write and I'd really bore the arses off you all writing all the details. I had a fantastic time but can't wait to get in the shower...

Love you and miss you all x x x

P.S. We didn't see a single frikkin dingo!
P.P.S. But we did see a goanna