Hervey Bay and Fraser Island

We heard some great things from pretty much every backpacker we asked about a 4x4 drive tour to Fraser Island (largest sand island in the world) , which involved us taking it in turns to drive 4x4 landrovers over the sandy tracks and beaches as well as drinking hard and taking in some sights!

1. Hervey Bay and the big shock! - It started in Hervey Bay which was a nice little holiday spot that the parents would love, therefore not particularly raving! Our hostel was Nomads and, when checking in, was the moment we had the SHOCK of a lifetime. Bearing in mind that we had already forked out about $300+ dollars each (except for Han the lucky git), we were hit with a booking fee of $150! Rich had no money either so he was hating life.......and Alliance and Leicester! Therefore we had to pay a lot of monetary units which left us all needing sugary food to make us feel better, which we ate on the pier!

2. Induction - We had made friends with a couple from Essex called Tommy and Rosie and hoped we would be put in a car with them, but instead we were with 5 girls who also turned out to be a laugh! (They did seem to sit in the car alot though!) The talk was quite scary if you were driving since there were fines left right and center for doing anything wrong! Me and Han were the drivers of our car :S O dear!!! We sorted out what food we were having and bought our huge quantities of goon. This left Rich upset as he wanted some steaks but the girl who tried dictating didn't want any!

On Fraser Island

3. Driving - After we had all clambered into the car we drove to the car ferry where I had to do a tricky reverse park onto the boat. On the island we went through all sorts of different road surfaces but mainly we drove down narrow sandy tracks, or on the beach. I did most of the track driving, which was ok apart from the thick wet muddy bog that we had to drive through on the way to Lake Mckenzie…still cant believe we made it up first time. Han did most of the beach driving and was our 'soft sand' specialist since she powered us through all the soft deep sand by 'driving it like you stole it'! To be honest driving was one of the best parts so Rich will have to have a go if he goes again!!

4. Nature walk - We walked through a forest for about 30 mins where we saw a really nice, crystal clear creek (which Han had a drink out of…apparently it tasted watery!) Hans (weird Dutch tour guide) showed us a few deadly plants and we saw a spider ant.

5. Lake Wabby - This was a lake on the edge of a really steep sand blast which had a load of cat fish in it. Here we had a little dip in the water (which was a bit smelly), I had a running race down the bank against a load of guys from a different group and slapped straight into the water (defo beat them all), Tommy came out with a few hillarious lines about a guy who was trying to ruin everyones fun, and some random nutcase started forward rolling into the lake!

6. Shipwreck - We saw an old washed up shipwreck which looked pretty cool so we took some photos….god knows what type of ship it was, or how it got there more to the point!

7. Indian Heads - We climbed to a giant cliff drop in Indian Heads taking in the sights and hearing some stories about the cliff. The first was probably a fact as we were told it used to be the point of execution for the aboriginies during the takeover of the island, however the lifesaving tale we were told about our tour guide catching a girl as she was about to fall off the edge was probs rubbish!

8. Champagne pools - These were pools formed by the rocks and the sea. Here we sunbathed, played aussie rules football with a lunatic called Sam (who loved everything….especially diving around) and me and Han fed some pretty large fish with muscles.

9. Tea tree river - We took a dip in a tea tree river which was supposedly good for your skin complection and your hair! Never have I seen so many girls purposefully getting their hair wet!! I didn't tell Han while she was swimming away, but there was an information board showing that snakes lived in the water! Haha she survived though! Olly our tour guide then managed to catch a turtle which we all held and had photos with, then we moved on!

10. Lazy river - we casually made our way down a lazy river (by foot as we had no rubber ring) where we were knee deep in pretty chilly water!

11. Lake Mckenzie - This was the great attraction of the island with the second highest quantity of silica in the world! Unfortunately we didn't have the brightest day ever for the occasion but it was still great to look at. We had some embarising jumping photos, swam far out into the lake, played with the ball, then finally had to eat our sandwiches without any ingredients since we stupidly left out cool box at the camp!!

12. Nights out and the campsite - Since we booked with a company called Nomads we were lucky enough to have our own campsite with a kitchen, toilet and shower block. Around the camp were a few rules….no1 - No spitting in the fire (disrespectful to aboriginal spirits), no2 - No whistling in the evening (attracts bad spirits), no3 - Always walk with a partner to avoid getting attacked by a dingo! Number 3 caused serious problems as Rich was ill one night at 3 in the morning and Hannah was very ill one evening meaning that to perform my duty as dingo buddy I had to get up!! We had some hillarious nights out, the highlight of them all being the game of 'rabbits', we played with the girls!

Overall Fraser Island was the dogs and is one of the best organised trips we have done so far. Hope you enjoyed reading, off to Agnes Water now/ 2weeks ago!!!