Fraser island is one of the must-do trips that everyone raves about along the east coast, and with good reason, it's pretty awesome. It's the biggest sand island in the world complete with forests and sandblows and lakes... plus lots of dingos just to keep things interesting. Everyone explores it on one of the tag along 4WD tours where you take turns to drive along the beach with 7 other people in each car, then camp somewhere on the island. I had a great three days apart from a few minor details: one, the 7 other people in my car all spoke german (a people not exactly known for their friendliness and hospitality!); and two, the camp was more of a hostel with satellite TV and families staying there, not exactly adventurous!

So yeah I got to Rainbow Beach on the greyhound after a brief stop in Brisbane (I got there at 9pm and left at 7am, saw nothing) and went to the beach to play some volleyball with some Swiss and German people that were in my room. They all spoke German among themselves but that was fine cos I assumed there would be some English people on the trip. Not so much. We got to our briefing and I was put in a group with 6 Germans and one Swiss guy who spoke German. All the time. They weren't even the same Germans as the ones on the beach, I have no idea how so many German people ended up on one trip! There were about 30 people altogether which was a surprise seeing as the Oz bus was so quiet, obviously everyone's on greyhound. I think about half of them were German, weird.

So the actual driving bit on the island was a bit depressing. A lovely girl called Linda did her best to translate everything at the start and a guy called Chris made a great effort to include me by calling me the outsider every now and again, but the others didn't even bother. Typical that I was left with the one nationality that has no qualms about being rude! But when we weren't in the car I finally got a chance to talk, thankfully there were at least some english speaking people there as well as a Welsh guy from Bangor called Craig, always good to reminisce about the crappiness of Bangor nightlife! So yeah overall I had a great time swimming in the crystal clear lakes, rolling down sand dunes and drinking vast quantities of goon on the beach. The first night was pretty relaxed but the second we had to try and finish the goon so it was a bit crazier. Did a bit of sand wrestling and partying in the back of a van, good times.

I had a go at driving along the beach which was interesting, considering how crap I am at driving in normal conditions, there's not that much you can crash into on the beach through! We had a few brushins with the dingos but they didn't do anything apart from look adorable, they're just misunderstood! I also managed to not get eaten by a shark which the tour guide made out was a guarantee if we stepped into the water. Oh and got to touch a whale... It might have been a bit dead but still... a real whale!! Smelled pretty bad.

When we got back to shore we had two free jugs of beer which we enjoyed while Joel our tour guide gave us a guitar concert, as well as a guy called Dylan who was in surf camp with me, playing his uke. Unfortunately everyone who I met there were going to Agnes Water on the greyhound bus so I'm on my own again now, although Linda's gonna be on the same boat as me for the whitsundays cruise. I'm back on the Oz experience bus at the moment which actually has people on it this time, like twelve of us, it's practically full! On a nine hour bus trip to Emu Park then we're off to Kroombit for our genuine outback experience on a cattle ranch. It's still amazing weather, I think Oz might have won me over a bit!