NEWSFLASH! NEWSFLASH! Chris and Jue survived....just!

The story of Fraser Island.... (sit comfortably)

There was once two people, called Chris and Jue who, one sunny day, decided to go to visit Fraser Island (An island made completly of sand) on the east coast of Australia. They packed a few tops and some shorts into a (tiny) backpack, and headed to their 4WD jeep with a group of 8 others who had decided to embark on the same adventure. After sitting through a two hour briefing about the island, which included information such as "there are dingo's on the island, if attacked defend yourself aggressively'! (Useful!)... "there are no showers or toilets on the island (don't ask- they provide you with a shovel!), do not use soap in the lakes, do not drink the water, do not leave rubbish, do not drive in the sea, do not get salt water on the car or you'll be fined $1000 etc etc etc". After this Jue and chris loaded up their van with everything you would need for their hardcore camping adventure.

They arrived on the island and headed for a beautiful lake called lake Mackenzie which is known to be in the top ten of most beautiful lakes in the world. They spent a lovely time swimming and laying by the lake before heading off to find their campsite for the evening. Unfortunately Chris had relinguished the driving responsibilities on this occassion to a Scottish lad who got them lost and when they eventually found their campsite it was pitch black. After an hour or so they had managed to set up 4 tents along with another five vans of campers (50 people), and were just preparing to cook dinner when they went to grab the steaks that were on the menu for dinner that night, only to find the steaks had disappeared! On further inspection the group spotted a rather large hole in the plastic sheet that had been hung between two vans to act as a windbreak, , just behind where the steak lay, and dingo prints leading off down the beach...hmm the mystery solved! Depsite this Chris and Jue enjoyed a nice dinner thanks to the kindness of other groups who gave the group some of their meat.

As the night went the party started and more Dingos appeared and walked around the camp scavenging crumbs, and refused to leave despite numerous attempts by campers to hurl cups at the dingos and run after them yelling (under the instruction of the island rangers who informed the group that a 4 year old child had been taken and killed by dingos only last week!! AHHHH!). Jue became known as the chief dingo scarer as she would frequently set off on a fast ran towards dingos shouting and waving tin cups madly in the air and hurling them in the dingos direction. When chris and Jue eventually decided to go to sleep, Chris carefully created a smooth piece of sand outside the tent so that they could see in the morning just how close the dingo's came (very close, very often).

After an uncomfortable sleep on very hard sand, and the constant awareness that dingos were standing just outside the tent, the group got up and had breakfast (scrambled eggs) and Jue drove the group to Indian Head to see a shark breeding ground, and swim in the rock pools. After lunch the group headed to Eli Creek to bathe (and wash) in the fresh water creek that ran out to sea before heading to Eli camp site (a large patch of sand) along with 4 or 5 other vans containing other groups, and managed to construct their tents and start cooking dinner in daylight!

After 20 minutes of arriving at the camp, a snake was spotted next to one of the tents which caused some alarm and it was swiftly flicked into the woods in the hope it wouldn't return but meant Chris and jue constantly had the torch looking at their feet to make sure they didn't step on a snake or spider or scorpion!! It soon became apparent that their were 4 dingos circling the campsite and these seemed much more confident than the dingos of the night before and seemed to stand and look at the campers when they ran toward them banging cups and plates! This made Jue and Chris and the other campers slightly nervous and after several dingo stand offs, the campers decided to go to bed and try and get some sleep for an early start the next morning...

The night went on and chris and jue managed a couple of hours sleep, before they were awoken by strong winds blowing the roof off the tent. Chris bravely left the tent to pin the pegs back into the sand whilst jue retieved a shovel from the van and lay it next to their sleeping bags in case of attack. Chris returned to the tent and they laid back down in the hope that their tent would withstand the wind. After the second time the roof blew off and they decide to pick up their tent and carry it to an alternative spot on the camp site and pitch it (in the dark) under the shelter of a 4WD van... this worked until the rain came. A tropical storm hit the campsite and the tents could not withstand the wind and rain, eventually, Chris and Jue were forced to leave their tent in the torrential rain and head to the van for cover. On entering the van they found that other group members were also taking cover their. As the night went on the more people came, and the group sat in the van watching as several tents blew off down the beach, whilst others poles snapped and they collapsed on the poeple within them, and others gradually flooded. At 6am as the sunrose, the campers jumped out of the van into a foot of water that had formed around the van as a result of the overnight rains and set about assessing the damage that had been caused by the storm. To Jue and Chris's delight, their tent was one of the only ones left half standing but sadly was flooded. The campers cleared up the debris and headed off down the beach to see if other campers further down the beach had survived the storms. Stories were told of missing tents, dingo attacks and many more. Jue and chris felt rather relieved that they had survived the dingos and the group happily headed to Wabby Lake to bathe in the fresh water lake and meander through sand dunes before catching the ferry back to Rainbow beach at lunch time.

Jue and chris arrived back at Rainbow beach feeling very relieved they had survived the adventure, but also happy in the knowledge they were now hard core campers. They went and showered the sand from themselves which seemed to have covered every orrifice and settled down in their nice comfortable beds to sleep...

The End.... pictures following soon

GOOD TIMES! :O)