For our Fraser Island trip we decided to base ourselves at Rainbow Beach, a smigeon of a town, devoid of any tourist traps and inexpensive compaired to other places. It was a lovely little seaside town, and the beach here was beautiful - backed by huge Sandblows. We took a walk up to the Carlo Sandblow, a 120m high dune on the hill, overlooking the town - it was breathtaking. The coloured sands that rose steeply above the beach was just incredible - and was a great base for paragliding along the coast line - where the water is so clear that you can often see stingrays and sharks above the water!! We have never seen anything like this before.. the sand was so soft, and right at the edge of the 'cliff' of the dunes you could see the coastline right the way around - it was beautiful!!

As we were doing a self drive tour around Fraser Island for 3 days, with a large group of fellow travellers, we had to have a briefing in the afternoon to ensure that we know everything due to high and low tides - 'do's' and 'don'ts' etc - instructions about how to drive 4wd vehicles was given, and the drivers were nominated. The great thing about doing a self drive tour, is that you get to chose when, and how you see everything.. and if your group is good which ours was, your guarenteed to have the best time! It was quite funny that whilst the groups of 10 for each car were nominated, our group was ALL grils except Chris, and the other group all boys - Chris wasn't best pleased! However since there was a couple in each group you couldn't really swap - otherwise we wouldnt have been in together hahaha!! He was our 'b****' for the weekend!!! After introductions with the group, we went shopping for our next 3 days food, which was qite hard for Chris - with all the girly portions etc.. he had to put his foot down in the end, and started throwing things in the trolley when people weren't looking hahaha. Shopping was a good way of getting to know our group members, especially to work out who would be the controlling ones etc!!

The first day of our Fraser i sland tour arrived and we were up early packing the 4x4's up with our camping gear etc. One of us hadto get on the roof and pack it all on and Chris being the only lad in our group was volunteered. he could tell that this was going to be the start of a long weekend haha! But he was happy as larry. We were driving in convoy with the other group for the whole trip and doing all the activities together so Chris still got male company throughout the trip which was good. Anyway before hitting Inskip Point to get the ferry we had to have another briefing on the cars by the mechanics. The guy was an absolute prat and was so rude!! The day before a group bought the car back damaged and there was a massive ordeal about it all and what they were trying to charge them etc so he wasn't in the best of moods. He started shouting at one of our group but he got shut down quite quickly hahaha!! After all the formalities we were on the road ready to go, with Shelly taking the drivers seat first.

The ferry was only a short ride to the islands southern point. As we were crossing Fraser Island appeared lush and green to be the world biggest sand Island but apparently it contains more sand than the Sahara Desert due to its depth. In the heart of the island lies rainforest, gorges, mineral streams, and some amazing fresh water lakes, which is where we were headed first, to the popular lake Mackenzie. The inland trip to the bottom of the east coast which is where you spend most of your trip was ridiculously bumpy and the car honestly seemed and sounded like it was going to fall to pieces haha!!! But it manned us through to the coastline which is where some of us gotour first chance to drive along the gorgeous beaches of this amazing island. There was beach as far as the eye could see and you could really pick some speed up along here.

After travelling a good stretch of the beach we had to veer of back inland to central station where we had to follow signposted tracks to lake Mackenzie. Once we had arrived we all tucked into some lunch before heading down to the lake. The lake was out of this world, so pure!! The lakes on fraser are 'perched', formed by water acccumulating on top of a thin impermeable layer of decaying twigs and leaves. The water is so fresh and clear and the mineral sand surrounding the beach is so soft. You just want to drink it while you swim in it. There are about 200 of these lakes on the island but this is the best one of the lot and the most visited. We spent the rest of the afternoon here as it was way to hard to leave. By 3.30-4ish we had to make tracks however as we werent insured to drive on the beaches after this time due to the tide coming in. Chris took over the driving from here and absolutely loved cruising along the beach, picking up the speed!!! Such a boy!

After a long drive along the perfect beaches we ventured inland again to our campsite for the night. We all set our tents up, put the canopy covers over the picnic tables and got straight onto dinner and the Goon!! Shelly made a killer Bolognaise while Chris manned the pasta and together they cooked up a storm for us all. The lads group just had burgers and I think Chris was pleased he had the girls meal as there was tonnes. He started to realise that being in a group of girls might actually work in his favour. That night we spent the whole night chatting, playing drinkin games, having a good laugh and Dingo Spotting, but we saw none, gutted!. There was such a mix of people from 18 year olds up to people in their late 20's but everyone got on great and we were really pleased that we had got a decent group. We have heard that many people come back from the trip ready to kill each other haha!!

After packing up the next morning we headed of to our next destination Lake Wabby on the inland track. We actually had to walk through the bush to get to this lake which was great, however when we got there blocking the path was a huge and I mean huge dead snake with a Monitor Lizard demolishing its head, it was an absolute masacre haha!! It sent shivers down our spines but we soon scared the lizard off and maged to get past, although I swear I nearly gipped because of the smell, eek!! Lake Wabby was also a great lake, not as impressive as Lake mackenzie however it was surrounded by Eucalypt forest with a huge sandblow along one side, which is apparently encroaching on the lake at a rate of about 3 metres per year, incredible! In the water you could see huge catfish basking in the waters, which was cool. Some of us went for a swim, while the other climbed the sand blow to see the views from the top, however there was just more and more sand haha!

A couple of hours later we headed back along the 40 minute track to our cars for a late lunch on the beach, and then drove the long distance up past the Mohino Shipwreck (which is on the 3rd day's itinery), Happy Valley and to Eli Creek. We all stopped here to have a quick peek.. it was actually on the 3rd days itinery - so we were only here shortly as the girls were worried about being on the beach too late as we werent insured to drive at high tide. The lads wanted to stay here and check it out, but we did have to move on sharpish because of the tide - we didnt want to get stranded!! Most of the girls by this point were dying to drive the van... so I, along with a few others drove. It was so so much fun, alot easier than I thought it would be driving on sand!! It was amusing racing with the guys car.. although im sure I did lose the race!haha.

This last night we camped at a campsite off Cathederal Beach - we did get the choice to camp on the beach but there were more votes for camping at a site with bbq facilities etc.. and it worked in our favour in the end. Afer getting the tents up and organised we got the bbq's on the go. It was a little worrying when we say a strange huge spider on one of the bbq's, which had made a web in the shape of a perfect 'X'!!! Anyway, once the bbq was cooked we all sat around, drinking and then towards the night playing drinking games. Whilst getting showered, in came the biggest toad I have ever seen.. it was seriously huge.. and made so much 'ribbiting' noise!! The night was a real good laugh.. during the night we actually heard rustling in the bush... and with our torches we saw a huge brown snake - we're unsure if it was the poisonous brown snake.. but it sure did look scary!!! It was quite a late on this night as it was our last night camping together, so we wanted to make the most of it.

The next morning we were up early for our last day on the Island, as we had to be at the ferry terminal for 3. We headed up the beach straight to the rock outcrop of Indian Head - known as the best vantage point on the island. We walked to the top of the headland for some amazing views of the island, beaches in every direction. Off the headland you can often see sharks, mantarays and dolphins.. sometimes even whales - however we saw... nothing!!! The track from Indian Head also passed inlands, passed the Champagne Pools, the only spot of saltwater swimming available on the Island - due to the large rips and Man eating sharks - eek! From here it was the long journey down the whole of the East Coast, passing the sights we had missed out on day 2. We quickly stopped off at the pinnacles - the section of coloured sand cliffs and then headed back to Eli Creek. Eli Creek is a fast moving crystal clear waterway that flows into the ocean. We took the boardwalk to the mouth of it and then paddled our way back to the beach.. which we ended up doing this a number of times as it was so refreshing! A short drive back down from here was the Mohino Shipwreck, a passanger liner that was blown ashore by a cyclone in 1935 - while being towed to a Japanese Scrapyard. This was really impressive. A third of it was buried in the sand, whilst the other two thirds was visable. We took a look around it, however we weren't allowed in it as it is dangerous! we were having such a great day that everyone seemed to be ignoring the time and the distance we had to travel back down to the most southernly point to get the ferry haha! Eventually the girls started getting the knickers in a twist!! So we set of letting the last members of the group have a drive along the beach. One of the more quieter Brazilian girls who was a lawyer back home had declined the offer to drive previously but then changed her mind. It was hilarious she absolutely flew along the beach, hitting the shoreline and everything. Chris was in the front with her wetting himself with laughter while some of the girls in the back were actually quite scared, the Brazilian girl just carried on content ignoring all the comosion going on around her as her English wasn't that great. However she did make up lost time for us haha. once of the beach Chris took over to drive the track back to the ferry crossing and we made it by the skin of our teeth with about 2 minutes to spare. We would have had some hefty charges if we took it back late. Once we got the cars and equipment back to the garage everyone was a little worried about any charges as we had lost utensils and ripped a tent etc but we got of scott free luckily.

That was the end of our Fraser island trip, but what an experience it was, it was so much fun and we met a great group of like minded travellers!!! That night after getting ourselves cleaned up we all met up in the bar drinking, playing pool and table tennis and had a great night. I even got some Flamenco dancing lessons of Supreeda and some samba lessons off our brazilian friend (we forgot her name,eek!) ready for South America haha. We exchanged emails with some of them as we had alot in common and if ever in their countries we were told we would have a place to stay which was really nice. It was great to mix with such a big group of different nationalities!!!