Well you may or may not know that me (claire) and laura have now parted ways. Laura is staying in Brisbane to find work and im making my way rather frantically up the east coast to cairns in time for my flight outta here. I had booked myself onto a tour of Fraser Island (the largest naturally made sand island in the world) the day before I wanted to go and luckily managed to get onto a two day guided camping trip, which was lucky seeing as most were already booked out. Ideally i was going out from Rainbow Bach rather than Hervey Bay because the crossing only takes 10 mins. This way you don't have to drive through the rainforest on the rough tracks to get from one side of the island to the other. This was particulalry handy because our guide drove like a complete nutter over the island and would speed past everybody. The group had driven from Brisbane and I was the last to join them. There were two 4WD's, making it a small group in comparisson to a lot of others. Annoylingly when the got to Rainbow Beach they stopped for lunch so we didn't set off for the island until after 12. The driver of my group was called Brendan and was a stereoptypically surfer, even had the dreads. Whenever we were sent off to do our touristy things on Fraser Island he'd be off surfing. The other guide was called Reg and had a walrus moustache and was as short as me. The group i was put with had a Norwegian couple, Dutch girl, French/Swiss guy (I can't remember which), two German guys (one called Dirk we renamed Diggler after the movie), and Dutch guy 2.6m tall (we just called him stretch) and the crasiest Spanish lady who would shout out things like "beauty beauty beauty beauty" every now and again.

We spent 10 minutes on the ferry to the island. On the east side of the island is 75 mile beach and it literally is a 75 mile long beach turned into a highway for the island as normal road rules seemed to apply. Speeding up the beach we got to our campsite and had to pick out a tent for ourselves. most were filled with water because it had been raining early so we each desperately tried to find a twent that was relatively dry. We also got to met the campsites resident goanna, stretch stroked it tails once it had ran away up a tree. After we had staked our claims we travelled further up the beach to the Maheno Shipwreck. Originally a cruise ship, then turned into a medical vessel during the first world war it was stranded here in the early 1900's whilst being towed to Japan to be striped down supposedly for making bombs for the attack on Pearl Harbour, but stuck in a storm and couldn't be manouvered because the propellar had been taken off. After that we stopped at Eli Creek for a leisurely stroll down the stream, shorts getting a bit wet. Then for a proper swim we had to make a 1.8km treck through some bush and then across a desert to get to Lake Wabby. Because of the algae in the water the lake is green and you can barely see your feet once you're in there. Not spending too long in there, mainly because I was afraid a turtle might try and take a chunk outta one of my toes we went back to the 4WD's and then back to the campsite for dinner. Afterwards we all sat around a campfire under the stars just chatting. sorry people there was no singing! maybe next time :P

Next morning we started the day with a trip to Lake McKenzie for another swim in what has to be thone of the most gorgeous beaches. The lake was crystal blue surrounded by white sand. it almost felt like we were on a beach by the sea. We spent a good while here taking in the scenerary. swimming in the lake was so refreshing. it was great to be able to go for a swim without having sharks or jelly fish in the back of your mind. After a huge lunch where I finally got to try Lemington cakes (sponge cake covered with coconut) we went for a walk through the rainforest at Central Station. There's no station here now but it used to be the centre for logging on the island. We walked alongside a creek that had been made a bright green because of the minerals from the sand. We were surrounded by up to 2,000 year old 40 foot fern trees and saw cucaburra's and another goanna. By the time we had done this it was time to make our way back to the mainland. Once again our guides drove like crazy through the rainforest overtaking huge 4WD coaches, not a driver I would personally like to annoy but we did get shouted at by some Irish girl with a self drive group. We also got shouted at by one of the rangers because we were doing probably around 80km or more though a 40km zone. Unfortunately I didn't spot any dingoes but to be honest I wasn't really trying that hard to spot them because everything else was so amazing. I left the group at rainbow beach and headed back to hostel for the crappiest free bbq ever. Personally two sausages, two slices of bread, some salad, a boiled potatoe and some gravy does not constitute a bbq, but shouldn't complain too much because it was free!

Anyhoo, i'm making my up to Airlie Beach now for a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands. Me and Laura will be doing seperate blogs from now on, so we'll be doing them from locations so hope it isn't too confusing.