Hello!

We returned from our trip to Fraser Island two days ago very tired, sandy but we had so much fun. We arrived in Hervey Bay on the friday, we had to wake up at 6 the next morning to be briefed about the trip get our groups together, do our shopping, get all our camping gear and get the ferry at 11. We had 4 groups going out in 4x4's and there were just under 40 of us. Fraser island is the largest sand island and the best way to see it is to take the self drive 2 night 3 day tour which we did. Once on the island we realised we underestimated the roads a lot. to say it was bumpy is a complete understatement. However after lots of screaming and scary bit of road the beach was brilliant to drive on. It is the main road of the island so you can drive everywhere fairly quickly whilst dodging the rocks. you have to be 21 or over to drive so none of us could but we had 3 who could drive in the van so that was fine. We went to central station and saw the rainforest before driving to lake wabby which was and amazing deep lake surrounded by huge and beautiful sand dunes we had to climb. I swam in the lake with the fish and it was so much fun. afterwards we had to go set up our camp. all the vans decided to camp together in the same area and it took a while to set up. by then it was dark so we had a have a bbq in the complete dark with only a few headtorches. The evening was fun sat for ages around the campfire with everyone. as soon as it got dark we began to be surrounded and stalked by dingoes, usually in ones or two they would walk up in the dark until someone saw then a few meters away and shouted "DINGO!" then we would shine a light on it and it would walk away. As they were wild creatures and dangerous it was pretty scary going to the loo in the bush at night. I would take a large 'Dingo' stick for protection. We then slept uncomfortably in our tent also known as 'the sand pit'. The next day we decided we all would just camp in the same spot again rather than pack everything up then we headed to the champagne pools, safe pools to bathe in that come from the sea (you can't swim in the actual sea because of sharks and jelly fish). Then we went to see the indian head cliff and had lunch before heading slowly back to camp to cook dinner. unfortunately even though we got back early to cook in the light our gas had mysteriously run out. in the end we used another groups gas after they had cooked and ate again in the dark. We had another fire and again lots of dingoes around our camp constantly. After our last night we packed everything up and headed to Lake Mackenzie. It was really lovely and we all swam but it wasn;t great weather so we all got pretty cold. It was so nice to be able to be clean and unsandy for a little bit and everyone was grey with dirt. After that we got our ferry back and looked forward to a wash, all you can eat pizza and a big comfy bed. We were glad we survived without tipping over in our van (a month or two ago a van like ours but a different company tipped over because of stupid driving and two people died), we were not eaten by dingoes and i never have to wake up with sand everywhere including my eyes again!

It was lots of fun though...just very sandy and scary in parts!

we are taking an overnight bus tonight to airlie beach to board our whitsunday sailing trip.

also it is three days till my birthday!!!

xxxxxxxxx elspeth