Fraser Island and Hervey Bay

Caught an early ferry from Kingfisher Terminal in Hervey Bay to Fraser Island with lots of other keen tourists. Although it was raining, we were both very excited and were treated with a beautiful rainbow when we got to port. It was straight onto a massive 4x4 vehicle with our tour guide Peter and about 15 other people. Peter turned out to be a bit of a nutty eccentric guy, with masses of stories about life on Fraser... Odd at first but we got to know him really well and by the end of our three days we'd grown to really like him. He is an excellent photographer and has published lots of books, postcards, pictures, posters of Fraser Island. We bought quite a few to remind us of all the amazing things on the Island and sent a few postcards home to make the hard-working people in the UK jealous. Strong Recommendation: If you do a commercial tour of Fraser Island, go for Cool Dingo Tours and definitely ask if you can get a tour with Peter Meyer.

The off-road driving was unbelievable!! We've never been so shaken up for such a long period of time in our lives. The bus felt like it was going to overturn at times, and it was particularly scary when our driver managed to drive whilst facing the back of the bus talking to everyone. It was odd that by day three we thought nothing of an hour being driven along shaking around and falling all over the place. Really good fun!

We did some lovely walking through rainforests and along creeks and around lots of different lakes. Our favourite was Lake McKenzie. We went there on our first day when we were still full of energy, so despite the light rain, we decided to go for a swim. After about 5 minutes the weather turned a bit worse and it started really raining and hailing down. While lot of other people on the beach made a run for it towards the bus and some cover, we decided to brave it and carried on swimming. It was an amazing feeling, swimming around in a crystal clear lake with white sand, surrounded by forest and no-one else around. Zoe also enjoyed a full body scrub with the ultra-fine sand! Pretty cold by the end but were lucky enough to be greeted by towels and cups of tea when we got back to the rest of the group. Lake McKenzie is an experience we'll never forget.

We spent a lot of time Whale-watching, and were lucky enough to see a couple from the lookout at Indian Heads and whilst driving along the beach-highway. We got a bit obsessed and every time we saw the sea on the trip our eyes were glued to the horizon, looking for a spurt of water or fin sticking out. We also managed to see a Dingo, which was lucky as the rest of our tour group missed it, some Sea Eagles and lots of other wildlife. Even saw a tree that looks like a dragon!

Each evening was spent eating masses of food (we had to get our money's worth), drinking and chatting to the rest of the group. It was a very international crowd and good fun swapping stories (German, Slovakian, Danish, US, Irish, English, Brazilian.) Us being PE Teachers, we set up a game of football on the beach with a very international feel... very good fun but left with quite a few injuries! We got to see the famous shipwreck, Champagne Pools, floated down Eli Creek towards the sea and surfed down the sand dunes into Lake Wabby. Another highlight was sand surfing and sand-dune-jumping - pretty scary jumping down great big sand dunes, but good fun and we got some good photos.

By the end of our 3 days on Fraser Island we were absolutely knackered, but we really fell in love with the place, with all it's fantastic sights and things to do, and would love to go back again. Next on our road trip was sailing around the Whitsunday's...