The journey from Noosa to Hervey bay was only 2 hours away so wasn't bad at all. Hervey bay is basically the gateway town to Fraser Island which is a must do for all backpackers and is the biggest sand island in the world. Our tour was already pre booked with A1 Fraser Roving so we got picked up from the bus depot by the hostel that organises the tours. It turned out that our hostel was a old hospital which at first was a little unsettling especially as you can definately still tell it was a hospital but it actually turned out to be a really good hostel and quite homely! It seems as though anything can be turned into a hostel these days as we've stayed in schools, hospitals and we've seen a fire station, office blocks and even an asylum which we chose not to stay in!
That evening we had a meeting with everyone booked on the tours and were split into two groups. The 4WD's were bright pink much to my approval but what we didn't realise was that we would be doing the whole three days completely on our own with no guides! We had 7 in our group and the other team had 9 so we had the better deal space wise in the truck; however the other group didn't have the annoying German so maybe they did have the better deal!
We basically had a hour long meeting were a guy tells us about the island and shows us some really old videos about safety and how to be dingo aware then you get given a map and a itinery to follow and told that basically if anything happens to the car at all you get charged $1000!
The next day we were all really excited and set off on our adventure. We got told to just bring a small rucksack with us and leave our big rucksack at the hostel but of course Max the German guy had to bring his big rucksack! After a bit of an argument we relented and let him have his way as we only had 7 people and not 9. We had to go to the supermarket first and buy all our food and drinks for the 3 days which turned out to be harder than we thought - no wonder the shopping list on big brother is such a hard task! Max had to disagree on everything even the lettuce we had picked we wanted to strangle him! It did turn out very well in the end though especially due to the fact one of the guys in our group was an Italian chef and offered to do all the cooking much to the dismay of the other group!
After all the food and drink was bought we headed to the ferry where there were hundreds of backpackers all doing the same as us. We arrived on Fraser Island some 40 minutes later and I was surprised how big it was, I really didn't expect it to be such a huge island. The sea looked really nice and blue too but we were all warned that it's a breeding ground for tiger sharks so we didn't need telling twice about the dangers of entering the water!
We headed to the first place on our itinery which was Wabby Lake. We all set off but it ended up taking us at least an hour through the forest to get there! We all got in the lake to cool down but shortly after there was a huge pour down with torrential rain and wind with sand sticky to our soaking wet bodies and clothes! The weather just changes so quickly over here you have to always make sure you have a brolly or coat just in case!
After the storm we got back to our car and drove along the beach to get to Eli creek and to set up camp somewhere. On the itinery they just say camp either side of Eli creek up to where the signs say you can't camp any longer so it was difficult to actually find a place where we all agreed would be okay for the night! There were no showers or anything anywhere you just had to dig a toilet and not shower for 3 days so you can imagine the amount of sand that was everywhere! We set up the tents on the hard sand and max informed us he had his own tent he wanted to use, I think he was being deliberately awkward but at least it got him out of our hair for the night! We had a pretty restless night sleep especially with the hard sand underneath and the sound of animals around the tents!
Then next day we were all up at around 5:30am as it was just so sweltering in the tents as soon as the sun had come up!
We couldn't leave our camp area till 10:30 due to high tide blocking us off so we just had to sit around and go for walks around the area until it was safe to leave. We drove down to the Maheno shipwreck which sank in 1935 during a cyclone then on to Indian head which is a lookout point where you can sometimes see sharks and dolphins etc in the sea but unfortunately we didn't see anything. Then we had a long walk to get to the champagne pools which are safe to swim in and our basically small pools formed by the rocks cutting off a bit of the sea but were nice to cool off in.
After the long walk back to the car we set off in search of our campsite for the night and Ryan and Ady ended up having a bit of an argument again with Max. It's not like them to lose their rag with anyone but he was disagreeing with everything and wanted us to ditch the itinery and drive around the island on our own and find our own campsite at some random lake. We all said no we want to stay on the itinery because if we don't and something happens like we break down then the company will want to know why we didn't stick to the itinery and may make us liable for anything that may happen. He then said he wanted to shower and us girls started arguing with him then saying well were not showering so surely you can go without one but he was sulking and arguing so we said Max just drop us off at the campsite and you can go and find a shower which is what he did! We found an area were a lot of the tours were camping and we set up camp for the night while peter the Italian guy cooked us all spag bol which definately was a treat and Max found a shower!
The next day we had to be up and out of the camp area by 6:00 due to the tides, to get to Lake Mackenzie which is the most beautiful lake of the 40 that are on the island. When we got there it was the best lake I have ever seen. The water was really blue and the sand pure white with lizards occasionally walking by. We stayed a few hours before heading back to our 4WD. Fraser Island has a bit of a dingo problem. Dingoes are wild dogs but on Fraser Island they have become aggressive due to people feeding them so it's advised that you stay away and don't encourage them. Whilst walking along the sand on Lake Mackenzie we happened to see one of these dingoes suddenly appear out from the forest. We were all a bit excited to see it as we hadn't seen many on the island. We were all getting our cameras out when the dingo sneaked up to a couple who were sleeping on the sand and just grabbed their carrier bag and ran off back to the forest. We shouted at the couple who then suddenly woke up and hadn't heard the dingoes at all around them. They were really panicking especially when they realised they had left their car keys, camera, wallets and other valuables in the plastic bag which they also told us had contained some sandwiches! The lads helped them look through the forest but it was nowhere to be seen although they did find there camera but no car keys or wallets! We had to help them break into their car where luckily they had a spare set but it was their own fault really as there are signs everywhere saying not to bring food to any of the lakes!
We left Lake Mackenzie after all the excitement of the dingo and we had quite a long bumpy drive back to the ferry port where max also informed us he had to sit in the front seat as he had broken his back a few years ago and it was less painful at the front! We think he was just saying it so that he could sit in the front the whole time so we kept making him sit in the back only for him to make us stop the car so he could go in the front! His back however hadn't stopped him running down the sandunes and throwing himself into the lakes, showing us how to do the crab and swimming across a massive lake!
We headed back to the main ferry port and back to the main land where we were glad to see the back of Max but not glad that our adventure was now over!