After a shocking 16 hour bus we pitched up at Rainbow beach ready to start our Fraser Island adventure. We had a day to spare before we started - most of which we spent eating at this amazing bakery we found. When the woman asked us if we wanted shares in the place we realised we may have gone a little over board. We also watched the sunset at Carlon Sand blow, which was not only stunning, but also got us used to the prospect of having sand absolutely everywhere.
Fraser Island is a massive sand island and we chose to explore it by doing a self guided tour: 11 people in a 4x4, 5 jeeps - all let lose on this poor island. The night before we left we got put into our groups and 'Team Extreme' was born. We watched a safety video to make sure we were 'dingo safe' and 'croc wise' - although there advice fo crossing your arms over your chest and backing off while saying DIN-GO slowly wouldsurely just make us look stupid rather than scare them off?!
The next morning we had a pretty early start, made worse by our emotional goodbye with the straighteners - we would be seperated for 3 days. We also had the joy of a crazy Israeli roomate who tried to start a fight on Sops at 6.30 in the morning for 'daring' to shower when she wanted to shower. Tip: do not anger Hoyle in the morning! Before we could actually leave, we had about another million safety briefings from the LEGEND that is Merv. It's ahrd to explain this create of a man but imagine a booming australian voice that includes a swear word on every 5th word, a long ponytail, about 6 teeth missing, a mentalist and you're just about there. Fantastic entertainment! Turns out Merv wasn;t a fan of the safety video so gave us his own tips - such as certain hand gestures to anyone that questioned our tyre pressues, and our new favourite phrase to scrare away the dingos -GO HOME DINGO! yelled as loud as possible. As Merv rightly said: 'what's covering your nipples going to do to scare away a dingo?' We took every opportunity to yell this phrase at every passing Dingo, often in a German accent (why not), and repeated about 10 times for good measure. Eventually we wear allowed to drive off, with Iain taking the helm. Team Extreme were on the road!! Our jeep was never quiet. Thanks to crazy Ives from Asterdam, who we never saw without a beer in his hand, and his friend Dirk from Germany, we often had group singalongs ranging from death metal to 80s classics and at one point the Deutsch national anthem. Being in a confined space mean we all knew each others life stories within around 5 minutes. We soon learnt all about Ives great love back home, only to find out he also has an 'East Coast girlfriend' here Oz...then we were looking at photos of Dirk's son...later we were all trying to find a new life plan for Sophie. Current favourite is 'bar girl' - as she was sat nearest the box of beers and did a fantastic job of keeping us all supplied with beers throughout the 3 days.
Now, we were planning on driving - really we were. But somehow we permanently had a beer in our hand and so it never seemed to happen. As you all know, driving isn't either of our best skills, so we decided to sit back and let the boys do the hard work. There aren't any roads on Fraser, just dirt tracks - so it all gets a bit hairy. Soon we were getting bashed around all over the oplace, flying in the air and landing on each other's laps. We bonded pretty quickly.
Our first stop was lake Mackenzie - an absoltuely stunning clear turquoise lake. The weather wasn't exactly warm but we were determined to get in - que a lot of girlie screaming (and not just on our part). Once we actually got in, it was surpisingly warm and so we had a nice spash around. The afternoon involved a lot of driving along the beach, even more life sharing and some beautiful tone-deaf singing. It went really quickly and soon enough it was time to find our campsite (yes-we were camping) and pitch up. We were sharing our tent with our new BFF Dee, who had no more of a clue about putting up a tent than us. After running around for a while poking each other with the sticks, rowing the tent up in the air and generally getting in a tangele, we were rescued by Paul (who, back in the day, was just a random guy in a red jacket) and eventually got outr tent up. Despite arriving early we were one of the last to actually get the tent up but never mind.
After cooking up a storm on our gas store fire thing (steak and potato salad!), we all sat around to eat, drink and be merry. Sand gets everywhere and so we ended up eating and drinking a lot of that too. Leaving 55 people on a sand island creates a really good night - everyone mixed and macthed groups. Whilst no-onje could beat Team Extree it was really nice to meet a load of randoms - helped of course, by out lovely goon. We also had the company of a lot of Dingos, prowling around the campsite looking for any leftovers. At around 1am the dingos turned nasty (probably tired of out constant yelling --go home, dingo)and high drama occured- a dingo attack! Some Irish guy had apparently fallen asleep on the beach and been bitten by a dingo (likely story...we're pretty sure we saw him run after a pack with a wooden spoon) and decided to lie down by out tent. Everyone actually went crazy, especialy Dee who decided that we needed to call a helicopter to get him airlifted to safety and ran around like a crazy lady looking for a phone. His mates decided Jack daniels was the cure and poured it straight down his throat, rejecting the paracetomal others offered. Luckily, Freddie was calm and put a plaster on him - one of ours that were on hand ( we persuaded Dee it wasn't necessary to open the 30dollar first air kit in the trucks despite her protesting: 'I would rather save a life and spend the dollars'). Our tesco plasters did indeed 'save a life' and Irish was on top form the next day. We had a great debate about whether Dingo's carried Rabies which lasted around an hour and eventually decided no, they didn't. After all that drama, we all headed to our tents to get some sleep and generally calm down.
The next morning we were woken to the sound of heavy rain, our tent collapsing on us and Hoyle yelling 'Evacuate! Evacuate!' - so we pulled on some clothes and scrambled to the safety of our truck after falling over each other about 10 times in the space of 10 metres. We cooked up a breakfast feast and set about on the debrief of the night before. A particular gem was:
Dee: ' Do you remeber the doctor last night with the dingo attack? He was so calm'
Soph: ' Do you mean Freddie the windsurfign instructor?'
Sophie and I were entrusted with the task of washing up the dishes in the sea after all this - an apaprently simple task. We heard 'wash up in the sea' - so this is what we did...literally. We left the box of dishes near the waters edge, got a plate each and charged into the sea to clean them one by one. What we weren't excpecting were some craxy waves that completely drenched us and then knocked over the box with everything in it, sending it all out to sea. Our screams sent the caused the boys to come over...to find us chasing knifes, cups, spatulas and god knows what else that were fast disappearing into the deep blue. Turns out, you're meant to go fill the box up with water, then put the dishes in to wash up.....as we saw the group next to us do very well 5 minutes later. We were not allowed to wash up again.
After visiting the marano wreck (a wreck on land...very odd, but very cool) we packed up and headed off to see Indian head. After a small hike up a mountain (ok, a hill) we reached the top. Even in the rain and cloud it was still an amazing sight. Soph headed down just before me...seemingly safe, but i later found her in a heap, on the floor, covered in mud with a little whimper ' I fell over'. I then pointed out the path we had followed, while she tried to explain that she may havemissed that sign and attempted to traverse down the hill.
High tides and crazy rain meant the drive down along the beach and over the rocks was a bit of a mission but Henry got us to a campsire safely. It was actually completely the wrong site, and may or may not have been slightly illegal, but all 5 trucks made the same mistake so we are all as stupid as each other. The night followed the same pattern - failing to put up our tent, again - being rescued, again - getting the goon out, again The night had the added bonus of being Iain's (of Team extreme fame) birthday, which made it even more fun. the high drama of this night centered around us 2 - we had both bizarrely lost one of out flip flops and had no idea where they were. It just wasn't in the budget to buy new shoes! (we declare a lot of things to 'not be in the budget', but ignore it anyway). In the morning we were still shoeless, deciding they had been eaten by dingos...which we found hysterical for some reason. Hoyle even started trying to negoitiate with the dingos, deciding she needed a flip flop more than a waterproof (the green cag that she hates, but I love) and so was all set to go ask them to swap - all very weird. After actually clearing up the carnage of the night before, we found them both - mine was on the other side of the camp site, and soph's was under the ice box. We toasted the return with a celebratory beer, which we found in the ice box while looking - the last cold one..bliss!
The last day was gorgeous weather and so we set off, footwear and all, to Lake Wabby which is another gorgeous lake and is sadly soon to dissapear (erosion..or something).What isn't so nice about this lake is the trek across a sand dune you have to do to reach it which we moaned about all the time ' i'm dying..i'm dead....dead in a desert'. The relief of getting in the cold water was so nice...and it was also very nice to actually wash ourselves. After that it was time to head back to the mainland and wave a sad goodbye to Fraser Island. We had the best 3 days doing Fraser and it was definately our highlight of Oz - we really didn't want to go back. Actually we may be even converts to this whole camping malarky and are now Happy Campers! (on second thoughts, maybe not...we didn't shower for 3 days, we had to pee in bushes, we can't pitch a tent, we lost half our cutlery, our tent got flooded one night, we fell over the tent strings about 10 times and we still have sand appearing from nowhere..) As Hoyle has just said, maybe we just Happy Drinkers?!
SJ xx