p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }

11/30/10

I woke up before my 5:45 am alarm and was off and going for the day. My group all got together and then we all gathered in the TV lounge to watch a DVD prior to going to Fraser Island. This DVD reminded me of the DVD you have to watch prior to going on a canoe trip in BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoing Area) in northern Minnesota where it goes over some safety and the importance of hanging food bags high in the air out of reach for Bears. This movie was boring and surprisingly long after the first section I thought it was done but I was wrong and it kept going. The main areas of focus on the video was driving safely on the island with the tough terrain and tides and being smart about the Dingos. You are instructed to cross your arms in an X over your chest if dingos are in front of you and slowly walk away. The video also goes over the importance of leaving no trace with rubbish and how to properly dispose of human waste on the islands remote campsites. We were then off to load up our vehicles and make our way to the 8 am ferry. I was on the fence as to if I should hire a sleeping bag for $9 or not and I decided to go without it. We got a nice picture of our group before we left in front of our 4X4. I had also had it pointed out to me the previous night that the trucks are all manual transmissions. I was worried enough about driving with the wheel being on the opposite side and driving on the opposite side as well. I have never had a car with a manual transmission and have only driven them on rare occasion and never with much practice to get any kind of proficiency. I had said I would be a driver but now I was just imagining me stalling out repeatedly and having seven other people in the car having to suffer. I for sure did not want to drive in the city and load up on the Barge so I avoided the first drive shift big time. We made it to the ferry in good time and all got out except the driver and the front seat passenger. The rest of us walked onto the ferry and sat in the open area above the ferry car deck. Fiona had decided to drive us to the barge and the funny part is that she was the first one to be loaded on and she was backed into a corner and was stuck in the truck because the back of the truck was against the back of the barge and could not open and both doors were blocked. I gave her and Bex a wave and a laugh since they would be in the truck for the 35 minute ferry ride. The ride over was fun and we just chatted and had some laughs. As we approached the barge landing site we had it pointed out that we could see thousands of soldier crabs moving along a nearby sandbar. This was a nice site to see. I was excited to be entering the island. The weather was cloudy but nice and our first stop was at a site called Central Station/Pile Valley. It is an old logging camp area and part of the island that is tropical rain forest vegetation. This was neat and our tour guide Dave was very laid back and chill as he would end most of the things he said with "Ya know what I mean" (Turns out I would hear this out of him at least a few hundred times in the next couple of days) he showed us some huge trees and we saw a river with such clear freshwater it was amazing. It also started to rain briefly which is fitting since we were in the rain forest. I also was told that a certain tree that is only found on this Island and in no where else in the world was here. This tree is what makes up a lot of the interior rails and detail of the Opera House in Sydney. I also stood inside a large hallowed out tree that seemed to go up for as far as I could see. Next we drove along the beach and to the main town area on the island which consisted of a couple of small shops and a bakery. Everyone seemed excited and lined up to get food or a treat. I found this a bit odd for myself and I did not get anything since we had not been gone that long and we were about to have our packed lunches in not that long. I was the minority who did not get anything and I can see the temptation of a nice bakery item or a frozen treat if you had been camping rough for a week or so but that was by no means the case. Then we headed the short way up the beach to our next stop. We then were dropped off at a trail head to take us to a freshwater lake named Lake Wabby but the walk to the lake took around half and hour. I ended up asking Dave what the plan was since he was not going with us and during this time he was going to get our campsite and set up the trailer that held all the supplies and was the travel kitchen and "Barbie" he told me that we should have about an hour or so at the lake and that if we were back between 3:30 pm and 4:00 pm it would be good. He never made any kind of announcement to the group about this just told us to go have fun and enjoy the lake. I walked to the lake with the Dutch crew of Richard, Caroline, Inge, and Judith. I brought a beer with me for the walk and that was gone rather quickly with the heat and the walk. Part of the reason I decided to start drinking was that once you had a beer you could not longer drive that day. This trip was self driven and everyone that wanted to got a chance to take a turn driving on the island. With the 4X4 being an automatic and with me having never driven one enough to gain comfort with it I was very afraid to drive. I have had some bad times driving in the past with a friend trying to show me how to drive a stick back home. I could not image how crappy I would feel doing poorly with 7 others in my vehicle and a caravan of three other 4X4's. I imagined that I would struggle and stall four or five times at the get go and then just call it quits and tell someone else to drive since I did not want to everyone have to deal with that. On the walk to Lake Wabby I learned a good deal about Caroline and had a fun conversation with her. At one point it came up that she said that women were better at multi tasking then men and I told her I thought that was crazy and untrue. She said that I could ask Richard because she said he could not multi task and he just agreed with that. We felt like we were walking forever and right when we figured we had to be at the lake it was just a massive area of sand. It looked like what I expect sections of a bind sandy dessert would look like, it was impressive. The four of us stopped and took some goofy pictures and then continued the walk which at this point was not much further. The lake was neat and our group of 28 had it to ourselves. The 28 is made up of 4 people in the lead vehicle and three 4X4 following with 8 each in them. Our group is the vehicle we are in but every time we stop or camp the whole group was together. Lake Wabby was freshwater and very clean. The side we arrived on you had to go down a fairly steep sandy slope with no vegetation of any kind and the entire side of the lake was full of lush green trees and a dense vegetation. The water was cold but very refreshing and I was loving it. We were playing around and I went out a ways to see if I could touch bottom. I tired a few times but it is like a big bowl and I went down quite a ways and even got to much colder water but did not reach the bottom. I then decided to swim across and see up close what that looked like and it if was sand near the edge. At the other side reed like plants were at the edge and instead of pure beach sand it was more of a dirty darker type of sand. I then swam back and was sitting and chatting with some of the other group and we would occasionally see what I would latter find out were catfish we saw at least 10 and they were not afraid to swim withing 5 feet of people. We were joking around about catching one with our hands and I was walking near some and watching them when I was surprisingly tackled from behind by Richard and Jeppe. They were trying to scare me with the fish but that did not really work as it turned out I didn't jump I just went down when they ran into me. It was funny and I got a good laugh out of it as they teased me about getting frightened. At about 3 pm I mentioned to a few people that we would have to leave soon and everyone was surprised by that since our guide Dave had not instructed anyone as to when to return. When I found that out I self appointed myself the Lieutenant Tour Guide and told everyone we needed to leave in fifteen minutes. I got some grumbles but I explained that he wanted us to return sometime between 3:30 and 4 pm and the walk on the trail took at least half and hour or so. I was envious of Jeppe as he pulled out another cold beer out of his travel esky for the return walk. I told him that I had made an error by only bringing one beer and he said he had an extra so he gave it to me.......that was pretty fantastic. I ended up walking back with Stacey and had a fun time talking with her and getting to know her better. Some time during this day talking with Jeppe and Stacey and discussing my travel plans and their travel plans it came up they we were both headed south. They told me that since I had not booked any tickets for bus or plane that if I wanted to ride with them in their station wagon they had room and it would not be a problem at all. I was blown away and said I was down with catching a ride if it would not be a problem. I barely knew them but the kindness, generosity, and trustworthiness they showed me was amazing. The fact that they also liked to have fun, be goofy, and laugh made it easy to connect with them. We all arrived back at the 4X4's at about 4 pm and I told tour guide Dave that I had self appointed myself as the sort of assistant tour guide. We then all jumped into our vehicles and headed to where we would be camping. We arrived at our campsite which was located right next to the beach and was only separated from the beach by a sand dune. As a group Dave instructed us that we would be setting up camp and staying here for both nights. He then showed us how to put up the tents we would be using. I had never seen or used a tent like this type. The material the tent was constructed with seemed to be quite heavy duty and durable. The shape of the tent was that of a square at the bottom or floor of the tent. Then the tent angled up like that of a triangle on every side until you got to the top of the tent which then was a hard square that was two and a half feet in length. The Inside floor and ceiling in the middle had a holder for the one pole. I was a bit shocked at the fact that with one pole and four stakes the tent was up and ready to go and could sleep four people. After Dave had showed us how to put the tents up everyone started grabbing the tents and going to town on getting their tents set up. I was just milling about trying to figure out where and with whom I was going to share a tent with. This is the one part of traveling alone that can be a bit awkward and I was not sure what was going to happen. It can feel a bit like being in the school yard and being the last one picked for a team or worse yet not getting picked at all. It seemed most of the people from my 4X4 group knew who they were going to share tents with. Fiona and Bex hustled to take the tent that Dave set up as an example so they would not have to put it up themselves. The Dutch group decided to share a tent which just left James and myself from our group to figure out where we would go. We both asked each other what we were going to do and he said he would probably just join the tent with Fiona and Bex. As things progressed and it was quite clear no one was going to come up and tell me that I should join their group I decided to ask Fiona and Bex if I could join them in their tent. They said that was fine so I was glad to have that bit of junk taken care of. I grabbed one sleeping pgad each for the four of us in our tent and threw them in the tent so we would have them. Upon inspection of the sleeping pads which appeared to be about a quarter of an inch think and very flimsy. I was going to miss my self inflating Thermarest sleeping pad that I left home in MN. Everyone was just relaxed at this point just having some drinks and hanging out before cooking dinner. When it came time to make dinner I said I could do the grilling. The Dutch ladies thought that this would be a good time to test my multi tasking skills. The grilling was a bit of a challenge since everyone decided to cook on the BBQ at the same time. My group was to have 1 sausage, 1 burger with grilled onions, and one piece of corn on the cob cooked up on the BBQ for each person in my group. I had about 18 inches in length on the grill and 8 inches in width craved out for myself to cook our food. I started cooking the meat while the rest of the crew was organizing cutting up stuff for our salad and getting all the plates and silverware we would need out of the trailer. The ladies would also come up to me and ask me random questions while I was cooking. Some questions were math and the like and others were capitals of countries in Europe. I somehow got the capital of Holland wrong which is a bit crazy since Amsterdam is the only city in Holland that I even know. After a while of grilling my group told me that I should stop and eat and I said I would eat last and did not mind grilling. They were quite persistent on me stopping and enjoying the dinner even to the point that they told me to leave the grill that someone else from our group that was done eating was taking over. The reset of the nights we just hung out around the camp having some drinks and enjoying everyones company. Richard, Jeppe, and myself decided to take the lead vehicle and sit on the tailgate. One of the funnier moments was when Richard was looking at Inge's photos from Indonesia and narrating the trip they took for me which was hilarious. He would make up stuff and say "oh, and here is a picture of some more buildings". Near the end of the night a large group of us around 12 were sitting on the camp table and chairs and Dave lead us in two drinking games. The first was just a clapping rhythm game with assigned numbers which was called Towey Bird or something. The second one was a memory game using the alphabet and saying what I would bring on holiday. If you were the fourth person in the row it might go like this......"When I go on holiday I am going to bring an atlas, bag, candy, and a dog" then the next person repeats it all and then adds the next thing to bring. We had fun and got some good laughs out of it. At some point during this time a Dingo walked right over near the end of the table looked at the esky and then just kind of walked off. That was exciting but no one got a picture since it happened so fast and no one was expecting it. Everyone started to head to bed and by 11 pm only a few of us were still up. It was Richard, Jeppe, Stacey, James and myself and we decided that we were going to sit around have some drinks and get a picture of a Dingo when it returned. We sat around for half an hour and everything that was food or valuable was locked up in one of the vehicles. No luck we had not seen one and we were all tired so we decided to turn in. James and I headed to our tent since the girls were already asleep for an hour or so. We had settled in the tent a bit and not five minutes later James said he thought he had a bloody nose......I filled up on my camera which I was using as a flashlight and confirmed this. He went out to get some toilet paper to stop the bleeding and after he didn't return in a few minutes I poked my head out of the tent to see what was going on and the only thing I see is a Dingo not 6 feet away from me. I grabbed my camera and took as many pictures as I could. With the night and flash I was only able to get two before he left but I was happy to get those. I then got out of the tent and found James and Richard over by the trailer and told them my story and showed my proof. Then it was back to the tent for some sleep.