We travelled from Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay on the overnight Greyhound. It was awfull trying to sleep on the coach but at least we saved some money.

In Hervey Bay we stayed in a lovely hostel called Palace which was set up like appartements. On the first day there we walked for miles looking round the town. We set out to try to find a supermarket that Simon remembered from last time he was there. We ignored the receptionists advice about the one down the road and set off to find Simon's. We never did manage to find it and gave up after about two hous of searching. He seemed to recognise every road and kept saying "just over the next hill" but it never did appear.

The following day Justin and Lauren arrived so we spent the day with them organising a trip to Fraser Island. On Friday 6th Oct the four of us set off in a twin cab Toyota Hilux that we had hired. Simon drove us to the ferry and we got across to the island.  Fraser Island is a huge sand island about the size of the Isle Of White. The driving conditions are so difficult that you can only go on the island with a four wheel drive and even then loads of people get stuck. Most of the roads are single track which makes life very difficult when you meet someone coming the other way. Simon carried on the driving on the island and we headed off to find our first sight, Lake Wabby. We seemed to lose all the other cars soon after leaving the ferry and enjoyed having the road to ourselves. We only realised that maybe we had taken a more difficult route and thats why we had lost everyone when we got well and truly stuck in the sand. Our wheels kept spinning but we were just digging in and not going anywhere. We all got out and dug the wheels free then after a few attempts managed to push ourselves out. Simon did get a bit of heckeling for getting us stuck. We eventually got to the lake and it was absolutely beautiful. It is surrounded by huge sand dunes and the water is so clear you can see lots of large fish in it. We all went for a swim and then headed off to the beach. The beach goes all along the east coast and is the main highway and runway on the island. Normal road rules apply although you do have to keep you eye out for aeroplanes taking off and landing. The tide also comes very high up the beach aswell so the size of the road varies a lot. Along the coast there is Eli Creek, a shipwreck and some beautiful coloured sands. Eli Creek is a cold freshwater creek heading out to the sea that you can swim in. You have to drive through it to get along the beach. The next sight was the shipwreck. A huge passenger ferry washed up on the shore here about fifty years ago. Most of the ship has been destroyed by the sea now but you can still make out the size and shape of most of it. After this we carried on along the coast to find somewhere to camp. We found a suitable place and set up camp for the night. There were no facilities just the equipment we had and a shovel for the toilet. A real outdoor experience!! The following day we headed off with Suzanne driving. We headed off a little earlier than advised by the guy we hired the 4x4 from and the tide was still a bit high. At one point i managed to veer into an incoming wave showering the car in salt water. This was not good as the hire guy had stricktly said we would be fined if there was salt water on the car. We did manage to go back to Eli Creek later and wash it off and he never found out. We headed to the north of the island to Indian Head, a huge rock sticking out to sea. From here you can see right up and down the island and can see lots of fish and animals in the sea. We saw some dolphins and turtles and lots of fish but unfortunately no sharks. The whole of the coast is filled with sharks so you cannot swim but we didnt see any. After Indian Head we had to get through a cut through of very deep sand to get to the next sight. We saw loads of people getting stuck and thought it was likely to happen to us to as we were inexperienced. After surveying the area the boys decided that they could do it and sent  the girls off to stand on a hill and signal when the coast was clear. We did as instructed and the boys set off at full speed with a good run up. They sped past us girls and motored their way through hitting some very large bumps and jumping in the air a couple of times. As they vanished round the corner we realised that we had a long walk round on some very deep and hot sand. The boys were just relieved that they didnt flip the car as there were some very close moments and i dont think they were in as much control as they led us to believe. Anyway we made it to the champagne pools but were a bit dissapointed as the tide had gone out too far so the rock pools didnt show the champagne effect that we were told they would. The boys managed to get back through the deep sand road again without the girls in the car and we headed down the coast to our next camp area. As we headed inland we met an oncomming vehicle and had to pull up on a high verge. As we did this the car broke and we couldnt get it in gear. After some gentle force the car went into gear and we carried on to the camp site. The fact that the gears were the problem was a bit concerning as this was not covered on our hire insurance and was going to be very expensive. The hire guy had made it clear that any damage to the clutch or gearbox was our fault and had to be payed for. We set up camp by a lake close to everything for our last day and hoped the problem wasnt too serious.

On the last day we went to two lakes, Lake McKenzie and Lake Birabean. They are beautiful inland lakes with sandy beaches. We swam and sunbathed then headed back to the ferry in our broken car having to turn off the engine to put it into first.

While we were waiting for the ferry we saw a dingo, it looked really thin and not as scary as everyone makes them out to be. We got on the ferry with no problems. At the other end we called the hire company to tell them of the problem and drove the vehicle back. They couldnt look at it till the next day so we had to wait nervously to find out if we would have to pay the hundreds of pounds we had be warned about. Thankfully the next day we got a call to tell us it was wear and tear damage and we didnt have to pay anything. Not sure how they made that conclusion as i'm sure we contributed to it but we didnt argue. We also got away with not paying to fill the tank up with diesel as we had to head straight back to the hire place. Not a bad end to the trip!!