Day 94, 95, 96, 97 - Hervey Bay and Fraser Island - Wednesday 18th, Thursday 19th, Friday 20th, Saturday 21st January 2012

We got up early to take advantage of the free breakfast and to get ready to check out and catch our bus to Hervey Bay. Over breakie we caught up on our emails with our free Wi-Fi (loving this hostel) and finished the last bit of planning for the rest of our trip.

Come lunchtime we jumped on the greyhound bound for Hervey Bay and after a few hours arrived at our hostel Next Backpackers in Hervey Bay. First stop was Nomads travel for our 6pm briefing for our trip to Fraser Island the next day. We were put into groups of 8 and given the rundown of the schedule for the following few days and our shopping list. There seemed to be a distinct lack of women - in the whole group of 24 there were 5 women and in our group I was the only girl with 7 men! Our group was group B and was made up of 3 lads from Islington - Kev, Marcin and Dan, and another 3 lads - Patrick from Sweden, Jake from Manchester and Robyn from Wales plus of course, Ad and I. Funny enough in group A was Joe who we'd met in the Noosa Gajuna bush camp - we've taken to calling him Frodo as he is obsessed with Lord of the Rings. Once we'd picked our shopping list of food we were free to go and were told to be back to the office at 6.45am - wow, an early start. With that in mind, we went for a stroll around town and to the beach where we had a wild possum jump out at us, Ad actually jumped out of his skin!! Then we headed to bed in our 8 share dorm to get some well needed kip.

The alarm went off at 6am and luckily it seemed that the majority of our dorm was getting up to go to Fraser Island. Washed and ready we made our way to the office to watch the safety films. Dan had put his credit card up just in case we had an accident in the car and after about 5 mins of the 30 minute safety video he was fast asleep!! Then we went to the supermarket to pick up our groups food for the trip. Back at the office we met Murray, our tour guide for the trip and loaded up our 4WD with all our gear, food and people - it was a tight squeeze!

We started the drive to the Ferry crossing with Marcin driving and the rest of us crammed in the back and were relived to get out, once we were on the Ferry, to take in the views across the water.

It was only a 30 minute ferry over to Fraser and the approach was pretty spectacular. Plus the rain seemed to be holding off - we crossed our fingers that it stayed dry!

Fraser Island is one of the must do things on the East Coast of Australia and in 1993 was listed as a World Heritage area. In layman's terms it is basically a big (120km) Sand Island comprising of lush rainforests, massive sand dunes, vast stretches of beautiful deserted beaches (that also serve as roads and plane runways!) and mineral rich lakes of freshwater. The lakes are well known for being amazing to swim in, Lake Mackenzie being the most famous, however the sea is a no go area due to the abundance of sharks! The Island takes its European name from James and Eliza Fraser - the former being the captain of the Stirling Castle ship that shipwrecked on Fraser's northwest coast in 1836. Along with Whitsunday, this tag along trip (so each group follows a lead car in their own 4WD) was the most exciting (and expensive) one planned and both Ad and I were looking forward to our 3 days on the Island driving around the Island.

Once off the Ferry our first stop was central station and wanggoolba creek. We stopped for a bit of lunch and then wondered around the creek and surrounding forest - the creek was so clear that you couldn't even tell that there was water in it.

Once we were done with lunch and the creek, we all jumped back in the car and started our drive down the sand track with Patrick in the driving street. It was bumpy and tough going and given the scare mongering video we had watched in the morning about the vast amounts of money they would charge us if we damaged the car, Patrick was being a bit careful. Then suddenly Murray stopped his car in front and walked towards our car; all wondering what was going on we turned our eyes and ears on Murray only to hear him ask Patrick why he was driving so slow and to "stop patting your p**** and drive like a man!!" With the exception of Patrick, the car burst into fits of laughter - we couldn't believe that the guide had just said that. Stop patting your p**** was to be the catchphrase for the rest of the trip!

As you can imagine, a group of 7 lads don't easily let things go so poor Patrick was subjected to jibes about his driving for the rest of the journey until we reached the beach and suddenly we all sat speechless at the sight. The skyline was out of this world and our 3 cars were the only sight for miles of isolated beach.

After the beach drive we made our way up to the car park of the Lake Wabby walking track and got out and started our 30 minute walk to the lake. Along the way we encounter the Island's pesky marsh-flies - these are like flying cockroaches that bite! Everyone was whacking their towels around in the hope of not getting bitten but they are the most persistent littler b*****s and just keep coming back! Finally Lake Wabby was in sight - we walked, well fell down the huge sand blow to the lakes edge and jumped in for our first swim of Fraser Island. The Lake is surrounded on 3 sides by eucalypt forest while the forth side is a massive sand blow (dune - where we jumped in). Apparently in 60 years' time the lake will be no longer as the sand blow is encroaching on the lake at a rate of about 3m a year! The swim was lovely and the water, although very green was lovely to swim in. Halfway through we felt something nibble on our feet only to realise that there were hug catfish in the lake!

Once back at the car I decided to give driving a go - it was quite daunting given that it was me and 7 men. I expected the usual "women can't drive" jokes but surprisingly all the lads were really encouraging and I even got a round of applause at the end of the drive. The drive down the beach was pretty easy but then we got to a rocky bit which was very bumpy but I actually really enjoyed it! It was a bit different to driving the mini back home! We drove past the Maheno shipwreck on the way to the camp - we would be back in the morning to see it properly.

Back at camp and we were all starving so Ad aka 'BBQ king' cooked up a storm with BBQ sausages and burgers which we washed down with a beer for Ad and mug of red wine (the posher goon) for me. We all sat around the camp fire and chatted - everyone is really friendly and our group is great. Kev is the funniest man in the world and absolutely petrified of everything - he has the ability to make me and Ad laugh with literally every sentence.

Whilst sitting round the camp fire, the dingoes came by to check out what was going on. We'd been warned about them as they are wild and quite dangerous so everyone was a bit freaked out by them - especially Ad & Kev!

With dinner, camp fire, star gazing and some drinking done, we headed to bed ready for the next day's adventures!

Yes it's a fact I'm scared of dingoes; the only thing that gives me comfort is that Kev is 10 times more scared than me. This came as a welcome relief as the day started with 3 dingoes surrounding our camp! We all ended up in a circle looking at them. There are the camp dingoes, smaller dingoes and the alpha male. Basically they are all wild, but the camp ones are slightly friendlier even though you should never approach them as they are still dangerous. Now the camp ones hang around but at quite a distance until late at night when they encroach on the camp fire, the Alfa male has a white face and looks like a Alsatian but bigger - but I'll come back to him later! Anyway after breakfast we got back in the 4WD and I was driving with Soph in the passenger seat; after about an hour we arrived at the Maheno shipwreck. The Maheno has loads of history; it was a passenger liner that was blown ashore by a cyclone in 1935 whilst being towed back to Japan by a bigger freight ship. Up until about 5 years ago you could get married in the remains of the boat!! Soph got some awesome pics of it and we learnt more about how it ended up on Fraser Island.

Back in the car and Dan took over the driving to take up to Champagne pools. How we all ended up there alive is still a mystery - Dan, 4WD and sand didn't seem to get on!! Champagne pools are the only safe spot on the island for saltwater swimming as the pools are sheltered from the see by rocks and gullies. It's called Champagne pools because when a wave comes it hits the rocks, bounces over them and lands in the pool as bubbles and foam!

Waddy point was next for a spot of lunch in a gated/fenced off piece of land to stop dingoes coming in. Inside there is a free BBQ area and shelter, the shelter had a plaque so I read it "On the 30th of April 2001, Clinton Gage was tragically killed by dingoes while exploring the Island near here. He was nine years old. This changed everything we knew about dingoes and the safety of our children" - now I'm even more scared, Soph says I'm a wimp! With lunch done and Dan banned from driving, Jake drove us to Indian head which is the best look out on the Island for seeing marine life like dolphins, manta rays, sharks and turtles… 30 minutes later we saw nothing!! We climbed back down and got back in the jeep; moments later we are driving fine when suddenly the car in front gets a flat, so after a while the wheel gets changed and we are off, but only for a few minutes because then the jeep behind ran out of petrol… …

Lake Allom - one of our favourites was our next stop. The water is so strange, it's completely black as oil from the trees gets into the lake and turns the water this colour - looks like a giant teabag has been brewed in it or like a pint of Guinness minus the head. It is, however, very good for your skin and hair. It was getting late when we got there so it was quite cold but every now and then you would hit a really warm patch. This is because the oil in the lake retains the heat better than the water! We all dived in, especially the girls when they heard it was good for their hair and skin!

With a long day done, we went back to camp. As Kev was having a shower a few of the lads came and got me and Soph to look at his bed, on his pillow was a giant huntsman spider, this thing was about the size of my hand! Bearing in mind that Kev is scared of everything we were all laughing our heads off! I went and grabbed him out the shower, his face was a picture! I knocked up some steak sandwiches and the guys and Soph sorted the salad, bread and drinks. After food we had some marshmallows on sticks over the camp fire - lovely!!

Anyway back to the dingoes……………….after a good few beers we were sitting by the fire getting used to the camp dingoes walking around as they are quite small and our confidence was growing. We had heard about the alpha male but thought it was just the guides trying to scare us. Then out of nowhere in he came, he was massive, we all sh*t ourselves (well me and Kev did!). He scared off the other dingoes, stopped to glare at us and then moved on! After a few more beers we all got brave and headed for a 5 minute walk in the complete darkness, at 11pm, to the beach. The sky was awesome, you could see the Milky Way so clearly; we also saw 4 shooting stars and loads of satellites - and thank god no dingoes! We headed back to bed leaving the lads to the beach, stars and maybe the alpha male dingo!

Amazingly we got a pretty good night's sleep in our little two man tent, even though I woke in the night to hear dingoes howling and walking around the camp… anyway enough of dingoes, Soph just told me!! After some BBQ'd bacon butties we spent the morning chatting with 2 Aboriginal women, they had some pretty interesting stories and also some aboriginal medicine for sunburn, Soph said it was just aloe vera leaves but I think it was some aboriginal magic potion! Jokes aside, it was a surreal experience having morning breakfast and coffee in the bush with aboriginals.

Today was our last day on the island and Murray (our trek leader) had packed in as much as possible so we set off for Eli Creek. The creek is a crystal clear, fast moving waterway that leads to the sea; the current is so strong that you can float all the way from the top down to the ocean! Murray said he had left the best till last and he was right… Lake Mackenzie was to be our final stop and this place is truly amazing. I know that in our blogs we write that a lot but trust me it's the most beautiful place we have seen yet. It's a fresh water lake with crystal clear water, warm currents and sand that is 98% silica - that basically means that it's the softest sand in the world. So soft in fact that you can clean your sunglasses with it, exfoliate your skin and hair with it and even brush your teeth - we did all of the above! We took so many photos as it was just so beautiful, as we left the rain started to fall so it seems we timed the whole trip perfectly!

We all drove to the ferry yard and caught the last ferry home, had a huge group picture and headed back to our hostel. The hostel is really nice and they put all of us from our group in the same dorm so we had a right laugh. We all dumped our backpacks in the dorm and headed for the fish and chip shop, not before grabbing a 6 pack as well, and then headed to the beach. Fraser Island is visible from the beach and it also acts as a wave blocker so the sea on the beach is completely calm and has very little movement, we sat there for ages eating, chatting and laughing! On the way back we even saw Murray having a Chinese with his family and all waved at him through the window!!

Fraser Island is one of our favourite experiences so far!