After a 5 hour bus journey we arrived at Hervey Bay, got picked up from the bus station and taken to the hostel.The briefing for the Fraser Island trip the next day had already taken place so we joined up with some other late comers and kind of sorted ourselves out.Our group consisted of 2 Canadian girls Katie and Cindy, Guy from England, Lise from Norway and Adrian from Swizerland. We went to the supermarket and spent more than enough on food for the 3 days (twice the recommended amount!), including plenty of chocolate, sweets and beer to keep us going!Then went back to the hostel and cooked pizzas for tea!

Very early start the next morning, up at 5am to get ready and check out.After watching a (quite funny) safety video about the island, we packed up the 4x4s.There were 8 all together on our trip and 2 guides.Adrian was our first driver of the trip and ended up doing the majority of the driving, turned out he had experience from the military (a Swiss guy who was in the army and had an actual Swiss army knife, I loved it!!) The ferry ride over to the island was about 45 minutes and then we were away.Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world so the drive wasn't exactly smooth!The cool box or 'esky' as they call it here hit the roof a few times over the 3 days and I think all of us came close to it ourselves!!The most amazing place on the Island was Lake McKenzie, beautiful clear fresh water with special, fine, white sand that you can use to clean your jewellery, hair and even teeth!We had our lunch in a fenced off 'Dingo safe' area, then in the afternoon went to Lake Wabby, also known by our group as Little Wabby, we preferred that name after Katie accidentally said it!The water here was really nice too and it was next to a huge sand dune, at the top of the dune it looked like a desert, with only sand as far as you could see!We sat in the lake for a while cooling down and drinking a beer, what an amazing day!By the end of the day when we arrived at the camp we had a team name 'Tim Tam Aaawsome' .Tim Tam because we all had a serious love for them (they are a bit like Penguin Bars but 100 times better and they come in loads of flavours) and Aaawsome because Katie and Cindy said it quite often and someone always had to try and copy in their Canadian accent! We had also taken it in turns to each sing our national anthems! Had a bit of a shock when we got to camp, no toilets let alone showers!!!!Best way to deal with this?… get a beer out! We sat on the beach for a while after we cooked our bbq tea, there were so many stars in the sky and the moon was really bright, then retired to our tents to get some sleep!

Next morning we were woken up by one of the guides banging a spoon on a saucepan at 6.30am!!!Today involved quite a lot of driving.I think Katie chose the worst part of the trip to have a go at driving, the sand was really soft and it looked like hard work!We got so far and then us and 3 other groups had to abandon the 4x4s and walk the rest of the way!We walked up to Indian Head which had a really good view of the coast and then on to the Champagne pools.So called because when the waves crash over the rocks it bubbles up like champagne.We had a swim here until Tom cut his toe on one of the rocks so we had to go in search of a plaster.The last stop of the day was Eli Creek, sadly by now it had gone a bit chilly and was trying to rain.Some brave people had a swim here, I paddled my feet until they felt like they were going numb! Tom had a little drive on the way back, he said it was like driving on ice! After tea this evening we gathered on the beach again, fires aren't allowed on the island so we all huddled round the bags of goon (cheap boxed wine) and our torches!!!The rain eventually spoilt our fun so we went off to bed.This was the night that Tom had to get up in the middle of the night to wee and came face to face with Mr Dingo!!!I'll let him tell you about that though, when he gets up to date with the blogs!!

On the last day our luck ran out with the weather and it rained pretty much all day.We visited 2 more lakes which were nice but I'm sure would have looked so much better in the sunshine!One on the lakes water was a golden colour, dyed by the trees and apparently had antiseptic properties from the tea tree. For lunch we had left over hot dog rolls and peant butter yum, and played finger spoof (usually a drinking game) to decide who got the last 2 tim tams! It wasn't me unfortunately!!We also went back for a last look at Lake McKenzie before heading back to the ferry.

Back at the hostel after unloading the 4x4 we had 'all you can eat' pizza.Well, they call it all you can eat but there were only a certain amount of pizza!So it was just a free for all, people were eating like they were never going to eat again, including us as we wanted to get our moneys worth!!Ended up stuffed and with indigestion though!!

Well believe it or not this was the short version!We had a great trip, the best so far and I could go on and on about it but I think you get the idea from this! We were really sad to say goodbye to all the people in our group this evening and hope to see them again on our travels…..