Road Trip, Part 2

 12th - 27th September 2012

We left Brisbane on the 18th September and headed for Noosa and our Fraser Island tour. We met the tour guys at the Nomads hostel where we would leave from in the morning. The tour is a self drive 4wd experience but we didnt realise that there would be 14 of us and 1 drive seat so we didnt get off to the best start.

The meeting over, we had drinks in the very empty bar and the Americans Tara and Buza who joined us in Brisbane were up for a party and soon got everyone dancing. Then for some reason we started doing yoga. I can't remember who started it but we were all quite drunk by this point and not so good on the whole balancing thing.

Brandon, Shel, The German, Bex

Buza, Bex and Tara raving it up

Do the Yoga dance

Beckie, Mark, Shelly and I left the others with the vans in the morning to go for our tour. We were really tired and all wanted to sleep for the journey to Rainbow Beach where we would catch the ferry over to Fraser Island. It was dirt road most of the way so the vibrations kept us awake. Beckie managed to fall asleep and this happened....

We drove to the very tip of Rainbow Beach which is effectively a sand bank on a very small outcrop of land and caught the ferry over to the island. Mark had the honours of driving the van onto the boat.

Our 4wd for our tour

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world so it makes for a lot of fun driving. Sliding around all over the place, driving through creeks in front of the ocean and bouncing over rocks when the tide comes in.

Our accommodation was pretty cool. We had 2 dorm rooms to fill up and we were the only ones there. We had lunch and then set off again to do out first spot of sightseeing.

The view from out accomodation

Having fun in the 4wd

Eli creek comes from a natural spring on Fraser Island and pours out 4 million litres of fresh water every hour so it has quite a rapid flow. There is a board walk up the side so that you walk up it and float back down the creek to the sea so obviously that is what we did. I went up it a few times. It was like being at a waterpark on one of those rubber ring things. There were people there with rubber rings too!

Eli Creek

Shelly walking down the creek

rapids! not quite

We started passing a rugby ball around at the bottom of the creek. Everyone joined in so there was all 14 of us chucking around this one ball but it was a lot more fun than it sounds. Especially when we introduced rules so that if you drop the ball then you were out. I think it was school holidays at the time so there were quite a few families around and people on holiday having picnics and BBQs down at the bottom of the creek. There was a group of guys lobbing a nerf ball around (a rubber ball with winged tail for those who don't know) and it kept landing near us. It was on one of these occasions when I discovered I can no longer throw. It was really quite shocking that I couldn't even through it back to them. Shameful!

No ball games

After a couple of hours we got back in the cars and drove further up the beach to The Pinnacles. These are cliffs just off the beach with layers of coloured sand.

The Pinnacles

Back down the beach we stopped off at the Maheno Wreck. Its a 100+ year old ship that ran aground during a cyclone after it was decommissioned. Its the most photographed shipwreck in the world so obviously I had to take a couple more. You can only see the top of it as most of the ship is buried in the sand. The back end of the ship is pretty much all destroyed as it was used for target practice during the second world war. See i've learnt some shit!

The Maheno Wreck

You suck my battleship

On the way back to camp we saw this dingo burying food. The driver said he'd never seen or even heard of a dingo doing that before. We saw quite a lot of dingos on the island. Apprarently they have become a bit of a nuisance. They had cattle grids to keep them away from populated areas but they managed to find a way over them so now they have electrified the cattle grids to try and keep them out

Dingo

Back at camp we had our dinner and lit a campfire, held hands and sang songs. Nah, we played drinking games!

Very brain taxing drinking games

The next morning we drove inland for the first time. More soft sand driving and on hills as well which was a challenge. We stopped off in the middle of the forest and went for a walk. The organisers didn't come with us they just dropped us off and said they would meet us at the other end of the track which was reassuring!

Lizard of some description. I call him 'GAL' for Generic Australian Lizard

Creek

Me on a log, on a creek, on sand, on an island, in Australia

This tree was very friendly

After the tree hugging we drove to Lake Mackenzie which has to be said is beautiful and I imagine it can be an extremely relaxing place if it wasn't for the screaming child sat near us the whole time. We spent a couple of hours here swimming and sun bathing before driving back down to the bottom of the island to catch the ferry back to the mainland .

Our group in Lake Mackenzie

I found a quieter spot

Me in the driving seat

We arrived back in Noosa that evening and met the others. They had hired a boat and steered it around the bay. Mine and Dennis's van had a flat battery which was a bit annoying. We had to jump start it the next morning and pretty much every morning until we handed the van back in.

We drove to the town of 1770 the next day. Yes there is a town with a number as a name. Strange I know. It was the second place that captain cook landed on Australian soil and its been given the title 'Birthplace of Queensland'.

1770 or Seventeen Seventy

Beach life! Dennis, Brandon, Tara and Buza

We had a look around the place in the morning. Its only a small town so there wasn't much to see. We saw a pile of dead fish by sea which was nice. In the afternoon we decided we go for a Scooteroo Tour where you drive around on motorbikes for a couple hours. It was awesome! First we picked our biker jackets and helments, then put a load of fake tattoos on and set off.

Me on the bigger bike

Tats

I've never been on a bike before and most of the group were new at it too so we did a couple of laps around the car park first. I was a bit wobbly at first but I got the hang of it so we went out on the road. The bikes would only do 80km max but they vibrated like crazy when you went that fast, something which the girls found they enjoyed quite a lot!

We stopped at the side of the road where we saw some kangaroos and took some photos. One of the guys told us how to get close to a kangaroo. You have to wait till the head is down and then move.

My bike

Scootroo crew!

We drove into town where we had some food and watched the sunset before heading back. Then we set off towards Airlie beach but we stopped off at a rest stop along the way for the night

to be continued...