I booked my trip with Nomads, and went on the same trip as Danny and Amy, from the Ultimate Oz office (which is the company I came across here with) but funnily enough another friend of mine Hannah who I meet in Sydney, who was also on my Whitsunday's trip, was also on this trip too!
 |
| Hannah and I at Lake MacKenzie |
It took a while to get to Rainbow Beach, and most other Fraser Island trips depart either from Rainbow Beach or Hervey Bay directly, so for ease to some extent I would recommend going on one of these, although to be fair it didn't make that much difference.
 |
| Raymond and the Sandsuckers! |
We were put in groups the night before, which were the groups we would be in the 4x4's with. Patrick, we nominated as the first person to drive on the Island, as he had been doing all of the driving to Rainbow Beach initially and the rest of us were a little nervous about driving on sand or getting stuck in it! We had an awesome group, we named ourselves Raymond (thats the 4x4) and the Sandsuckers!! I have not laughed so much in 2 days as I did this whole time, the radio in our 4x4 didn't work either so we also would sing, the main song being Carly Rae Jepson 'Call Me Maybe'.
On Fraser Island the beach is basically the highway, so you have to drive as you would on a normal road. First stop was our base camp, thankfully the tour I had booked on meant we were staying in hostel like accommodation and not camping, so we had the luxury of actually having toilets and not having to worry about dingos. If you want to read a horror story about dingo's click on the link below, it doesn't have too much information and it was the guys own fault for walking off on his own but they can be very vicious, apparently his calf muscle on one leg was exposed and he had to have his cheek or eye reconstructed...
After a spot of lunch and dumping all of our gear at the camp, we headed off for more driving to Lake Mackenzie, stopping along the way at.......can't remember the name, some part of the forest for a scenic walk. This is where we first encountered getting stuck in the sand! For those of you who have done Fraser you'll know the technique needed for driving along sand paths. The paths in the forest are basically denser and more clumpy than that on the beach, for obvious reasons. So you need to hit the tracks at the right speed, in the right gear (2nd) whilst ensuring you have enough control not to crash!! Its sooooooo much fun!! I drove on the way back from Lake Mackenzie and loved it!!!!!!!!! The 4x4's are surprisingly easy to drive too, I was expecting them to feel completely oversized in comparison to my old Peugeot but no, and thankfully I could still remember how to drive!
 |
| Merry Christmas at Lake MacKenzie |
Lake MacKenzie is picturesque, a large perched lake, with white beaches and calm, clear waters, we got there at the end of the day, which thankfully meant it was fairly secluded. So perfectly peaceful. After swimming and lazing around in the lake, we headed back to camp for a BBQ dinner, and drinks on the beach.
The next day we headed off to Eli Creek a freshwater creek midway along the main beach where you, can either float or walk down with the slow current, perfect to get rid of those early morning cobwebs, not inflicted by any means by consumption of goon, no. After this we drove to Indian Heads, the rocky outlook at the northern end of the main beach. Here we climbed to the top, for a stunning view looking down into the ocean and across the beaches, here we spotted rays and turtles. After successfully climbing back down and not killing myself we drove along to visit Maheno shipwreck, which was a retired steamer that was being towed to Japan when a storm forced it ashore in 1935, there are conspiracy theories that it was left there by the Japanese to be used as a marker during the war but either way it was pretty immense.
 |
| Eli Creek |
 |
| Indian Heads |
 |
| Maheno Shipwreck |
On the way driving back, the other 4x4 broke down, this caused a fair amount of issues on the whole journey home, having to be towed until we could swap it over and when getting the ferry back, resulted in both the towed 4x4 and the 4x4 towing it getting stuck and taking a good few hours to get going again. Christine drove us home from the ferry - she had never driven on this side of the road before and quite frankly we all were on the edge of our seats with her driving, everyone kept saying to me "Lauren can you take over the driving?", but none of us wanted to insult her and tell her she couldn't drive anymore so we all gritted our teeth, prayed she wouldn't kill us and kept shouting at her when we felt our lives were in danger (about every 4 minutes) however we made it back, even if my heart was racing like a 90 year old who had just ran a marathon...I think I would have rather contended with the dingos!!
That evening, all shattered we all had a few drinks at the bar back at Nomad's Noosa before saying our goodbyes as we all went our separate ways the next day.
Fraser was by far one of my favourite trips so far! and if you are wondering what the quote is at the top, thats basically what the tour guide said to us before we left, lol, if you don't like something well then have a cup of concrete and harden the fuck up! I plan to bring this quote back to England with me - you've been warned!!
No comments:
Post a Comment