Fraser Island Camping

Here are 4 of our vehicles we would be taking over to Fraser. There were 10 people to a group and 5 cars in all so 50 people left together the day of my adventure.
On the way!! A little back round on Fraser before I get into what we did over there: it is the worlds biggest sand island and World Heritage Listed. It is contains no homes on it whatsoever, just a few small resorts and tons of camping grounds. It is filled with some of the most gorgeous lakes and surrounded by beaches- one 70 miles long. Most of the beaches are too dangerous to swim in though. On the West Coast you have to be careful of crocodiles, and on the East Coast the biggest fear besides the strong current is sharks and stingers. A word of advice we got before we left: "if you go into the East Coast ocean don't worry about being pulled by the current. something else will probably already have gotten you anways." Comforting. We were given a recommended itinerary, but basically we could do whatever the hell we wanted out there. We had no supervision at all. I still can't believe they just handed us the keys to these cars, packed us up with camping gear, and sent us on our merry way. Everyone agreed it would be best to just stick with the itinerary because the island is HUGE and can be pretty dangerous. Besides the crocs, sharks, stingers and current you also had to worry about wild dingos and the insane roads made only out of sand. I can't tell you how terrifying the trip was on those roads going no more than 20 kilometers per hour. It got even more terrifying after we heard about 2 people dying on our second day there, doing the exact same type of tour that we were. More about that later though.





Our Tents^



Sunrise at 6:40 am. Yes I woke up for it.
Chrissy Laura and I outside our tent I built! The Rainforest. That
looks like sand but has indredibly clear water over top of it.

I'm not sure why all of the pictures above got scrambled, but hopefully you can still make out what they all were. Basically we took a barge from Hervey Bay over to Fraser Island and, after getting all of our camping and driving permits, we headed to a little rain forest. It was actually pretty boring, and exactly like all of the other ones we had all seen so far so we didn't stay long. The first place we went after the rain forest was Lake Wabby. It was this amazing lake in the middle of an unbelieveable amount of sand hills. Seriously, I felt like I was in Egypt. Not that I've ever been to Egypt but whatever. We had to walk 30 minutes from the car down to the lake and what looked like 5 minutes but actually was another 15 across the sand to get to the lake. It really looked and felt like a desert. After that it had a huge decline straight down into the lake. If you look at the one picture with the 3 girls in it, the sand drops IMMEDIATELY down from there and into the lake. If I remember I will add more pictures from this later I just have to locate them all.
Laura wearing our headgear the first night there. This is what we took with us to pee at night. We were really camping- no bathrooms, no running water, no light. We always used a buddy system because its dingo mating season! The first night there we had a real Aussie Barbi with hot dogs and hamburgers and salad. It was delicious. I don't know if I was just the right amount of drunk or what, but I actually slept pretty well in my tent. It wasn't too small and we got the biggest and newest one of the group (obviously I set it up that way).
I wish so much that my camera was able to capture the sky the first night there. I have been to beaches at night before, but I have never in my life seen anything like this. It is probably because there were no other lights from cars boats or houses, so all you got were stars. We could see the Milky Way, The Southern Cross, Orions Belt, and about 500000000 other stars that night. This picture is Laura giving me a little lesson on constellations.
Some of these are out of order, but this is me, Chrissy, Laura, Leigh and JP being losers and trying to jump for the self timer. Check out Chrissy's skill though!
Most of the gang posing in our car. We got the idea for the pictures from the brouchures for our tour. SO cheesy.
These are some of the rocks we had to drive over on the beach. As you can see, all of our stuff is packed on the top of the cars making them really top-heavy. You have no idea how scary it was rocking back and fourth on these slippery rocks afraid the car was going to flip over.
This isn't me turing the camera, this is how far tilited we were one of the times I tried to take a picture of the "road."
Approx. 8 am our first full day on Fraser. We were on our way to the Champagne Pools which were supposed to be amazing. The Champagne Pools are located just North of Indian Head (somewhere else we were scheduled to stop), along 75-mile beach. These pools provide a very popular swimming hole with the ocean crashing over the rocks into shallow sandy pools. The foaming water is where the name Champagne Pools comes from. There are extremely strong currents along this part of the island and swimming around the rocks is not encouraged, but makes swimming in the Champagne Pools a safe alternitive.
Posing with our camper!
The Colored Sands. On our way up to the Champagne Pools we passed a bunch of the cars from our tour passing us the other way. The drive up there was almost an hour long, so there was no way they had already gotten up there, seen it and were headed back yet. Finally someone waved us to slow down and told us what was going on. There was an accident with another company similar to the one I was on and 2 people had died, and no one knew how many more were injured. At the time, we really weren't sure if it wasn't another Palace Car (the company we had hired our car from). Later we found out the whole story: The car was full of 11 people who had rented a car and were doing a tour identical to the one we were on. At about 8 am they were headed up to the Champange Pools just as we were. Driving close to 100 KPH (speed limits on the beach are 80 KPH, but we only went 50 because it felt safer) they swerved to avoid hitting a wave. If you got any saltwater on or in the car you would lose your bond which was 1000. The car rolled over throwing everyone it was carring out of the vehicle and killed 2 of the passengers on impact. We still aren't sure who was injured and who was killed, and we had even less information 3 days ago so we were all a little shaken up. Ovbiously, the beach was closed and we weren't going to be allowed to travel up to the Champagne Pools anyways. We turned around and finished up our intinerary as it was after the Champagne Pools trips.

The picture above is of the Colored Sands. Known as the Pinnacles the sands are sculptured by natures elements are seen as one of Fraser Islands natural wonders.

The Cathedrals multicoloured cliffs of red, yellow, brown, yellow and orange sands is an array of spectacular colours.

Next we headed to the wreck of the Maheno. This is the Wikipedia description of the wreck, which is almost identical to the one on the sign right near it. The S.S. Maheno was originally built in 1905 in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship for trans-Tasman crossings. During the First World War the ship served as a hospital ship in the English Channel, before returning to a luxury liner. In 1935, the ship was declared outdated and on June 25, 1935 the ship was being towed from Melbourne when it was caught in a strong cyclone. A few days later, on July 9, 1935 she drifted ashore and was beached on Fraser Island. During the Second World War the Maheno served as target bombing practice for the RAAF. The ship has since become severely rusted, with almost three and a half storeys buried under the sand
It was really cool and really sad. You could still see some of the original floor boards on the deck. Who knows how long it will be before this thing is completely gone.

After the Maheno, we headed to Eli Creek. This is Leigh floating down the creek.
This is the entrance to the creek where everyone parks their cars.
It looks a little murkey, but it was actually completely clear all the way to the bottom.
It was also FREEZING!
A few of the girls from our camper!
Chrissy Laura and I
The entrance to the creek from our car. After leaving Eli Creek most of us headed back to our campsight on the beach and just laid out for the remainder of the day (from about noon til 5). 3 of the other girls took the car back up to Lake Wabby, but the rest of us just weren't up for that bumpy carride again.
The second night there was a brutal one. It was our last night so we all had to finish our alcohol and try to finish the food. We cooked pasta, but ended up burning most of it and cooking way too much which caused us to throw out half of it. I was pretty drunk by dinner, so I didn't care.
Real campers, with tin mugs and all!
Our new friend Michelle sitting under our tarp when the FIRST rainstorm started. Luckily I was in a comatose state reminiscent of my high school graduation party for the second rainstorm, so it didn't bother me!
Ahhh, the third day. Lake McKenzie. Laura had talked about this place since February 18th. We all had high, high hopes, and no one was let down. The water was 5 different colors, and it was completely gorgeous.
Me :o)
The sand here is also almost pure silica.
The lake is a perched lake, meaning it contains only rainwater no groundwater, is not fed by streams and does not flow to the ocean.
Just floating around.
The three of us!


Laura and I testing out my wonderful camera. I look like Nemo.

Amazing




The entrance to the beach. It was breathtaking.

Even though I was so tired after this trip I couldnt WAIT to get back to my tiny little bed in the tiny little town we live in, I wouldn't have traded a minute for the world. I loved every single second of it. These are experiences I will never forget as long as I live and I got to experience them with not only 2 of my very good friends, but some other amazing people as well. Leigh and JP were 2 of the nicest and coolest Canadians I have ever met in my life. They certainly changed any stereotypes I had about Canadians ( I know I had some, but I can't think of any at the time). We met another couple from Denmark who camped with us that I also adored. Michele (in the pictures camping in the rain) was one of the coolest people I have ever met and I am so envious of her travels for the next few months. Everyone we met along the way taught me a little something new. I love that, and I didn't want the trip to end. I wanted to continue back up the coast, head to Darwin, shoot to Alice Springs, then head to Southeast Asia and hangout there for a bit, maybe shoot to Europe for a month or two and see I could there (by the way- this is Michele's around the world trip in a nutshell.) All I wanted to do was keep meeting new people, talking to new people, hear where they were going, where they were from, why they were traveling and how they were doing it. I loved this trip so much and I am SO glad everything worked out the way that it did. I wouldn't take a second of it back and I love each and everyon one of my travel buddies (except, maybe, Daphnie)