Fraser!

Ok - so I'm missing lots out - but then we have done so much and the internet is so expensive I cannot possibly tell you about all our traveling adventures. Hovever, our trip to Fraser Island deserves and entry of its own.

So here's how we did Fraser Island (Fraser). We'd met three awesome Aussie guys from Melbourne who had a totally kitted out troop carrier - It had $70k of modifications done when new. The 'Troop' was ace and was to prove itself on Fraser.

We'd met the guys at Arlie beach and ended up going for a few drinks with them. They were very friendly and we then bumped into them again at Finch Hatton Gorge while swimming in the pools - These guys love water. We spent another boozy night with them and witnessed the best storm we'd ever seen - it was verging on a hurricane. We spent the night in the car and the next morning the trees had been uprooted! Anyway, the guys said that they were off to Fraser and if we'd fancy it, they'd like us to join them in a few days. So that was it - we weren't going on any crappy tourist trip for $180 for one night, no we were going to kill Fraser Island for a week for only $100 all in! This was one of the best trips I've ever taken, excellent company and a bargain.

We decided to meet the guys at Hervey Bay the day before we were due to go to Fraser for a night out and sort out food, fuel and our gear into Troopie. At the site we'd pitched next to two Swiss girls who were doing the same route as us, Chewing Gum (as we christened her, because we didn't know her name) & Selina. We managed to convince them to join us for a night out in the Bay and after an Australian family domestic, where a guy broke his sons nose, we headed out.

We awoke the next day feeling a little hungover, but looking forward to Fraser. We packed up and said good bye to the Fresh Prince and Chewing Gum and Selina, before heading off to the Kingfisher barge.

When we got to Fraser we headed straight to the east side of the Island where we were going to camp, stopping at lake Wabby on the way. This lake was at the side of a 30m sand dune! It just looked like something from Star Wars and all we needed were Ewoks! We spent the afternoon there before heading to the beach to set up camp. We should have had a permit for the beach camping but managed to go the whole time without getting fined.

The next day we headed upto the Maheno shipwreck and on the way there were planes landing on the beach - this was surreal and there were near misses with planes which we got a video clip of. Fraser is also an Air force low altitude training area and Australian fighter jets kept passing only 20m above the beach. We then headed back inland to an other lake - Like I said, the guys and us love water like us so we were drawn to it like a magnet. On the way to this lake we had to stop to let a 2m tree python cross the path - we all got out for a look and me and Rob are obviously getting used to the threat of all the creatures as we were only feet away from it and didn't know at this point which type of snake it was, but the Aussies seemed ok with it so...

We didn't swim at the lake as it was quite weedy and had resident turtles - these guys were ace and we just sat and soaked up the magnificent surroundings. We did a lot of this all week and it enabled me to do lots of thinking and just grasp what I was doing.

On the way back to our campsite for the night, 'Cathedral beach', (so called because of the bus loads of girls that turn up every day) we bumped into a couple who had got bogged down in the sand. Fraser is supposedly got more sand than the Sahara, and is just a huge sand bar so the roads are just soft sand - Mega. We pulled the couple out and pulled them back to Cathedral as their clutch had burnt out. When we got back - Mick - the guy we'd pulled out - gave us so much alcohol - he gave us a slab of beer, a slab of Bundy (rum) and Coke and a bottle of scotch. Needless to say that night, the spag bol and red wine night, we ended up getting destroyed and singing songs to Ryan's guitar playing before crashing the backpackers private tour party, then heading to the beach for a beach party - this was ace and the stars were like i've never seen before. Fraser was about this for me - doing things that i've never done before and doing things that some people will never get the chance to do.

Needless to say one of us had to go that step too far and Rob ended up 'crabbing' on all fours around the beach - classic. We awoke the next day to the smell and sight of regurgitated spag bol in our tent!

The following day none of us were up to much and we only managed to go about 1km up the beach to the next beach camp and just chilled out at our best camp site. We set the tarp up under some trees and just sat and slept looking out over one of the most beautiful landscapes i'd ever seen. We played beach cricket, recreating the Ashes, Oz vs England. This day was relaxing and we decided that we liked the site so much we would stay another night.

The next day we headed up to India heads - the best point and one of the highest, where we could see Tiger Shark, Dolphins, Turtles and Rays - we managed to see all but the dolphins and the sighting of the shark was only for a few minutes - but no swimming in the sea at Fraser. We then headed up to champagne pools - the only safe saltwater to swim in on the island - because of the sharks and killer rips. We continued upto Orchid beach where we climbed around to Waddy point and just sat in the shade in silence admiring and absorbing our surroundings - this was emotional for me - what a week we were having - the best ever and i'd realised some important things. I was grateful that we were part of the Australian guys adventure, and was seeing how much of a good time can be had for very little cost. We then headed back to camp for an early night for our trip south to Eli Creek.

Eli Creek was another special place - it just reminded me of my childhood playing in the stream with Rick and Ryan. We walked up the waist deep water through the jungle then just laid on our fronts to glide sown the creek's pure fresh water - amazing! We played football - Aussie Rules - for a bit, then headed to lake Boomanji and spent the afternoon there in the Orange / brown water - This was when I thought of my 2007 summary for the new year - I may post it here, its a roller coaster of a read but its my honest thoughts so hey...

The next day we headed to another lake Boomabeen (renamed bring-a-beer). This was a fantastic setting only us there and turquoise waters and white sand. We then headed for lake McKenzy (Voted to have one of the top 10 beaches in the world - and I know why). This was another fantastic day - we just took an esky of beers and ball games with us and spent the entire day drinking and playing on the beach before heading to near by Central Station (renamed Gash Central because of all the babes on the beach at Lake McKenzy).

We had our last night on the island before departing and heading back to Hervey Bay for another night out to say good bye to Rosco, Matt & Ryan. Again this was a messy night but no crabbing.

We bumped into the guys and Chewing Gum and Selina further down the coast and are now on the goldie, we've just bumped into chewy again and the guys are up the coast at Surfers so I can see us heading up there tonight for another night out with them - Melbourne is gonna be fun when we meet up with them - we are heading back upto Brisbane on Monday so I can tick off one of my objectives, to meet with the building services institution to discuss prefabrication - apparently the money is really good down here - so Garry and Gerry this is where its at!

So that's it - apologies for spellings and grammar as this is very rushed.

One thing i've learned at Fraser - take time enjoy everything - beauty can always be found!

We are struggling to get our photo's up loaded because of the quantities and sizes so we are having to post disks home - so photo's should follow shortly.