Hervey Bay + Fraser Island

The overnight bus was fine but not up to the standards of the Vietnamese sleeper buses! No beds, just standard seats but think stagecoach rather than national express!! Anyway....

We went to Hervey bay as it's the launching point for our Fraser island trip. We didn't know what to expect apart from sharing a jeep with up to 11 other randoms who take it in turn to drive!! So we were a little apprehensive about putting our lives in the hands of a some unknown crazy Kid!

Rob & Jo from our Whitsunday trip were in our jeep which was cool! We all went to the 7am briefing and got told the rules and how to drive a 4x4! We were shown pictures of crashes and taught how to be 'dingo safe', which later became the most used phrase of the trip. The safety video was so bad it was funny!

I got nominated to be the starting driver, not sure how that happened but I guess the idea of reversing on to the ferry barge put the other 3 legal drivers off!! (turns out only 4 of us were allowed to drive, me and Emma being 2) We packed our bags, tents, food and drink on top of the 11 seater jeep and took off with our group of 9 to the barge. The current was so strong that the boat took 2 attempts to get everyone off, as it continued moving sideways the whole time!! That put me and everyone else on a slight edge!! Nevertheless we decided to film it, just in case it did go wrong. That way we'd get some money from 'you've been framed' to offset losing the car security bond!!

The ferry 'missed' the landing at the first attempt but made 2 further landings before it was our turn. When it was, the boat hit rocks at the side and they fell on the ramp! But we had a 4 wheel drive and drove over it all on to the ramp and onto the moving boat to everyones relief, apart from the watching crowd already on the boat (who wanted a disaster!). As we left the captain said well done to the drivers as it was the highest tide of the year!! Not bad for my first extreme driving!

See video :



We got off the ferry with no dramas and headed across Fraser Island to the beach and our first couple of destinations. The roads were bumpy and a few heads were hit on the ceiling but everyone enjoyed it. We got to Eli creek which was like a freshwater lazy river, it was nice but we didn't have a tube to float down in! The main entertainment was the wrestling match that Bear, Oscar (Swedish brothers) and Nick from our jeep put on. I'm afraid guys the score did end with more points to Australia than Sweden!

We then headed to Moheno shipwreck from 1934 for a look around and take pics. It was then time to set up camp and start our BBQ! About 10 minutes after we went to bed it started to tip down which we then all found out the tents we had been given were leaking. It was dripping on our faces before creating a puddle at the bottom of the tent!

Despite the weather we slept pretty well and got up at 7 with the aim of starting the drive to the next place. It had rained all night and was still raining as we were getting ready so the democratic society of our jeep decided not to leave until the lunch time low tide. We needed to drive along the beach to get to our destination and we weren't allowed to drive at high tide as it would get salt water on the car. We were all meant to leave by 7am. The other group decided to leave at what we thought was a very irresponsible hour of 7.30am! We branded them 'crazy'. Anyway, we got talking to the aborigine guy who ran the camp and he told us we should be fine to leave for upto another 45 mins despite 'Beaches' (the hire company) telling us not to.

As the weather looked like it was going to clear up the first rule break was about to commence:

Rule break no.1: driving the car at high tide

We left at 8.30am and I was the nominated driver to do the mad dash up to the next place, Indian Head. The tide was in to far to drive on the hard wet sand so I had to drive, at pace, through soft sand. It was pretty scary to drive in as the car was weaving from side to side and getting into power slides!

Problem no.1 from rule break no.1 - getting stuck in the soft sand.

The car did a big slide so I slowed quickly to a stop. We got stuck. I tried to get out but it didn't work

Problem no.2 from rule break no.1 - the car started to smell of burning.

It wasn't the clutch but we didn't know what it was. Everyone got out the jeep and dug the car out. A guy in our car, Nick, was from Australia and had experience of driving in sand, problem was he was too young to drive according to 'Beaches' rules.

Rule break no.2: an illegal driver

So Nick successfully got us out the sand and continued the drive along the beach. As we drove off a big wave washed away our tire marks, so we made it just in time!!! The sea was only about 1 metre away the whole time we were skidding along the sand. We arrived at Indian head slightly relieved that the car had made it. We were a bit concerned about the smell in the jeep but took the sensible approach of ignoring it, and guess what, it went away!! The view from the top of Indian head was pretty good, but there were no sharks or manta rays to be seen unfortunately. The next place to goto was champagne pools. We started walking as we weren't allowed to take the car. Then we realised how far we had to walk.

Rule break no. 3: driving on a forbidden beach

There were plenty of other cars driving along the beach so we decided to break another 'Beaches' rule and drive it. We made it to the pools after a a very big bump going up a hill that Nick had to take a run up for! But the car and passengers were fine, apart from a few bruised heads! The pools weren't as spectacular as we thought. It was like a natural enclosed swimming area where the sea would hit the rocks and cause bubbles, hence champagne pools!

Rule break no. 4: driving on a forbidden road

We decided to go for a drive as high tide meant we couldn't go back along the beach anyway! We went through the bush which was pretty bumpy but good fun. We headed back to camp early having done all the sights, Emma drove this time. Back at camp the aboriginal guy told us about a lake he recommended we see, but not to tell 'Beaches' as they didn't allow you to go there...

Rule break no. 5: driving on 'the' worst road on the island!

A girl in our group decided this was the time for her to try driving, which could have been a disaster but to be fair she was good! As we arrived at the lake it peed down so we just turned the car around and came back. On the way back we broke rule break 2 again by allowing another illegal driver.

We had a great night on the last night with mashmallows round the fire, a bit of camp fire singing, and basically finishing off all the drink we had bought! Weirdly a catfight broke out between a Dutch girl from the other jeep travelling with us and an Irish girl who was with a another group! The Irish girl pulled the other girls hair near the fire whilst her friend was hitting her over the head with a metal cup. A story for another day!! Our group was quite happily playing cards at this point!

We woke up with sore heads and after very little sleep at 7am, packed up and left. We headed to Lake Mckenzie which was really nice. It looked like a beach with white sand and crystal clear water! We had 3hours to go before the ferry so decided venture off...

Rule break no. 6: goto Lake Wobby.

It was a long drive to get to lake wobby but the view from the lookout was worth it. Unfortunately we hadn't left enough time to go surfing down the sand dunes into the lake much to everyones annoyance, especially after we 'borrowed' 2 sleeping mats from camp to slide on.

With 1 hour to go a long way to travel, we had to put pedal to the metal to get to the ferry. We took a wrong turn which didn't help but we made it to the ferry just as they were loading! Result, nice driving Oscar!! The water was much calmer this time so getting on the ferry would have been easy if it wasn't for the idiot (and that's putting it very politely) guy working there that just shouted and was really rude for no reason!!!

We got back to the hostel and prayed they wouldn't question the lack of fuel, the lost esky (rule break no7), the extra mats (rule break no8) and anything else that may have been wrong!! To our relief they didn't and everyone was happy!

In the evening we had our 'too soon reunion' where we reminisced about the old times (last 3 days) whilst eating pizza hut! Nice.