Well maybe not my very own, seeing as there were hundreds of people here for the Australia Day celebrations, but this did not detract from the Island’s beauty one bit. I decided to take an organised tour, as with me now being a full-time employee, I only had the weekend plus the well-timed national holiday. Three days were definitely not enough on this, the world’s largest sand island, but boy did we see a lot of it!
Having been dropped off at the bus depot at a ridiculously early time on the Friday morning, I approached a fairly small group of people all sitting where I had been instructed to wait for the bus. At first no-one spoke, except for a French couple sitting on one of the benches (they really are everywhere these frogs!), but before we had even got on the bus I had made friends with two other girls, an English girl called Becky and another frog called Geraldine. We spent the entire journey chatting, and by the time we had arrived at Rainbow beach I felt like I had known them forever!
We had lunch at Rainbow beach, a stunningly beautiful sandy beach, which, bizarrely, also served as a fairly busy car park! There were 4-wheel drives everywhere, with people sitting next to their vehicles, drinking their tinnies. I thought it was a shame to allow people to drive and park on the beach, but no-one else seemed to mind their view being spoiled by these excessively large cars so maybe I am just a bit difficult.
After a gourmet feast of rice cakes and cheese slices, we headed off towards the ferry that took us over to Fraser Island. The ferry journey lasted about 5 minutes but the views were very impressive. Once on the Island we began our 15k drive to the resort, most of which was along the beach. There is just something really calming about driving along right next to the sea, although the sea here is anything but calm – you cannot swim in it due to sharks, sea snakes and rips. For those of you who are uneducated in the Ozzie beach terms, rips are underwater currents that you cannot see but that are so strong they literally rip you off your feet – nice! They are a major cause of injury/death here, especially to foreigners who don’t realise how dangerous they are. So, no swimming in the sea for us this weekend!
When we arrived at the resort, we had to choose a fourth person to share a room with. We had spotted a European looking girl (she was easy to spot among the 22 Koreans!) and were heading in her direction when Brian, our ever-helpful guide, decided to foist upon us the weekend’s official man eater – a blonde, bronzed and permanently pouting Russian girl by the name of Claudia (pronounced ClAAudia)…. She was as unimpressed with this as with us, her “fat English roommates,” and she spent most of the weekend asking us to take photographs of her sprawled over one of our male guides or just posing for some playboy ad in the sand… Luckily she provided much amusement so I didn’t really mind her rudeness, but she didn’t do much to improve my opinion of the Russians!
Our group contained around 20 Koreans, 3 English, 3 French, the Russian and a Brazilian guy called Alex. Us Europeans (plus Alex) had a great time, but the Koreans all spoke very little English, and just smiled a lot when I attempted conversation, so I have no idea what they thought of the place! They took enough photos though…
On our first afternoon we visited and swam in Lake Wabbi, a beautifully clear lake containing cat fish and turtles. The walk to the lake took us through sand dunes and it was such a hot day that the sand burned our feet, but the scenery was pretty spectacular. The lake was cool and we were entertained by a group of Swiss lads finding innovative ways to enter the water. That evening was the Australia day celebrations, and, although our guides didn’t dress up or manage to sing karaoke properly, many people did and it turned out to be a very fun evening. A walk to the beach around 11pm followed by a few more night caps meant that we weren’t too tired for the following day.
And what a busy day it was… We visited a ship wreck, another sand dune, this time with many different coloured sands, a rainforest with a silent creek and another lake that we swam in. We had a lovely but tiring day, not helped by the fact that we travelled in a 4-wheel drive jeep and there are no actual roads, just sandy paths, and our guide was a bit of a boy racer type! The day passed in a blur and before we knew it we were back at the resort, beer in hand, watching the stars. The nights entertainment was less noisy, as is generally the case after a big night, but we had fun chatting and drinking and soaking up the atmosphere.
On our final morning, we had decided to get up to watch the sun rise on the beach and, much to my surprise, we did just that. It was absolutely beautiful and I decided what we needed was a group shot with the sunrise in the background. I was setting up my camera when Becky suddenly screamed at me and I turned around to see not one but a whole family of dingoes, standing about 3 metres away, growling at me… Obviously, I didn’t panic at all (I actually ran back to the group, the worst thing you can possibly do) and a comedy scene ensued as the best way to frighten dingoes is to make yourselves look as large as possible and growl at them! Becky and I had both brought our sheets along for warmth so we were wrapped in them, and she growled quite convincingly until they decided we were clearly too much of a match for them and left us to it. It was crazy – they look just like dogs but they do actually attack humans and, despite our guides blatant lies that they are trained not to come within 10 metres of you, they did and it was pretty freaky.
The final day was another scorcher, and we were headed to Lake Birrabean, a stunning turquoise lake that was completely empty apart from us. Unfortunately, the journey was fairly rough and the Korean girl sitting opposite me kept threatening to be sick, but it was worth it when we got there – it was beautiful. We spent a couple of hours there, playing volleyball in the lake and putting the sand on our faces and hair (it apparently contains lots of minerals) before heading back to the cars and back towards the mainland.
On the journey home we found many ways to entertain ourselves, including numerous games and even singing to well known musicals (there is just nothing like a bit of Joseph or Les Mis!) We stopped off at a Ginger Bread factory and spent a comedy half an hour there taking rather silly photos.
Overall the weekend was great – stunning scenery, cool people and interesting guides – I would thoroughly recommend it. Just watch out for those dingoes….
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Photos Australie
Carnets de voyage Australie
Vidéos Australie
Carte Australie
Guide de voyage Australie
Santé Australie
Billets d'avion Australie
