Fraser Island, dingo's and a massive spider!

'Hey, it's the sun, and it makes me smile' - Polyphonic Spree

G'day blog fans

Well we are now in the funky East Coast Village of Noosa after an amazing 3 days and 2 nights on the largest sand island in the world - Fraser Island. The last two tours we hav been on - sailing in the Whitsundays and camping and 4-wheel drivig around Fraser Island have blown me away. They have been fantastic. The beauty of Fraser Island has to be seen to be believed - gorgeous fresh water lakes, stunning sand dunes, beautiful forests and staggering diversity. If you can go - GO!

We met quite a few backpackers in SE Asia (snobby ones) that said we should avoid the East Coast of Australia because it is too 'touristy'. Bollocks, it's f**king gorgeous and no wonder people want to come here. These people would probably tell you not to go to the Eiffel Tower in Paris or go on the London Eye in London.

The East Coast of Australia is one of the best places I have ever been to. The Reef snorkelling off Cairns was just outstanding and I think I've already made my feelings on the Whitsundays and Fraser Island clear.

Our Fraser Island tour was not without it's fair share of craziness and adventure, so read on for an update of what we have been up to since I last wrote.

Tuesday 2nd October
Well our overnight bus journey from Airlie Beach to Rainbow Beach went quite well. We slept for a reasonable time, I read my new Motley Crue Autobiography - I don't own any of their records but this is one story of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll well worth reading, there are some crazy stories - and we stopped off for food and leg stretch breaks along the way.

We arrived at Rainbow Beach at 7.30am and our hostel/guest house was right across the road from the bus-stop - ideal! We actually couldn't get into our room until after 10am (check out time), so we ditched our bags and went for a wander round town. It didn't take long as Rainbow Beach has a population of less than 1,500. We walked along the beach for a bit and then came back to the town (well, the main street) and got some fresh juice shakes and some lovely wraps for breakfast/lunch.

We checked into the hostel and we had a double room, actually situaed across the road from the hostel and above a shop. We had a snooze and a shower and then bought some sausage rolls and juice to take to the beach. The beach was lovely and pretty packed as it is the end of school holidays. We had a great time jumping about in the huge surf waves before heading to the supermarket for some food to cook in our room/flat. Lynn had cheesey beans on toast - the simple pleasures!

Wednesday 3rd October
The alarm went off at 5.40am as we had a free dolphin kayaking tour fo free as part of our tour deal. It was a bit of a waste of time as we didn't see any dolphins. I would rather have stayed in bed. Still, the exercise did us good. We went for a snooze and then got some more fruit smoothies and wraps to take to the beach for lunch. More fun jumping in and out of the ocean waves.

We met Anna from the Whitsundays who said she had managed to change her Fraser Island tour dates so she could come with us. That was good news as Anna is a top girl and good fun, she also turned out to be a great cook on Fraser!

At 4pm we had a meeting at our guesthouse to watch a safety video about camping and driving on Fraser Island and meet up with our fellow campers. Jason and Angelique from the Whitsundays had now arrived as well. Our group consisted of me, Lynn, Anna, then 3 guys from England Nick, Dan and Bryan, Daniel and Martine from Germany and Tina and Michael from Czech Republic. We had a goopd group and we all wen to the off license and supermarket to stock up on food for the trip. We then went back to the guesthouse (Pippies) for a BBQ and a couple of beers with the othe two groups - Jason's group and a group of young Americans all over in Australia on a student exchange program. We then had an early night.

Thursday 4th October
6.30am and the alarm went off. We chucked our big backpacks into the storage units and packed up the big 4 wheel drive (4WD) with our small packs, food, beer and wine (known as 'goon' over here - cheap wine). I drove the 4WD to start with and Nick, Lynn and Anna were also registered as drivers.

We got the ferry across and within 100 metres of getting off we became bogged in deep sand. Then nothing happened when I tried to reverse or go forward. Turns out that the clutch was f**ked, the official technical term used by the mechanic, and we had to phone the company for a new 4WD! So we were 1.5 hours down on time by the time we got going again and had transferred all our gear!

We drove for around 20km along a bumpy stoney road and then on to the beach. As we were late the tide had came in, so it was quite a tough drive through some deep sand.We took a fine sandy track to Lake McKenzie and suffered another small delay when we got stuck behind a bus that had become bogged in the sand!

We eventually got there and it was worth the wait. I couldn't wait to get into the crystal clear fresh water and ran down the steps to the beach, coming over all Alan Partride when I caught sight of the beach and the lake. 'Back of the net' I thought to myself as I took in the beauty of the Lake. I jumped in and immediately felt refreshed. Lynn joined me and we headed out to a small sand island to the left of the lake. By this point a lot of the day tour companies were leaving so it soon became pretty quiet. We swam and lay in the sun for a bit before setting off towards our camp site for the night.

The roads to the camp site were a little easier now I was getting the hang of the 4WD and the sand. We camped near the American group and sat on the sand dunes looking out at the ocean at night. Lynn and I were sharing a tent with Anna, and the two girls decided on an early night while I sat up having a few beers with Zak, Tina, Michael and Bryan. Despite the setback of the clutch burnout (not my fault) we had a superb day.

Friday 5th September
Another 6.30am start. The sunlight and the heat of the tent woke us. We had cereal for breakfast - milk and other things we needed to stay cool, like beer, wine, bacon and ham were stored in coolers that we filled with ice from the Fraser Island shop. We headed off for Lake Birabeen with Nick driving. Like Lake McKenzie. and indeed all of Fraser Island, it was just picture postcard perfect. We swam and lay on the beach. I played volleyball and football with the 3 English lads and we had a magic couple of hours.

We then headed to a picnic area nicknamed Central Station and enjoyed hame and cheese sandwiches before heading North along the beach to Lake Wabby. Lake Wabby was only accessible after a 45 minute hike, so everyone apart from the German couple (Daniel wasn't feeling well) hiked along a sandy track, surrounded by rainforest. The hike was worth it and Lake Wabby was probably our favourite lake. On one side you had lush green trees, in the middle another fresh water lake and on the other side, that we were now on, desert style dunes. It's places like this that occassionally make me think that there might be a God. It was staggeringly beautiful. I know I keep using the word 'beautiful' but who cares, it is!

We swam and climbed the dunes and lay in the sand and at one point we had the place to ourselves. I like to think that Lynn and I will return to Lake Wabby and Fraser Island at one point in time. It's too good to only visit once.

We headed back to the beach to set up camp and have our BBQ dinner of burgers, sausages and steak. Lynn and Anna did a grand job cooking on thge camp stove and we all had a few beers and some goon. While eating a dingo came up pretty close to us, but it soon went away. Dingo's are wild dogs that roam Fraser Island. They tend not to bother humans but there have been incidents in the past.........

After dinner we all headed to the beach to sit under the blanket of stars and watch the ocean waves in the moonlight. We had some beers and had a good laugh. At one point we all turned our torches off and when we turnedf them back on Lynn and Anna found a Dingo only a couple of metres from them. The light from the torches scared it off though.

Anna decided to go to bed at 9.30pm and we stayed up on the beach drinking and marvelling at the tracers left in the wet sand when we slid our feet along the surface. All of a sudden Anna came running down the dunes yelling about a Dingo attack and we all leapt to our feet and raced back to camp.

Anna had, stupidly, left some biscuits in her bag in the tent. A Dingo had ripped a hole in the tent and taken out her Ginger Nuts and toilet bag, attempting to eat some toothpaste and scattered her belongings around the camp. There was no other damage but Anna elected to sleep in the 4WD, leaving Lynn and I to sleep in the tent with the hole blocked to prevent any Dingo's from entering!

Saturday 6th October
We woke at 6am and had a brilliant breakfast of bacon rolls and egg. A ranger came along as we were packing the 4WD and asked us if we had had any bother with Dingo's. We told him about the previous night (missing out the part about the biscuits) and he told us that this camping area had had it's fair share of dingo incidents over the last few months. Still we were all safe and well..........

I drove off along the beach, marvelling at the ocean waves and a couple of whales surfacing in the distance. Everyone wa in a good mood, laughing about the previous nights incident and looking forward to reaching Indian Head. The windows were down, the wind was blowing through our hair, the beach stretched out for miles ahead of us. And then........

I couldn't believe it, a huge f**k off spider 'flew' in the drivers window and nestled on the windscreen directly in front of me. I kid you not when I say that this thing was massive, hairy and pretty god damn evil looking. See www.flickr.com/photos/murrayandlynn for proof. I braked and jumped out of the drivers door yelling a everyone to get out. Amazingly no-one else saw the spider at this point, when the girls did they bolted for the back door. Everyone got out and Daniel managed to ensure that the spider was left well away from the 4WD when we all got back in. It turns out that it was a Huntsman spider, not poisonous, but I didn't know that at the time! Thankfully we were on a beach and I reacted calmly, well relatively. If we had been on a rainforest track I could easily have swerved off the road.

We drove right up to Indian Head and climbed the rocks to look out to sea, watching a couple of whales and dolphins swim in the distance. The view was, yet again, breathtakingly gorgeous. We chilled out for a bit and then drove back down the beach to Eli Creek, walking along in the creek and plunging into the deep parts to cool off.

Sadly, it was then time to head back to mainland Australia. I would not be surprised if Lynn and I return to sail the Whitsundays and visit Fraser Island again - definite highlights!

We had a very quiet night after returning the 4WD. A few beers with the group and then a takeaway pizza and chips beore heading to bed.

Sunday 7th October
We got a 2 hour bus to Noosa. I continued reading my Motley Crue book while Lynn dozed. We've checked in to the very pleasant Noosa Backpackers and booked day tickets to Australia Zoo tomorrow. I am really looking forward to that. We went for a nice stroll round town and we've just updated the flickr site and this blog.

We'll chill tonight as we have been very busy lately. Tomorrow we need to decide whether to travel to Syndey in one go, or break it up and stay a night or two in Byron Bay or somewhere like that.

Hope all is well wherever you are.

Lots of love
Murray and Lynn
xxx