Queensland recap #4: Three days on Fraser Island
Mood: 
|| Sick
Tune : n/a
Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world)
March 11: Left early, but it turned out I could've stayed in Brisbane. Fraser Island was closed on Thursday still because they had to clean up after the storm so the meeting today was cancelled until further notice. Prayed it'll be open on Friday or I have to skip this part of my journey.
Bored to tears in Hervey Bay (there's NOTHING to do here other than going to Fraser). I walked to the 'city centre' which took about an hour through the rain and consisted of McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Hungry Jacks and Target... So after I came back I just chatted with my four room mates and after that I marathoned some Leverage episodes I got off of Jaydeyn before going to bed early.
Pretty view at a bus stop
March 12: In the morning we got told Fraser would still be closed on Friday which really screwed up our plans as all of us had to catch a bus on Sunday evening and seeing the trip on Fraser would be for 3 days, Friday was the last option to go. Having nothing to do again and the weather not being a whole lot better than the day beforehand I ended up marathoning episodes from The Sarah Jane Adventures (again from Jaydeyn I took so much stuff off of her <3). Later in the morning the news on Fraser changed though and we got told we could go on the Friday, which was a huge relief.
Went to the 'city' in the early afternoon because there's a McDonalds and I wanted to use the WiFi there, but unfortunately it didn't work for some unexplainable reason :( So wasted 2 hours on that (luckily I didn't have to walk again, there was an actual shuttle bus!). After coming back we had the obligatory safety meeting for the Fraser Island trip which was boring and kinda pointless. All they said was: watch out for dingoes and don't sleep on the road. D'uh.
In the evening I chatted with my roommates again (who would also become part of my travel group on Fraser), packed my bags and watched some stuff on my laptop before hitting the sack early as we had to get up the next morning at 6am for another meeting before departure.
March 13: The meeting was for the most part rather pointless again. Pretty sure the video we saw was the same one as the day before, though I wasn't awake enough to know for sure.
We (a group of 9 people: me, my two German roommates Kat and Francie, my two Welsh roommates Hannah and Beckie and four Irish people Danielle, Sean, Kelly and Marc) set off for the ferry at about 9am and were called group C. There were 3 groups from our hostel/travel organisation that departed together, about 30 people following the same itinerary and camping in the same area each night.
Our van was PACKED and OMG the road on the island was so bumpy. It wouldn't get any better any of the other days... First stop of the day was Lake Birrabeen and it was absolutely amazing. Crystal clear water with patches of bright blue and bright green and a white sandy beach. The weather wasn't too good (it was raining a bit) but most of us still jumped into the water which was really nice and refreshing.
The next stop was Lake Boomanjin, which wasn't blue at all but instead had the colour of tea, or rust. Very interesting and the minerals in it are supposedly really good for you, but the colour was definitely less appealing to jump into than the previous lake. We still spend a bit of time there before driving for a long while over the beach for our camping side. The camping side was basically just an empty mostly flat part of beach behind a dune. There was nothing there except for the dune that would protect us from the high tide. But we had to set up tents, barbeques and everything else ourselves and there weren't even toilets or showers O_O Oh, how we'd long for a nice shower over the next couple of days.
Most of Team C ready for take of
And stuck in the sand...
At Lake Birrabeen
Lake Boomanjin
View while driving
The beach we camped near by
Sunset
Making dinner for everyone
March 14: Got up 5 am, and felt completely broken. I hadn't slept at all in the tent (seriously, I had checked my watch every 15 minutes during the night) because it was too small for four people (one of our tents was broken), the sandy ground was uneven and hard and I had to go to the non existing toilet.
After packing everything we left the camp ground at about 7am for another lake called Lake Wabby. This was the favourite lake of the person who provided our introduction so we had high expectations, but to be honest it wasn't that great. The water looked similar to the one of the first lake we'd seen and the only difference was a huge sand dune next to the lake and the fact there were cat fish swimming in it (and they weren't shy of us, so they swam around us and that was pretty cool). The walk to the lake however lasted for about an hour (through the blasting heat and a huge rain fall, fun... not).
Next stop was a little town which had the only shops and gas station on the entire island. We hung around there for a while because the sun had finally come out so we made lunch there and everything.
After that we wanted to go to the famous shipwreck and I was really looking forward to that. The road was initially still closed (because of that storm a few days again) but the shopkeeper said it was open again so we took our chances. Which meant we drove over the rocks on the beach, which wasn't allowed :\ (by the time we got there though there was no way for us to turn around).
When we made it to the other end we realised we couldn't go much further than that and my group wanted to turn around and go back, over the rocks again! I said we shouldn't and at that point a woman approached our car saying we were very lucky to get over them once but we should definitely not do it again. Instead we had to take a detour back inland, which took us roughly 2.5 hours... So glad I was sitting in the front of the car for the majority of this detour as it would've been very uncomfortable in the back with the crappy, bumpy road. It the end we didn't see Eli Creek or ship wreck :(
In the evening we went back to set up camp in the same location as the day before and we spotted several dingoes that night, which was really cool. Unfortunately non of them stood still for a photograph...
Lake Wabby
Cat fish
Pretty view
Narrow road on our detour
March 15: Having had such a bad night of sleep the day beforehand I had decided to sleep in the van this night and it was a lot better. Was still up really early but at least I didn't feel broken again.
We packed all our stuff and headed for our first and only destination of the day: the famous Lake McKenzie. And holy shit, wow! It was kinda like the first lake we saw but much, much better. Beautiful crystal clear turquoise water, perfect white beach, palm trees and great weather. We hung around there for several hours and it was just amazing.
In the early afternoon we headed to the ferry which would take us back to Hervey Bay. From the ferry we had a great last view on Fraser Island and at one point we saw dolphins along the ferry in the water!!! Very cool.
When we got back we had to unpack the van where everything got checked by the travel organisation. After that we all eagerly took a shower (as we hadn't been able to for the past few days!) and relaxed before taking the bus in the evening.
My trip lasted 13 hours, which was to Airlie Beach for the Whitsunday Islands but more about that in the next update.
Amazingly beautiful Lake McKenzie
Team C!
View on Fraser from the ferry
More pictures HERE.
|| Sick
Tune : n/a
Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world)
March 11: Left early, but it turned out I could've stayed in Brisbane. Fraser Island was closed on Thursday still because they had to clean up after the storm so the meeting today was cancelled until further notice. Prayed it'll be open on Friday or I have to skip this part of my journey.
Bored to tears in Hervey Bay (there's NOTHING to do here other than going to Fraser). I walked to the 'city centre' which took about an hour through the rain and consisted of McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Hungry Jacks and Target... So after I came back I just chatted with my four room mates and after that I marathoned some Leverage episodes I got off of Jaydeyn before going to bed early.
Pretty view at a bus stop
March 12: In the morning we got told Fraser would still be closed on Friday which really screwed up our plans as all of us had to catch a bus on Sunday evening and seeing the trip on Fraser would be for 3 days, Friday was the last option to go. Having nothing to do again and the weather not being a whole lot better than the day beforehand I ended up marathoning episodes from The Sarah Jane Adventures (again from Jaydeyn I took so much stuff off of her <3). Later in the morning the news on Fraser changed though and we got told we could go on the Friday, which was a huge relief.
Went to the 'city' in the early afternoon because there's a McDonalds and I wanted to use the WiFi there, but unfortunately it didn't work for some unexplainable reason :( So wasted 2 hours on that (luckily I didn't have to walk again, there was an actual shuttle bus!). After coming back we had the obligatory safety meeting for the Fraser Island trip which was boring and kinda pointless. All they said was: watch out for dingoes and don't sleep on the road. D'uh.
In the evening I chatted with my roommates again (who would also become part of my travel group on Fraser), packed my bags and watched some stuff on my laptop before hitting the sack early as we had to get up the next morning at 6am for another meeting before departure.
March 13: The meeting was for the most part rather pointless again. Pretty sure the video we saw was the same one as the day before, though I wasn't awake enough to know for sure.
We (a group of 9 people: me, my two German roommates Kat and Francie, my two Welsh roommates Hannah and Beckie and four Irish people Danielle, Sean, Kelly and Marc) set off for the ferry at about 9am and were called group C. There were 3 groups from our hostel/travel organisation that departed together, about 30 people following the same itinerary and camping in the same area each night.
Our van was PACKED and OMG the road on the island was so bumpy. It wouldn't get any better any of the other days... First stop of the day was Lake Birrabeen and it was absolutely amazing. Crystal clear water with patches of bright blue and bright green and a white sandy beach. The weather wasn't too good (it was raining a bit) but most of us still jumped into the water which was really nice and refreshing.
The next stop was Lake Boomanjin, which wasn't blue at all but instead had the colour of tea, or rust. Very interesting and the minerals in it are supposedly really good for you, but the colour was definitely less appealing to jump into than the previous lake. We still spend a bit of time there before driving for a long while over the beach for our camping side. The camping side was basically just an empty mostly flat part of beach behind a dune. There was nothing there except for the dune that would protect us from the high tide. But we had to set up tents, barbeques and everything else ourselves and there weren't even toilets or showers O_O Oh, how we'd long for a nice shower over the next couple of days.
Most of Team C ready for take of
And stuck in the sand...
At Lake Birrabeen
Lake Boomanjin
View while driving
The beach we camped near by
Sunset
Making dinner for everyone
March 14: Got up 5 am, and felt completely broken. I hadn't slept at all in the tent (seriously, I had checked my watch every 15 minutes during the night) because it was too small for four people (one of our tents was broken), the sandy ground was uneven and hard and I had to go to the non existing toilet.
After packing everything we left the camp ground at about 7am for another lake called Lake Wabby. This was the favourite lake of the person who provided our introduction so we had high expectations, but to be honest it wasn't that great. The water looked similar to the one of the first lake we'd seen and the only difference was a huge sand dune next to the lake and the fact there were cat fish swimming in it (and they weren't shy of us, so they swam around us and that was pretty cool). The walk to the lake however lasted for about an hour (through the blasting heat and a huge rain fall, fun... not).
Next stop was a little town which had the only shops and gas station on the entire island. We hung around there for a while because the sun had finally come out so we made lunch there and everything.
After that we wanted to go to the famous shipwreck and I was really looking forward to that. The road was initially still closed (because of that storm a few days again) but the shopkeeper said it was open again so we took our chances. Which meant we drove over the rocks on the beach, which wasn't allowed :\ (by the time we got there though there was no way for us to turn around).
When we made it to the other end we realised we couldn't go much further than that and my group wanted to turn around and go back, over the rocks again! I said we shouldn't and at that point a woman approached our car saying we were very lucky to get over them once but we should definitely not do it again. Instead we had to take a detour back inland, which took us roughly 2.5 hours... So glad I was sitting in the front of the car for the majority of this detour as it would've been very uncomfortable in the back with the crappy, bumpy road. It the end we didn't see Eli Creek or ship wreck :(
In the evening we went back to set up camp in the same location as the day before and we spotted several dingoes that night, which was really cool. Unfortunately non of them stood still for a photograph...
Lake Wabby
Cat fish
Pretty view
Narrow road on our detour
March 15: Having had such a bad night of sleep the day beforehand I had decided to sleep in the van this night and it was a lot better. Was still up really early but at least I didn't feel broken again.
We packed all our stuff and headed for our first and only destination of the day: the famous Lake McKenzie. And holy shit, wow! It was kinda like the first lake we saw but much, much better. Beautiful crystal clear turquoise water, perfect white beach, palm trees and great weather. We hung around there for several hours and it was just amazing.
In the early afternoon we headed to the ferry which would take us back to Hervey Bay. From the ferry we had a great last view on Fraser Island and at one point we saw dolphins along the ferry in the water!!! Very cool.
When we got back we had to unpack the van where everything got checked by the travel organisation. After that we all eagerly took a shower (as we hadn't been able to for the past few days!) and relaxed before taking the bus in the evening.
My trip lasted 13 hours, which was to Airlie Beach for the Whitsunday Islands but more about that in the next update.
Amazingly beautiful Lake McKenzie
Team C!
View on Fraser from the ferry
More pictures HERE.