Arriving in Hervey Bay early in the morning, we were transported by Colin the typical friendly Aussie driver to Koalas Resort Hervey Bay. Koalas is renowned down the East Coast for providing nasty hostels (we discovered after booking our Whitsundays and Fraser Island with them) but this one was surprisingly ok with nice staff. We found this mainly because they upgraded us to a twin room at no extra cost which after months of dorm rooms was bliss.
After a kip we met our Fraser Island group at 3pm and had to sign lots of forms and go and buy supplies for the next three days. We also watched a DVD on the dangers of Fraser Island for those who are crazy enough to do self-hire safaris around the biggest sand dune island in the world. The next day at 6.45am we all met to load up the jeep with our meat, supplies, alcohol and camping equipment. Had a brief explanation on how to drive 4wd and then head off for the 10am barge to lead us onto the island. We had 3 Irish, 1 Canadian, 1 Scot (all of whom knew each other), 2 British girls and us. It looked like it would be fun. To start we saw Lake Birabeen, then drove up the big beach and found somewhere to camp being limited by the tides. After finding somewhere fine, Dave decided we should move somewhere else and in the process got in an argument with his best buddy Paddy and drove v fast through a wash out causing one of the back tyres to come off the rim and puncture. After a swift change of tyre and tension a little bit higher than before due to fear of losing the bonds we paid we finally camped back at the original place. Had some food, enjoyed the beautiful long beach and made some pasta dinner while having a few beers, the lads having considerably more than the rest of us being Irish and all.
The next day, some of us subdued, some of us hung over, we head off in the jeep again only to get a puncture in the only strip of beach where planes land. Apparently there are only 3 beaches in the world where planes can actually land and we broke down right in the middle of one of them. The Canadian and Paddy went off to find a new tyre, our spare already being in use, and we sat baking on the beach, unable to go into the sea because of jelly stingers and tiger shark breeding. 3.5 hours later, they reemerged having been unable to catch a lift back up the beach to us, we changed the tyre and head off up to India Head to admire the stunning scenery via a massive shipwreck on the beach. We arrived back at the campsite on the beach and the lads cooked up a massive bbq of the meat which was brilliant. Considerably happier we settled in for a night of socialising with the other groups also camped there and admiring first the amazing sunset and then the Southern Cross...
Next morning we head off to Lake Wabby where a massive sand dune runs into the water, then we went to get the tyres swapped back at the mechanic who'd fixed our 2nd damaged tyre and then we hit the beautiful Lake Mackenzie. This lake full of pale blue water and the whitest sand you've ever seen, was a beautiful fresh water place to swim. Really stunning and a great finale to the beautiful scenery we'd seen on the island. Sadly this meant time to catch the ferry back to Koalas, unpack the van and face the music with the Koalas mechanics. Fortunately, Dave, honorably stumped up for the tyre and we all got our bonds back. A chinese all you can eat dinner as a group completed the Fraser Island jeep safari.
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