My adventures on Fraser Island!

Monday December 14th 2015
So, last Thursday I felt better thank god!! Really glad about that!
I found out too, that there was a discount for the Lone Pine Sanctuary! I had told the guy that had told me that the boatride was 50,- that it was 72, - which included the entrance, so I thought that was a pretty good deal. But then he told me that it was still expensive, because with the yha you only paid 28,-…so I told him that I had paid 35,- and I got my money back, that was really good! Glad I saw him again and told him about it!
So Fridaymorning I was up early again, I got dressed and had breakfast. Took my time, because I was early and check out wasn’t until 10am. For some reason each time I try to put things back into my suitcase it is hard to fit it all in, don’t understand why, I haven’t bought any books yet!!
I thought my bus would leave around a quarter to one, but when I checked again it wasn’t until a quarter to three…so I checked out at 10am, had some tea in the café, but unfortunately that closed at 11am. I had planned to sit in the lobby, get some things organized for the week after and then go to the bus station. But there were so many people in the lobby, there was no space for me to sit down. So I went to the bus station, hoping they would have airconditioning…but no, there was a food court with the windows open. So I just sat there, had some lunch and worked on my tablet a little.
At a quarter to 3 we finally left Brisbane for Noosa Heads, which is along the coast to the north of Brisbane. The bus was practically empty, so I took a seat in front….wrong choice!!!!
It was very busy, I guess everyone wanted to leave Brisbane, so with all the stopping and going I got really sick! Then the driver had this strange tick where he would shake his head, mumble something and do something weird with his hand…not something you want to see as a passenger!!
It took over an hour to get out of the city!! And then when we finally were able to make some progress, the bus was shaking!! I thought it was just my seat, but I saw the driver shaking in his seat as well, which had nothing to do with his tick!
The road to Noosa Heads goes passed the Glass Mountains, which were really pretty and the Australian Zoo, which was set up by Steve Irwin, the guy that died chasing animals! If I had taken an earlier bus I could have spent the day here, but I didn’t really feel like doing that. As soon as we were there I changed seats!! I will never sit in the front seat again!! In the meantime the driver had also pulled down the shade, don’t ask me why, because the sun wasn’t shining, but now I really couldn’t see anything. So another seat was the best idea. I had taken a pill with some water and the airconditioning was on full blast, so really, really needed to go to the bathroom! Of course you can adjust the things above your head, but not the general thing. There was a toilet in the back of the coach, but I never like to go there, plus the road wasn’t too straight either, so I rather waited until we got there…actually prayed we would get there soon!
Fortunately there were no more delays and we were in Noosa Heads around 5:30pm, where I practically ran to a public bathroom first. The YHA was right at the busstop, so that was really nice. I did have to go up a hill though! I got a bed in a room with 4 other girls, top bunk of course, so I put the sheets on the bed and wanted to get something to eat….
Now I was here in Noosa, so I could go on a weekend trip to Fraser Island. I couldn’t take my suitcase with me, but I could leave it here at the hostel. But the reception closed at 7pm and didn’t open until 7:30am the next day…which would be too late for me, because I was going to be picked up at 6:15am already….
Since it was already after 6pm, I had to hurry and grab some stuff, so I could put my suitcase in the storage room. I managed to get it done, but later I thought I had forgotten some things of course, o well.
I went to Betty’s Burger to get something to eat. The burger was real meat, not a McDonalds burger, it was good, but a little too spicy for me and the fries were too salty for me.
Noosa is one of those beach/surf/booze kinds of places and I really didn’t feel comfortable there. The hostel had a restaurant and bar and of course a couple of drunks who couldn’t play a fair game of tabletennis….
I went to bed around 10pm, it was going to be an early day…although can’t say I slept really. The music coming from the restaurant didn’t stop until 11:30pm, then there were people walking past the room to get to the kitchen or the bathrooms, there was a wooden veranda around, so there was no way to walk softly….then at 3am I really had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to climb in and out of bed, but I really had to go, couldn’t wait.
So around 5:30am I got out of bed, got my stuff and got dressed. Then at 6:15am, the huge 4WD was waiting for me at the bus stop right in front of the hostel. I was the first one to get in the car/bus and I took the first seat available. I felt a bit stupid about not being able to get all of my stuff into one bag, as was directed, but then I saw a guy with a small suitcase, so I was alright after that!
I had never driven on a 4WD before and it is strange! It had huge wheels, the size of the ones on a truck. It was all soo big that taking a roundabout it went straight through!!
The brochure said we were going to get breakfast, but I didn’t know what time we were supposed to get that, so I had brought a banana…good thing I ate that already and that I took a pill, because after we had picked up some more people, we took the backroads to a place called Tin Can Bay. Now on backroads you usually can’t go any faster than 80 kilometers, but we were a little late and I suspected our guide to go a lot faster! We were going left, right, up down, it was almost a rollercoaster ride!
In Tin Can Bay we had to opportunity to feed dolphins…I saw it in the brochure, which was one of the reasons I went, but it wasn’t what I thought it was. It was actually some major tourist trap! At some café I could buy a ticket, then I got a small bucket with a small, round fish with a big eye and then I went into the water, where a couple of volunteers were directing people on how to feed the dolphins. There were about 4 Australian Humpback dolphins, which are also grey, but they have pink colored spots on their noses. I got to feed the fish to Mystique, the leader of the pod.
Now it was all a bit weird, at exactly 8am the dolphins were there, they were wild, it’s not like they had them in a cage somewhere. Don’t know how they got them to come in and have people feed them. It was all done in a hurry, so I don’t have any pictures of me feeding the dolphin, I guess that was because they only stay for so long, but I’m not sure.
After this we went to Rainbow Beach, to pick up some more people, get some more gas and let some air out of the tires. Then there was a ferry that took us to Fraser island, which is the longest sandbank in either Australia or the world, can’t remember for sure. Henning was our guide and driver, he was from Germany and had been living in Australia for 11 years now. He was a nice guy, with a dry sense of humor, but I couldn’t always hear or understand what he was saying, so every now and then I tuned out, so to speak.
Anyway, the first bit of driving on the beach went pretty well. Then we took to some back road, half sand, half asphalt and that was….well, to call it a bumpy ride would be an understatement!!!! Good lord, I was glad I had taken that pill already!! And that I had strapped my bags into the seat beside me!
Then we came out onto the beach again and that was a lot better! This is where we got our “breakfast”, Henning had some coffee and tea and mini muffins for us. After this break we went to the North of the Island, to see the shipwreck of the SS Maheno. The tide was low, so we had more beach to drive on. Unfortunately it started to rain and it kept raining for the rest of the day.
On our way there we saw 4 dingo’s, which according to Henning was a rare feature, he has done tours where he didn’t see any. But then it could’ve been the same dingo of course! Henning said that this type of dingo was the purest one, no breeding with domesticated dogs or anything, so that is pretty special.
So here we are on the this large sandbank and then somewhere in the middle of nowhere is this shipwreck…the SS Maheno started operating in 1905, it has been man things for example also a hospital ship in the first world war. Then in 1935 it was being towed to Japan to be used as scrap, but due to a huge storm and the fact that they had taken off everything that could have driven the thing, it beached here….and they left it there ever since. So now it’s this big pile of rust really and Henning said it was getting smaller, in about 10 years it will be gone completely…and no one is worried about this?? I just thought it was a strange thing.
After this we drove more North to see Indian Head, a rock formation so called by captain Cook. History of Australia has a black page for this rock, because on Christmas Eve in the 17 or 1800’s some white men, dropped some 80 aboriginals, men, women and children off of the side, to feed the sharks..
So now we could go up there as well, but since there was no real path and I was wearing my sandals I didn’t go up there. I don’t think I would have been able to actually go up without slipping off of a rock. So I stayed on the beach and took some cool pictures of the waves and rocks. At some point it had stopped raining for a while and there was a small sandstorm going on the beach, that was pretty cool!
As soon as everyone had come back down, we drove South to Eli Creek. Along the way we stopped at Red Canyon, which was really pretty. By the time we got to the creek it had started raining again. We were supposed to go for a swim here, but with this weather nobody wanted to do that. There were some people who got into the creek and walked back to where the car was. There was a sign warning people about the fact that the bottom of the creek wasn’t all that smooth and one girl in our group lost her balance and fell in! Good thing she was wearing her bikini under her shorts!
We were supposed to stay here for a while, but soon everyone was back on the bus, so we went to the resort we were going to stay at that night, Happy Valley. We could book either a private cabin or share a room. I had wanted the private cabin, but if I wanted one by myself I was paying a lot more money, so I decided to share a room. It was a complex sort of with 5 rooms and 4 bathrooms. In the middle was a small kitchenette with a water boiler and a fridge. I couldn’t get into the bathroom fast enough to wash my feet!! Yuk I hate sand between my toes!! Although I did get softer heels though!
There was a shop open until 5pm and dinner was going to be served at 6pm sharp. I didn’t need anything from the shop, so I wrote in my diary and at 6pm I was at the restaurant. Earlier in the day we had already gotten a list of things we wanted to order. There was fish, beef, chicken or vegetarian. I had chosen the fish, which basically was a fish’n chips thing…the portion was pretty big and the fish didn’t really taste very good, so I didn’t eat it all.
There was a young couple from England in our group and I was sitting at the table with them during dinner. We started talking about our jobs and when I told them about mine, it turned out that the girl was actually a travel agent in the UK, selling a lot of the Avalon rivercruises!! It is definitely a small world!
After dinner I had some tea, talked some more to some other people in our group and we watched The Grinch for a while. There was some guy who joined us and we talked to him for a while. Then around 9pm the bar closed and we were getting tired, it felt like we had already been up and about all day, but it was only 9pm. We did go back to our rooms though, at 9:30pm the lights went out.
I had slept very well, I shared a room with 2 other people, but no one snored and there was no loud music!! I did have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, but I managed to get back to sleep.
Around 6:30am I was up and got dressed. Breakfast was at 7am, which consisted of a lot of different cereals and toast. I had some yoghurt and toast, thought the butter was a bit salty though.
Henning wanted to leave at 7:30am. Which we thought was a little early, but we had to keep an eye on the tide.
Yesterday it was cloudy and raining, today there was blue skies and sunshine! On our drive along the beach we saw another dingo this morning, or it could’ve been the same one from yesterday, no way to tell! Then a couple of minutes later I saw the 6th, hiding in the dunes!
I also saw some eagles, but with the way were driving it was impossible to take a picture of them. Ok, so driving on the beach was still way better than the road we were about to drive on, going to the rain forest….
Good lord, this time, “bumpy” really did not describe the road we were on!!! It was all sand and there were large holes in them, so we were really shaking every which way in that car! I was sooo glad I had taken a pill again and that I had my seatbelt on!!
After about 20 minutes we came to Central Station, where we would start our walk this morning. In the old days people used to cut down all the trees here, there was an actual village here of loggers, as they called them. Nowadays we’re lucky to be able to walk here, I think someone was smart enough to plant as soon as trees were cut down, otherwise there would have been nothing left.
Henning told us something about the trees that were there and he told us about the track we would be walking on soon. Whatever we did, we had to keep going, not turn back. Because at the end of the track, at Pine Bay, he would be waiting for us.
Before we started walking, Henning warned us about leeches….which was very nice of him to do so, but now every drop, insect or berry that came down, made me think there was a leech on me somewhere!!!! I had wanted to wear my jacket, because I definitely didn’t want to find any in my neck. But it was too hot to wear it and I did bring my insect repellent, so I sprayed that on heavely!! Yuk, I like walking in the woods, but once you know about little bugs, you feel them everywhere!!!!
Anyway, it was a 2 km walk, which should take us about half an hour according to Henning. Having said this, it looked like the rest of the group thought it was a race or something, as soon as we got the go ahead, they were off. I like to look around me, so I ended up walking last. Which was not a really big deal, all you had to do was follow the track, but still it isn’t a very nice feeling to walk alone there.
Anyway, I saw some cool things, took a lot of pictures and managed to get to Henning without falling! As promised he was waiting there for us, with coffee and tea. That is also when he told us to check under our feet for leeches, because that was a favorite place for them to go….so now he tells me! This was probably the one place I didn’t spray any insect repellent!!! But all was clean, so I was good!
After our tea break we went to Lake McKenzie, to have a swim, with this beautiful weather it was a good thing to do. Glad we didn’t go here yesterday! So that was another 15 minutes of a “bumpy” ride again. The lake is huge!! And it has the purest of water, the ph level is 3,5, which is really soft. How can there be a lake on a sandbank you would ask, sand doesn’t hold water?! Well, a lot of years ago, there was vegetation on the ground, then in all of those years rain fell on it and this held the water in place. It was really crystal clear, with nice white sand as a beach.
I didn’t go into the water, but I sat on the beach and caught up with some writing in my diary. At 12noon, we had lunch near the toilet buildings. Which might be an odd place to have lunch, but since there are dingo’s around, you’re not allowed to bring any food to the beach. So they have put some picknick tables in a spot near the toilet buildings and put a great, big fence around it. The only thing that might be able to steal your food now, are the Kookaburra’s, a rather large bird with a sort of laughing cry. Just as Henning was putting our meal up, I saw one sitting in a tree, but it was gone by the time we started to eat.
There were some other groups who were having lunch there as well and they were having a bbq…unfortunately Henning didn’t put anything on the bbq for us, we had wraps which we could fill with all kinds of things. It was pretty good also.
After lunch we saw a baby iguano, which was still pretty big to me! And then we had to take our bumpy ride back to the beach, which this time of course took longer, because we had to go all the way back to where we came from!! Henning told us that if we felt like our lunches were doing a reverse trip, we should warn him and he would open the door for us! It was becoming really hilarious, but I think we all took a sigh of relieve when we got back to the beach!!
After a couple of minutes we stopped near a small creek, to stretch our legs and take a breath of fresh air. I saw literally millions of tiny sandballs, which were laid there by sandcrabs. Then there were really tiny holes next to them, where they would disappear into. Now I have seen this on tv some time ago, but it looked like these crabs were a lot larger, no way they would have been able to get into those tiny holes, but I guess they can.
Then we took the ferry back to the mainland, we were lucky the ferry was already there and there was enough space for us to get on it, so we didn’t have to wait. In Rainbow Beach we said goodbye to the large group that got on there and for those of us going back to Noosa, this was our bathroom break.
Then we got a real treat, because we went back to Noosa via the beach!!! It was really cool!! There was the large ocean on one side and on the other side were large rocks with yellow, orange and red colors, really pretty!!
We had our last coffee break there and then we crossed a road somewhere, which took us to the 40 mile beach. Which was a bit boring, nothing but sand and people camping. We ended up in the everglades and that’s where I saw some kangaroos jumping into the bushes!
We had to cross the Noosa river by ferry and had to wait for this. This was smaller than the other ferry and it looked like it was pulled by a rope, also it looked like there was no one driving the thing, until that person stood up in the little office!
I had talked to some people in the group about wether or not we should give Henning a tip, I mean he had been taking care of us this weekend. Someone said that since there were a lot of backpackers on this trip, who didn’t have any money to spend, they wouldn’t expect a tip at all. Which I thought was bullshit, because this trip wasn’t really cheap, so if you could afford this, you could also leave a little something for him! So I think I was the only one giving him some money and I think he appreciated it.
I was back at the hostel around 5pm, where this time I got a bed in a room in the main building. Which meant I had to drag my suitcase up a flight of stairs! Here again the first thing I did was wash the sand off of my feet and that’s when I discovered I had gotten a major sunburn!!!
When we were at the lake I did put sunscreen on, I had bought factor 50 to be sure I wouldn’t get a sunburn, but I guess I had forgotten to spray it on in some places. So my feet and part of my shoulders and neck were bright red!
I had some pasta for dinner and I thought it was only a small bowl, so I also ordered some garlic bread. But it turned out to be more than I could eat, so I ended up bringing the bread with me. There was a group of people cooking in the kitchen, so I gave it to them and got some watermelon in return, yummy!
This time it wasn’t as noisy at the hostel, it being Sunday, business was slow and the music wasn’t as loud either. I was in a room with 3 other girls this time, who all went out for the evening. I was in bed by 10pm, didn’t hear them come back, so I must have really slept soundly! Life starts early here in Noosa, at 5am the birds started to wake me up! I got up at 6:30am and I waited for the reception to open at 7:30am. So I could hand in my key and towel and get my deposit back.
The greyhound left at 8am, right in front of the hostel. We were supposed to be in Brisbane at 11:30am, but due to an accident with a truck, we had to take a detour. Where I saw some beautiful blue lilies in a pond.
At the Australia Zoo we got rid of have the people on the bus and I thought we were going straight to Brisbane after that. But instead we went the other way., basically back to where we came from. At first I thought it was a quicker way to get to the highway, but no we were actually going to another city. Where we had a little break and we picked up some people and parcels to take back to Brisbane with us.
In the end we were in Brisbane around 12noon. Where I went to the supermarket and back to the hostel. I had extended my stay for another night, because I was sick last week, I hadn’t seen anything of the city yet.
This Monday I didn’t do all that much, looking at what to do for Christmas took up most of the afternoon and evening. Eventually I turned out the lights and waited for another day!

Love,
Linda