Fraiser Island!

Sunday 10th Nov. Or Sunday. Someday.
From Agnes Water we headed down to Bundaburg, home of the Bundaburg Rum distillery,australia's most popular beverage! We went on a tour and learned all about how to make rum, then we drank some rum, it was delicious.
After that i ended up driving us (I was sober, by the way mum, dont worry) through a tropical storm - the van coped very well except for the fact my feet somehow got wet... after driving along a desserted track to a creepy isolated clearing in the woods we made it to our chosen camp spot alive, which was a relief. We also woke the next morning having not been murdered in the night, which was also a relief, and a bit of a surprise.

The next day we headed to Hervey Bay, one of the two towns where the ferry to Fraiser Island leaves from. We stayed at a Hostel for a couple of nights before the trip, where we ended up sharing a room with our new friend Kirstin who is from Felixstowe and who I have definitely played hockey against! Small world!
The tour we took was a 4WD tag along - so there was one tour guide, 4 cars and people took turns driving. We made a group of 8 people and went shopping for supplies the day before which mostly consisted of 150 cans of beer, about 60 sandwiches, and enough sausages to feed a small army. What more could you need? (A significant number of those beers remain undrunk and stashed in our van)
We left at 7am the next morning. When we got to the island we had one last breifing on how to drive a 4WD and then we just went for it.
Fraiser Island is the worlds largest sand island, which means the roads are all just dry, sandy, hilly and sometimes quite difficult to get through. Fun to drive though! On the first day we stopped at a couple of lakes - one of which had a huge sand dune right next to it and a really nice walk to get to it. All the lakes on Fraiser are freshwater and really clean - the water is filtered through all the sand which makes it super pure. The rainforest are about 700,000 years old (according to Jarrod, our wise owl-like tour guide) which is what made it a world heritage listed area.
We also stopped at the wreck of the Mareno - a cruise ship made in 1905(?) (Maybe?) that was also used as a hostpital ship during WW1 and then after it was decommissioned, sold to Japan for scrap but on the way there it broke from the towing rope and ended up drifting to shore on Fraiser. It was then used as target practice by the Australian Navy who managed to hit it twice with torpedos (2 direct hits out of like 200 attempts. I can see why they need some target practice). It's essentially just a big broken rusty boat on a beach.
We bush camped. There were no toilets, but we did have shovels and Dingo sticks. The Dingoes on the island have learned to get pretty good at scavenging food, so the sticks were a necessity in case we were forced to "defend ourselves aggressively" as instructed by the 20 minute safety briefing which many people slept through on the first morning.
The next day our group all got a chance to drive - at this point we were on the east side of the island (Seventy Five Mile Beach) so it was mostly flat, hard sand with the occasional large ditch. Easy. When it was my turn we went inland which involved a run up and then plough through super soft sand; i was going great until someone stopped in front of me then i got stuck but managed to get out by myself with my pride mostly intact. I do like driving, and this sort of driving is really fun, but it does start to get a bit stressful when you have to do it with 7 people shouting at you. On the second day we went to another lake, a cliff lookout (we saw a turtle! And a Manteray? Mantaray? Big flat fish!) And we sat in the Champagne Pools next to the sea. Also stopped off at a creek on the way back to rinse the seawater off. No showers for us - we spent the last couple of days stinking, and unable to remove the fine layer of sand from everything we wore or touched (the first shower we had back on the mainland was like a glorious rebirth; definitely in my top ten shower experiences). We spent another night at the bushcamp (sausages and pasta with salad for dinner,yum) and the next day stopped at one more lake before etting the ferry back to Hervey Bay.

Then we all went out drinking together. Hooray!

We are now down the road in Maryborough - we had a cuppa with our new awesome friend Sam who we first met at Airlie Beach (hello, you!) and now we are planning our next bush camp adventure in the Noosa Everglades.

LATER THAT SAME DAY.....
We were going to crash at new friend Sam's house last night while she played a gig at a private party somewhere, but plans change and we ended up getting invited along instead... the party was a housewarming in this super swanky house owned by two lovely drunk Aussies who fed us and gave us beer. The house was ridiculous. It was a huge open plan thing with a jacuzzi inside big enough to fit 20 people (it also has a pole fitted to the side), as well as having a snooker table, a huge entertainment system and a pool just outside the back door. It looked like a film set for a porno. Or at least the local swingers headquarters. We left early just in case.