Tuesday morning we rose at 5am to complete the 3.5 hour
drive to Hervey Bay where we would drive onto (or reverse onto it turns out) a
barge and head over to Fraser Island for our camping trip.
We drove straight
off the barge onto the largest sand island in the world. The tracks were pretty
soft and sandy but the 4x4 did a great job on the terrain and we didn’t slide
around too much (kudos to the driver aswell, stella job!) .
We stopped off at
the town of Eurong for our last bout of civilisation before camping in the wild
for 3 nights. From Eurong, which is on the east side of the island, we made it
to the beach and flew up the beach on the hard sand. The beach definitely felt
like the M1 but even so it was really cool to be driving along a beach. We
decided to find a site to camp just to the south of a big shipwreck. We got out
massive tent up (it must have been an 8-person jobby or something for just
three of us), our set up was completed with tables, chairs, eskies, water
container, roll mats, sleeping bags, stove, cooking equipment etc… etc…! Once
camp was established we went for a little walk up to the shipwreck which looked
really cool all rusted and orange. Dinner came in the form of some curries that
we reheated and were delicious, we wallowed the evening with some drinks, yarns
and games… as you do camping!
Our exhausted selves managed to sleep through the bright
early sun and we had a respectable lie in until 8 or 9 ish, I rustled up some
bacon sarnies for everyone and we packed a lunch for our trip to the champagne
pools. We jumped back in the car with lunch and headed further north along the
beach to the champagne pools, we had a few touchy moments in some deeper areas
of sand but the car coped very well. The champagne pools are basically rock
pools which the waves spill over which look cool. It was fairly busy but it was
nice to get back in the water as the sea was shark and croc-infested
apparently! On our way back we stopped off at the Pinnacles for lunch, which is
a cool exposure of colourful cemented sands with the quartz eroded out. The
other two fell asleep in the sun so I went for a little paddle. We whiled away
the rest of the arvo attempting some sea fishing (attempting being the main
word there!) and once it cooled off a bit I went for what turned out to be a
lovely and intense jog, it was great running barefoot on the hard sand along
the sea.
Dinner came in the form of a tuna pasta bake which was lovely and we
once again whiled away the evening with a few drinks, the skies were clearer so
we went stargazing. The sky was lit up completely of starts in every direction
and all of a sudden I noticed a shadow in my peripheral vision, so I turn my
head and what do you know a dingo is standing no more than 2-3m away from us.
Luckily he didn’t show too much interest in us and stared at us a little bit
before scampering off but it scared the life out of us. They are the reason
that we had to lock up all our food in the car and I’m sure everyone has heard
the Dingo-eating-a-baby ‘story’.
The next morning we packed up camp and drove back down the
beach, past Eurong and to central station campsite, where we set up camp for
our last night. It was lovely to have some basic amenities again. We were
camping in the sub-tropical forest, which was really picturesque. In the arvo
we headed over to Lake Mackenzie which is a freshwater lake elevated above sea
level and stored by the underlyinf vegetation. The water was perfectly clear
for the first 10m, it was an impossible blue colour to the very white sand
below, and unfortunately there was organic matter on the lake-bed any further
away from the shore.
The other two had another nap on the beach whilst I went
for a little walk along the lake and found a great secluded beach just along
from the main busy beach but alas the sun was going down so we headed back to
camp. We spent the next few hours reading and chilling before smashing out an
amazing pasta, bacon, mushrooms, cheesey dish… YUM.
We rose at a pretty early 6.30to pack up camp and head to
the barge. Overnight we had a bit of rain so the tent was pretty damp and sandy
but even so we packed up in no time at all and was well early for the barge. We
were bitten further to death by the sandflies by the barge terminal; this was
ontop of the mosquito bites that we had already suffered. Just as we were
pulling into the shore on the mainland we got a little display from some
dolphins, they were playing around in the water which was really cool. Lunch
came in the form of a subway and we made the journey back to Brisbane. In the
evening we had a peruse around the South Bank area of Brissy, we grabbed a
pizza and then churros and ice cream for dinner before heading over to the
Suncorp Stadium. The Broncos were playing the Rabbitohs in the NRL so we
thought we would go and watch a game. The atmosphere was extremely friendly
compared to Prem Games and nowhere near as loud. The Bronco’s made a very slow
start losing a few tries but fought back well. The winning points came from a
very controversial decision by the ref for the Rabbitohs. Despite this we had a
great evening cheering on the Bronco’s!
The following morning we decided to out for lunch again and
I had an amazing breakfast burger at a place called the Regatta… yum. All the
camping equipment that we borrowed had to be returned so we headed back down to
the Gold Coast and cleaned up the equipment and the car. The arvo was spent
making a red wine chocolate cake… MMMMMM it was very rich but so good.
In the
evening I was invited to Eddy’s Dads birthday meal, we headed to a great little
Chinese place and was joined by about a dozen people. We had a great variety of
dishes, some of which I had never heard of but Chinese food is always amazing. After
dinner we headed up to the “Panorama”, which was a great viewpoint looking over
the Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise area all lit up with millions of lights.
My final day in Queensland was very chilled out, I got a lay
in and chilled on the veranda before we headed over to surfers paradise, where
we continued to relax and then headed back to Brisbane just in time to grab
dinner and head out. We made it to the Royal Exchange (RE), a great student
place with sports on TV screens, cheap drinks and an outdoor dancefloor. I took
it a bit easy knowing that I would be getting up early to head home in the
morning.
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