thewoz.co.uk

The day began in Hervey Bay at 6.00am. In preparation for the Fraser Island adventure, we had a briefing at 6.50am on “dingo safety” and “4×4 beach driving”.

In my opinion, a dingo is about as dangerous as a West Highland White Terrier, but over the years there have been cases of children getting attacked by dingos and of course there’s that famous story (made into a film film starring Meryl Streep) of the woman who claimed that “A dingo ate my baby”, so I guess they have to inform you of the risks and how to be “dingo safe”.

I was booked on a 3-day 4×4 self-drive Fraser Island camping Safari, meaning, you’re divvied up into groups of about 8 people given a suggested itenary, shopping list and 4×4 vehicle and off you go! Suprisingly there weren’t many people in the room who passed all of the neccasary criteria to drive – have a driving licence, being over 21 and (and this is where the Americans and Canadians fall down) able to drive a manual transmission car. There were 3 groups and in my group, it was only me and another girl who were eligible to drive. I was secretly quite smug about this because I wanted to spend as much time as possible behind the wheel driving through creeks and over dunes.

It turns out the Caroline, the other driver had also lived in Limehouse for the last few years and worked just down the road from me in Fleet street. It’s a small world and in getting to know some of the other people in the group, it was about to get smaller.

At the back of the convoy of three, I drove our massive 4×4 beast to the “shed” to load up with camping / cooking equipment and receive further instructions on driving the truck and how and when to switch between 2WD and high and low ration 4WD. Next stop was the supermarket. To load up on food and consumables for the 3 days camping, I suggested that we buy Deli ham. Caroline laughed and remarked “we’re not in London anymore, darling!”. Fine, so I bought the cheapest processed ham I could find. It was so cheap and full of shit, it wasn’t even called ham. It was “Sandwich Slice”.

From Fraser Island

On the Ferry crossing to Fraser Island, we deflated our tires to 25psi as per the instructions and found a handy map of Fraser island in the tube that contained the tyre deflator. When we got to Fraser Island, Caroline and I played a round of “scissors, papers, stone” to determine who would do the initial afternoon driving. I won so started driving us through the rugged inland tracks of Fraser Island.

From Fraser Island

Beach driving was only permitted 3 hours before and 3 hours after low tide. At this time of the month that meant around 8pm to 2pm. As it was just after midday when we hit the Island, this would mean no beach driving today, which was somewhat disappointing… Nevertheless the inland roads were pretty extreme, it reminded me a little of when I did a landrover experience thing in the UK where a professional off-road driver(?) drives you up hills with exteme gradients and tilts the thing onto 2 wheels.

From Fraser Island

It was a beautiful afternoon when we arrived at the postcard perfect Lake Mackenzie. I played a bit of Frizbie on the beach, caught a few rays and had a quick dunk and then quickly came out as the water was very cold. I was feeling unusually energetic and asked it anyone felt like a run around the lake (which I guestimated to be about 3 to 4km). Jon, the only American guy in the group was up for it. So we set off. Jon set the pace which was a little fast but not uncomfortably so.

As we started to break away from the main beach, the footprints of those here before started to disappear until all that was an unblemished floor of sand around the crystal blue waters of the lake. About 1.5Km to 2km into the run, we realised that the lake was bigger than it appeared from the beach, with a whole “secret” section, hidden behind bush and trees. We got to a point where we needed to commit to keep going or turn back. We kept going. Then we got to a point where we could no longer walk around the outside of the lake due to a thick bush. Determined not to let the lake beat us, we attempted to cross this section through the lake. I hoped that the lake would be shallow enough for us to wlak though as I had my MP3 player on me. We took off our T-shrts and started to wade through. With my hands holding my Tshirt and MP3 player high above my head, I was already up to my chest (and Jon up to his shoulders) in water and we weren’t quite half way through. But the depth held, and we were able to finish the crossing and carry on.

You remember I used to be seriously into my running. Although I may have lost my fitness and put on a few pounds since I had to stop, I still enjoy a good scenic run. And this run on this day is one that I’ll never forget.

In the final quarter of the run, I’d fallen into the groove of the pace set by Jon, but he was paying the price a heavy price for it! I knew he could make it though and as we ran towards the beach where we started, we had a couple of cheers and then I through down my T-shirt and ran into the lake…. And never has water so cold felt so good.

From Fraser Island

It was now about 3.30pm and Caroline took over the driving duties as we made our way to our camp site. As we were all chatting and getting to know each other in the vehicle, I was talking to an awesome girl, Ellie about Byron Bay, as it turned out we were there at the same time. The subject of the Cheeky Monkey’s bar came up and the wet T-shirt contest.

At this point, Ellie didn’t know that I had topless photos of her on my camera, but to be fair, neither did I. It was only after she told me that she was the winner on the night that I was there, that the pieces of the puzzle all fell into place. We reviewed the photos on my camera and sure enough, there she was! Everyone else in the truck reviewed them too.

We had some loose directions for our camp site written on a piece of paper but couldn’t see the site on the map. By 4.30pm we were a bit lost. We had come to the end of the road and all that was ahead of us was ocean. We asked a couple of people for directions and from what we were able to gather was that the camp site was just 5km away if we took the beach road or a good hours drive if we took the inland roads. It would soon be dark, so this was not an easy decision. We had been strictly instructed NOT to drive on the beach after 2pm as the water would be too high, but the alternative would be risking getting more lost and pitching tents in the dark. We opted for the beach drive.

The tide was quite high and the waves were washing under the tyres in some areas. This wasn’t ideal. We had to cross a couple of dubious creeks and after driving nearly 4km and seeing the waves almost lapping the dunes, we wondered whether we should turn back. But we pressed on…. Everyone could tell from the absence of conversation that everyone else was maybe a little paniced and maybe a little bit stressed, not least of all Caroline who was driving our van. At least we had all stuck together and were still driving the 3 trucks as a convoy.

And there it was in front of us. Across a creek with a big drop-off was the sign for our campsite. The dropp-off and climb-out of the creek was at least 2’ and we had come too far to turn back now…. We had to cross the creek. Everyone screamed as the van dropped and then immediately climbed up at a 60 degree angle, but we made it, alive and unharmed!

In the truck behind us, there was a miscommunication between Rob the drive and Chris the navigator. As we turned to watch them cross the creek we had just crossed, their vehicle accelerated. Chris had said to Rob “DON’Tbomb it”. All Rob heard was “Bomb it”. We watched their van take off as it jumped out of the creek. Fortuneately, it landed on it’s wheels.

Later I realised the why we couldn’t find our camp-site on the map. We were using a map from 1997.

So we managed to set up camp and erect the tents just before it got dark. Whilst the 2 other groups had opted for simple camp food, we cooked up delicious bolognaise with pasta making the other groups insanely jealous of our delicious food. Yes, delicious.

I’d anticipated that 6 bottles of beer and a bottle of wine would be enough for the 2 nights we we be on the Island. By 9.30 on the first night, I was already drinking other peoples alcohol. It was a fantastically drunken end to great day.

I remembered someone telling me a while back that the best place to sleep was in the top box of the truck, so whilst everyone else, started to retire to tents, I snucj into the truck. It was great and he closest thing to a double be I had slept on in a while.

I woke up at 6am the next day feeling particularly good (so I clearly hadn’t had enough to drink the previous night). The panoramic views offered from the windows in the top box of the truck were of a horizon of a sun that had not yet risen.

I was feeling energetic again so went for a run along the beach. No-one else was up yet and as I ran alone north along the eastern beach, . It felt like I had the whole75-mile beach all to myself… and maybe I did. I had a photographic image in my mind of the sun rising above the water behind a silhouette of me running along the beach in my mind. Unfortunately there was no epic sunrise today; just a gradual brightening of the sky by a sun stuck behind low cloud. But I felt good for going for a run anyway and as I returned to camp, others were starting to stir.

Once we’d all finished packing up camp, and the trucks were loaded, we set off driving north along the beach (the tide was thankfully much lower now). The weather had cleared and now with us leading the convoy, all I could see ahead on me was endless beach and ocean. I was thankful to be here on the Island at this time of year because I knew in the summer, the beach would be more like a 4×4 highway.

The eastern beach was packed full of scenic stop-off’s; we walked though the beautiful Ely Creek, snapped some cool photos of the shipwreck, climbed to the top of Indian Head to watch Whales and paddled in the visually striking Champagne Pools, a natural lagoon, created from the overspill of the waves lasing against the huge rocks between the beach and the ocean at this part of the island.

From Fraser Island

From Fraser Island

From Fraser Island

Shortly after we set up camp in the afternoon, it started to rain. And it never let up. So for the second evening on the Island, we were cold, wet and sandy. Trying to cook on a small gas stove in the rain with no shelter was not without it’s challenges. This is the price we paid for choosing to set up camp by the beach rather then go to an inland sheltered campsite. It was horrible.

I slept in the truck again, but tonight wasn’t alone in doing so.

In the morning, it was still raining. We put the wet tents into the wet van and drove in the wet to Lake Wabi, very different to Lake Mackenzie but equally as beautiful (except for that fact that the weather was… well…wet).

From Fraser Island

As fortune had it, whilst driving to the Kingfisher Bay to get the ferry back to Hervey Bay, a dingo stopped in the road and posed for photos.

Leave only footprints. Take only memories.

From Fraser Island

As we crossed back to the mainland, I was sad that the adventure was drawing to a close but very much looking forward to the prospect of dry clothes and a warm shower.

It was only when I returned to the Hostel that I was fully aware that everything I own got covered in sand. Every orafice of my body was filled will sand. Seven showers later and it was still falling out my ears. I was thankful to be spending 2 more nights in Harvey Bay as it meant for the first time in a while, I would be able to sleep in the next day.

I found out the next day that there isn’t really much to do in Hervey Bay (except go to Fraser Island), but it was nice to have a chill-out day. Jon (British Jon, not the aforementioned American Jon) was travelling north to south rather than south to north and I found out he had done his Whitsunday’s trip on the same boat that I would be doing my trip on. He showed me the photos which looked amazing although he was unfortunate enough to have grey skies for the whole trip. I really hoped I had good weather for my trip.

Later that evening, myself and the guys/girls that were still around went to a bar / club called Morocco’s. I think there were only other 5 people in there. It was pretty tragic. I was speaking to a guy in there who had just come back from a horrific Fraser Island experience, stuck in a truck full of girls that were scared of driving over anything that wasn’t tarmac and I realised how fortunate I was to have such a great group. The Fraser Island trip had been the highlight of the East coast adventure so far.

From Fraser Island

That night, we said goodbye to Jon but Ellie, Jess, Sarah and Harriot who I met here, would be on my bus tomorrow though for the next part of the adventure. It was nice to have some travelling buddies, nicer still that they were all top top girls.