Fraser Island

So at the end of my last post Kevin and I had just managed to book a trip to Fraser Island. For those of you who do not know what Fraser Island is (which included me until a few days ago) it is a World Heritage listed site because it is the largest sand island in the world. Why would anyone want to go to a boring old sand island I hear you thinking, well because there is more than just sand on Fraser Island.

We were picked up at our backpacker hostel in Rainbow Beach by a four wheel drive bus tour. There were 16 of us and the tour guide, and we went to the barge that would take us to Fraser Island. One beach runs along the whole of the east coast of the island, and is also the main highway and the take off and landing strip for small planes. We drove to our accommodation and once we were all settled in we went to "Indian Head". This is a big rock on the north end of the island, which you can climb up to see some amazing views. From up there at the edge we even saw a shark in the water down below. We were so high up that it looked really small, but so did the people on the beach. The tour guide reckoned that it was about 1,5 m long.

After Indian Head we went to a shipwreck, and next to Eli creek. When we first arrived at Eli creek we weren't very impressed, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. You could walk up a boardwalk beside the creek, and then float down it. Unfortunately the water was rather shallow, so it was a bit slow, but there were some deeper parts which made it a lot of fun. After we were all back at the end of the creek, the tourguide wanted to take some pictures of the whole group for the new brochure and internet site of the tour company. We jumped off the sandbank into the creek in front of the bus, built a piramid in front of the bus, posed sitting down in front of the bus and ran splashing through the water. That tourguide sure made us work for our dinner!

We spent the evening playing some card games and just hanging around. The second day the weather wasn't as nice as the first. First of all we went for a walk in the rainforest. Yes, a real rainforest growing on sand, I was amazed as well. We walked along another creek, and it was really beautiful. The tourguide played a little trick by telling us to look for the "woowooh owl" before he went to drive the bus to the end of the trail to pick us up. Yep, you guessed it, when we found the owl he jumped out at us with his camera, to take a picture of the looks on our faces. He "punk'd" us! We then went to "The Blue Lake". It is the deepest lake on Fraser Island. Normally water runs through sand, so it would be impossible to form a lake, but at the bottom of the lake there is a sort of rock that is formed by dead leaves and sand compacted together. Because fo this basin of rock the water doesn't run away. We played volleyball in the water for a while, but it got rather cold and we decided to get out.

After the blue lake we drove to "The Red Lake". How can a lake of fresh water be red? Well, the water in this lake was basically cold, weak tea. There is a certain type of tree growing on Fraser Island that colours the water red and gives it a taste like tea. Unfortunately it started raining very hard while we were there, so those of us without a raincoat ran back to the bus. Luckily I had a spare T-shirt with me on the bus, so I didn't get sick (thank you mum for hammering these sensible habits into me). That evening we had fun playing more card games, and we really got to know each other. There was a group of psychology students from Amsterdam, although two of them were German. There were also two really nice German girls (Tina and Vanessa) with whom Kevin and I are staying in a hostel in Noosa at the moment, and a British couple.

On the last day we went to "The Green Lake". It is green because the sand is more yellow than at the other lakes, and because there are algae in it. The main attraction at the green lake was sandboarding. On the way to the green lake, through some sandblows (sanddunes) I went down a small hill standing (I have a picture which I will put up once I have my own computer), and once we got to the lake we all went down a much bigger hill. We used a bodyboard and went down on our stomachs, skimming onto the lake at the bottom of the hill. It was great fun. After we had had our fill of the sandboarding we swam a bit and relaxed at the side of the lake (it was nice weather again), before heading back up the beach/highway to the barge to take us to the mainland.

The Fraser Island trip was amazing, and it really made me realize that I enjoy company where you can really get to know each other, as opposed to staying at different hostels every couple of nights where you hang out with the people for a few hours each evening but everyone does their own thing during the day. My next week or so I will be spending with Tina and Vanessa, the German girls. First we are going to Brisbane for Australia Day (sort of like Koninginnedag I think), where Kevin will still be with us. Then we will head into the outback/farm country and go on a Jilleroo (cowgirl) course. Vanessa will do an 11 day course, and Tina and I chose a 5 day course. I am really looking forward to it, we will learn cattle hearding, lassoing, shoeing and lots more outback farmy stuff.

So next time I post I will have lots of fun, exhausting and messy stories to tell you I hope. Reading your comments, emails and facebook posts, and being around people long enough to actually get to know them has definitely improved my general mood. I am absolutely loving Australia, although I have yet to meet more than one or two aussies at a time! But there should be a bunch on this ranch. Love!