rtw with lucy

Well we’ve been awfully busy. After Wazza’s jungle platypus camp, we headed south again, and signed up for a 3 day/2 night stint on Fraser Island. We had to rent a 4 wheel drive because it is the world’s largest sand island and a regular car would bog down right away. It is pretty much wilderness too, with a few services but not much.

We got our 4X4 on Sunday and headed out to the rumble of the rather rough truck and rode a ferry out to the island. As we got on the sand road, I thought, “Oh, this isn’t so bad.” I thought too soon. The road suddenly turned on us–it turned to pure sand–about 4 feet of pure, fine, white, and very loose sand. The truck went up the hills and down in the valleys and it’s a good thing we had our seatbelts on. Gene and the girls thought it was a lot of fun, but I wasn’t so sure. I mean I like adventure and all, but this was a bit much.

After 8 km (4-1/2 miles) and 2 hours later, we came to a lake ringed with trees. The sand around it was white, and the water looked like poolwater–it was that clear. The lakes there are called “dead lakes” because they don’t support much life. There is not much algae and that makes them clear.

A while later we set up camp by the beach. We now know not to camp under the trees that drip saltwater! The ocean was nice, but we couldn’t swim in it because of rips, sharks, and jellyfish. We stayed for 3d/2n, and that was just enough. Anymore time would have been too much.

After we got back, we stayed in Hervey Bay for the night.
Then we headed south towards Brisbane. We didn’t stay there though, we had to go on and get a place to stay on the Gold Coast. Blecch. Wall to wall highrise buildings on the beach and lots of strip malls. Not our cup of tea, and this one almost broke our marriage, but we hightailed it out of here the next day, and I made him promise not to put me through this soul deadening madness ever again!