Sand and More Sand Everywhere
I had the most ridiculous bus experience I’ve ever had on the way from Brisbane to Rainbow Beach. I had a lot of trouble finding the place where my bus left from and I finally found it at 1:55 (it was to leave at 2:00). The bus driver came down from the bus with a clipboard and said, “and you must be Brandon Doyle”. He continued, saying that I was late and that I had made the whole bus wait…and now we were going to be late to all the other stops…nd he had to take the time to put my bag underneath. I wanted to say that I was actually early according to the entire rest of the world’s standards and, indeed, we were EARLY to every stop on the way. So whatever. But he had a strong accent and a microphone that came right up to his mouth. He kept thinking he was a tour bus guide, telling us to look back at the Brisbane skyline and to note the big waves around Noosa area. At one point, he asked if we would rather take “the bush…or the sea.” Everyone kept staring out their windows and no one answered. It was awkward but we didn’t really care which way we took and we were definitely not planning on being part of the driving decisions. We stopped for a meal break and then we loaded back in (early…so that there would be no more confrontation) and headed the rest of the way to Rainbow Beach.
I went on a four-wheeling adventure on Fraser Island with a random group of people and had a blast! I got in to the hostel late at night (after a five hour bus ride) so I missed the briefing on how to get around the island and what to do. So I basically woke up with no idea what I was getting myself into. We loaded all of our stuff onto the top of the vehicle and then fastened a tarp over the top to keep everything dry. I shared the vehicle with four Austrians and six Irish, so it was an interesting mix. The Austrians pretty much kept to themselves but the Irish were fun and turned up the music and most of them sang along although they were completely tone-deaf. We loaded the vehicles onto a ferry and ten minutes later we rolled off onto a deserted beach. I was expecting a road at least at the ferry drop-off but no–we hardly drove on a paved road the whole time we were on the island. We had to drive close to the ocean because the sand was hard and drivable. But a few times we got stuck and we had to use our second engine (a.k.a. we got out and had to push) to get out of the soft sand. We drove on and on for several hours until we got to our camping site. We set everything up and then started to make dinner. We were given all of our food for the entire trip, so we had to follow the instructions on how to ration everything. We grilled steaks and were supposed to make potato salad but we were with a bunch of Irish people who wanted their potatoes plain with a little butter. The meat was a little chewy and not very flavorful since we had nothing to spice them up with. We talked for a bit but then I wandered off to meet some of the other people who were in the other groups that were traveling with us. I met a large group of English people and they were a ton of fun. I got tired pretty quickly though, so I went to the tent. I wasn’t able to bring a sleeping bag because I have been staying in hostels and they do not allow them because they can carry bedbugs. All I had was my sleepsheet. I absolutley froze. I was thinking it would be nice and warm all night but I guess I forgot that deserts can get pretty cold at night! I got up at what I think must have been about 3 am and decided to get into one of the vehicles to get up off the ground which was absorbing all of my body heat. I lost one of my flip-flops on the way and all of a sudden I head something rustling nearby and, not wanting to stick around to see if it was a dingo or a snake, I ran and got into the van and shut the door. I woke up in the morning quite sore from being on a narrow padded bench for several hours. Everyone was gathered around the van and they were looking through the cooler of food. Well…there was no food in the cooler! Turns out that what I had heard in the night might have actually been a dingo. Some person from our group took the cooler out and neglected to put it in the vehicle or on the roof. All of our chicken, milk, and cheese had been eaten with no trace left save a few ripped-up plastic bags. Luckily we still had another cooler which had all of our veggies and eggs. We were a little disheartened, but we had lots of bread and three cartons of eggs.
We headed out for Lake Mackenzie and it was absolutley gorgeous. The sand was white and the water was three shades of blue. The water was nice and cool; a pleasing change from the hot, hot sands. We swam and lounged for an hour or so and then headed up north to set up camp again and relax for the rest of the evening by the ocean. We could not swim in the ocean at all because there were strong riptides and lots and lots of tiger sharks apparently. The next day we drove up to Indian Head point which looked out over massive inland sand dunes and the ocean. We headed back down the coast after that and stopped at the impressive Maheno shipwreck. It was a scrap metal ship that was run ashore by an unexpected winter cyclone. Now it is just a big heap of rust that you cannot walk on. We set up camp just up the beach and started to cook dinner, substituting the eggs for the chicken that the dingoes ate.
We hopped into the vehicle and headed down to Lake Wabby, one of the most southern freshwater lakes on Fraser, stopping at Eli Creek on the way. We waded up the creek and drank some of the cold, pure water. Little did we know, we needed as much water as we could get because we had an 800 meter walk through the desert to get to Lake Wabby. The walk was worth it though as the sand dune just suddenly dropped off into a bright blue-green lake that is half-surrounded by rainforest. The sand is gradually swallowing the lake and forest. We trekked back to the vehicle and piled in and headed to catch the ferry before high tide came.
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