Fraser Island Part 1: The Logistics, The People

Well...this is really, really overdue! I'm sorry!

To be completely honest, keeping this blog is kind of a pain (clearly). But it's definitely worth it...I want to share with you guys all the amazing things that I'm doing, and I'm looking forward to having a record of it for myself once all is said and done. So don't worry, this blog still exists...I've just gotten a bit behind!

Over a month ago (yeah, really behind) I took a 5-day trip to Fraser Island with some friends. Fraser is located north of Sydney, off the coast in Queensland. It's a special place because it's one of the only places in the world where (temperate, I believe) rain forest grows out of the sand. So, it's got a really unique look to it - you'll be on the beach in one moment, and driving through the woods, on sand, the next. 

The big thing to do on Fraser is to go on a 4-wheel-drive type tour where you get to drive basically these big vans on the beach and just everywhere. And then you camp at night. So, this is what we did!

Photo of the 4WD vans on the ferry to Fraser Island

Zack, Nicole, Kirsten, Hannah, myself, and our guide, Wayne! After the trip.

That's what the vans look like. So basically, we flew up to Brisbane from Sydney on Thursday. Then we took a bus (I think like 5 or 6 hours?) to Rainbow Beach, where we stayed overnight at a really awesome hostel. We didn't meet anyone that night, but the next morning we got our "safety briefing" and met the people who were coming in our van with us. It was the five of us, plus three Englishmen backpacking around the world - Joel, Will, and Phil. We all loaded into our vans - there were 4 vans in total on our tour, I believe. We drove in caravan-style, with Wayne always leading the way. We had to take a ferry across the little inlet to Fraser Island - and then drove right onto the beach!

Driving on Fraser Island


Basically, we spent the next two days or so - until late Sunday afternoon - checking out some of the best places Fraser has to offer: Lake McKenzie, the Champagne Pools, Indian Head, Lake Wabby, and more (see "Fraser Island: The Sights" for all of these places)! We set up camp at the end of the day Friday, and camped there both Friday and Saturday nights. This aspect of the trip was a bit of a welcome surprise. Everyone on the trip was a backpacker, so everyone was really young, social and fun. We got to know Joel, Will and Phil pretty well in the van, and at night we got a chance to meet and connect with the rest of the people on the trip. It was mostly English people, though not entirely. 


(For some reason, Blogger isn't letting me do captions on these two photos...but below is our home base and then Joel, Hannah, Phil, Will and Nicole in the van, and then some night shots)

Another interesting thing about Fraser Island is that there are dingoes everywhere! Dingoes are the wild Australian dogs that are sort of like a cross between a pet dog (in that they are adorable and you want to pet and feed them) and wolves (in that they could actually feed on you if they wanted to, I suppose). One night I was brushing my teeth sort of by the edge of camp and there was a dingo that ran RIGHT past me! Wayne has been camping in our spot for years, and he actually knows the dingoes that come around there. Apparently it's always the same ones, and he's seen them there since they were pups.


 Each night, we saw them at least four or five times, sort of just circling the camp. One actually got into one of the tents at one point early on because people had food in it! It was pretty crazy, very very cool. I didn't snap any pictures of them myself, but my friend Zack did:

After two days of caravaning all over the island, checking out great places, meeting cool people and nearly getting eaten by dingoes, we headed back to Rainbow Beach for Sunday night. This was a great way to close out the trip. Everyone felt pretty close by that point, and the hostel we were at had organized a series of games for the night - so we had a blast doing that. The games were basically musical chairs (musical kegs), a game where you had to bounce a ball off a wall and into a can, and, finally, flip cup. 

Obviously, the Americans (us) started getting pretty competitive about the flip cup part. Somehow, it wound up turning into a Revolutionary battle - America versus England. No, but literally...in the finals, it came down to our America team (us 5 + Ben, a turncoat Brit) and the English team (our van mates! gasp! plus a few others..including a Canadian). It was an epic battle of good versus evil, has-been world power and current superpower.

AMURRRICA:

vs.

ENGLAND:

The battle raged...

And out of the wreckage, one team emerged victorious....America, of course!!!

And then we led all these kids in some games of beer pong in the hostel lounge. After singing the National Anthem. Yeah, we were those kids...and it was beautiful.

All-in-all, it was a great finish to a great trip. Beautiful scenery, fun people, such a unique experience...defnitely one of the highlights of my time abroad thus far. The next day, we had a looong journey back home, complete with flight delays and everything. But it all worked out just fine, and the very next day we all found ourselves missing Fraser and Rainbow Beach and all the cool people we had gotten to meet.

Now, get yourself over to the other Fraser Island post, so that you can see pictures of all the amazing things we saw on the island!!! And check out these last few photos below, from random points throughout the trip, that I thought would be nice to include. Sorry the captions still aren't working, but there's just a lot of people shots...inclusing a picture of our entire group, in front of the Maheno Wreck on Fraser:

Thanks for reading! Oh, and last thought: no, I didn't get to drive, because I can't drive manual. Although, in the end, our van wasn't even manual. Oh well! It was fun getting to relax and just SNACK with everyone else.

Thanks for reading!

-Ryan