Arrived at palace hostel on Tuesday 3rd November, not far from the bus station, I asked a girl when I got off of the bus where she was staying, it was the same hostel, but instead of helping me, she walked off with her friends… Thanks for the help mate….
Luckily my hostel was over the road from the bus stop, so I made it there all by myself lol. Made it just in time for the meeting for my trip, so I quickly checked in and popped my bag in the room, there was 3 top bunks left so I put my stuff on the top bunk next to the window and headed downstairs. There was about 26 people altogether, a lot of groups of girls, mainly from Germany and Sweden, about 4 couples and a couple of solo travellers. We received information about the next few days for our trip, found out that we had to be up and ready for 6am the following morning zzzz. But on the plus side we were asked who would like to drive the 4×4 jeeps across the beaches, so me and a few others volunteered, so excited!
I headed to bed about 9pm that night as we had an early start the next morning, but I was sharing a room with 5 Swedish girls, and they were talking so loudly until about 11pm.. So I didn’t get to sleep until later on, plus the air con wasn’t working too well, and it was boiling!
My alarm went off at 4.50am so I could be the first in the shower, but one of the Swedish girls must have heard my alarm go off and got up also, but luckily she used the shower down the hall, I had first priority in the room 😏
After our morning briefing we were divided up between 4 jeeps and put out chilled items in the cool boxes in the back with some ice. Richard started to drive and we headed to the ferry port from Hervey Bay to Fraser Island ☺️
The morning we drove around a part of the island and visited a couple of lakes to swim in, the first one was beautiful, the sand was as white as anything and felt as soft as flour under my feet, I went for a quick swim, apparently we could rub the white sand on our skin and it worked as a natural exfoliator, people were washing their hair in it and everything! I mainly used it to get rid of some of my peeling skin from the sunburn lol! My skin was so soft afterwards.
We then headed to another lake, this lake was about a 45 minute walk from the beach, I nearly fell down the sand dune on the way to it… And to help I was last so everyone nearly saw me do it haha 😂 the water had small fish in it, if you can remember them shops that had the fish spas in them, where they eat the dead skin off of your feet… Well this lake was full of them… It felt so strange at first sitting in the shallow end and letting the fish nibble to bottoms of my feet, felt like I was being tickled! But afterwards they felt so smooth! What a strange sensation haha!
After we left the lake we headed to camp and I had a 10 minute drive back to camp… The drive was great fun! I got to drive on the beach, but there are so many rules and regulations, drive to the left, stick to the speed limits, plus I had to keep an eye on the leader in front as he signalled what gear to go in to help me drive through he soft sand! It was tough at first as I was scared I was going to get stuck!
The camp was small, a tent with tables in it to eat at, a portable toilet and about 8 tents, which were divided up 3-4 people in a tent. As I was at the back I was last to get a mat and had last dibs on which tent to go in. Luckily 3 German girls still had some space so I asked if I could go in with them… If not then the dingos would eat me for sleeping outside haha.
Later on after checking in the cool boxes, alL of the ice had melted, and by burgers were floating around in the box… Thank god they were in a sealed package, felt a little sorry for my cheese and lettuce, they looked a little worse for ware. I cooked my burgers and made my lunch for the next day.. So prepared! Some of us headed down to the beach and looked for shooting stars, then headed back to camp when we spotted a dingo walking towards us… We had been told to not react to them and calmly walk away… Not the case for me as I was sitting down, I quickly bolted up and huddled to the back of the group.. They look just like dogs but you have to remember they are wild and are really vicious! Plus at night we had to make sure that all of our food was locked up as they are scavengers!
Everyone was playing drinking games, and the tour guides friend turned up with a guitar and we sang a few songs, which was nice, I was the first to go to bed at 9.30pm, I was shattered after the lack of sleep and being up at the crack of dawn, I had to check the tent for bugs and try and get the sand off of my feet before getting into my sleeping bag! I could still hear people talking about 12.30/1am… They were so loud, plus it was one of the annoying girls who was in my car earlier in the day… She’s travelling with her boyfriend, she was an absolute pain in the arse and had an opinion on everything, later that evening she was so loud when she was drunk.. I just hoped that the following day she wasn’t in the same car as me otherwise I would have asked to swap, couldn’t stand to be near her any longer.. 😒
The next morning we were up at 7am, the tour guide ‘Damo’ asked me if I wanted to drive as I mentioned that I only drank 3 small cans of cider the previous night and most other people had a skin full. I jumped at the chance as I loved it the day before. After breakfast I drove for about an hour to the other side of the island, the drive was tough as the soft sand was so hard to drive through! We drove to the ‘champagne pool’ this was a pool right near he ocean that the sea water would work its way into, it was so warm, and full of fish what had worked there way in and couldn’t get out.. Poor things, but it was so cool swimming in there and being surrounded by them! 😍
After the champagne showers we headed to the Indian rock.. Well I think that’s what it was called, we climbed up the top and could see right out into the ocean, I saw a couple of manta rays, dolphins and turtles, so awesome. After the Indian rock we headed about 20 minutes down the beach to maheno shipwreck, in 1936 this ship landed on the island and is still there to this day, but it was about a quarter of the size it use to be as the sand had engulfed most of it! We managed to get a really good group photo! 😊
We then headed to a campsite for lunch, we could buy ice from there to pop in the cool boxes as most of the stuff was still floating around in there. I was starting to get worried about my burgers as they were for my dinner and I didn’t really want to cook meat that has been warm all day in a wet cool box. I asked some of my group about buying some ice to pop in there as we all had meat in there, but that girl piped up saying ‘I don’t see the point, they’ve been warm all morning’ it was like midday, at least they would get 6 hours of being cold before I ate it, she said something else bitchy, but I tried to blank her out… Fucking arse hole. Everyone then jumped in the car and pretty much said don’t get ice… Annoyed me a bit as I’m not a big fan of eating warm meat, especially as it’s been floating around in warm water all morning… 😒😡 so I just took my burgers out and put them in the cool box of another car.. Lol.
We then headed to creek about 15 minutes down the beach, this fresh water creek was self flowing, we all walked to the other end, jumped in and it carried us right out to the beach, I wish I had a rubber ring as some people did, it looked so cool just floating along!
After the creek we headed back to camp, I cooked my chilled burgers while they ate their soggy shit. 😂
Everyone was drinking this evening and playing drinking games, I spent the evening updating this diary and headed to bed about 10pm, not sure what’s wrong with me these past couple of days, I’m always sociable and always love mixing with other people, but not really with anyone in this group. Half of them can’t talk much English, the couples don’t mix much and I’m not going to be sociable with that girl, just something about her… Wow I sound like such a miserable arsehole. It’s a shame, I’ve had such a lovely trip and seen some amazing sites, but people always say it’s the group that your with that makes the experience even better, especially on these tours, think I’ve just been unlucky and not got the best of groups, maybe another group would have been better, maybe with a lot more solo travellers, I find most people to be clicky, and it’s really got to me these past couple of days, it’s made me miss home 😔
So once I get back to the hostel I need to Sike myself up again, miserable Charlotte needs to disappear! Plus I need to look forward to my next adventure, I’m heading to Agnes Water and going on a ‘survivor trip’, I just hope I have a better group of people to spend it with this time.
charlottesbackpackadventure 