I’ve been putting off this post like a paper in college. How do I describe our trip to Fraser Island this past weekend without it reading like a report? Just bear with me people, and I promise not to take offense if you quit reading after the first paragraph…..
FRIDAY:
Jess and I were up and ready to go by 7:00 am as we had to be at the bus station by 8:00. Needless to say, we were both a little *ahem* under the weather from the Thanksgiving celebration the prior evening and after a lengthy wait at the ferry stop we stumbled into the bus stop sweating and out of breath at about 7:58…. Well, I was sweating – who knows if Jess even worked up the tiniest sense of fatigue. We were almost the last ones to jump on the tiny bus so we didn’t get to sit together – she was alone in the back while I was basically in the driver’s seat I was so close to the front. After about three hours we arrived in Rainbow Beach – a tiny oceanside town that runs a barge over to Fraser. We stopped for lunch, switched our bags from the bus to two 4×4’s and were off to get to the island. Our group included four young German high school exchange students, an older German couple, a couple from Taiwan, some girls from Thailand and some guys from Korea. We were split into two groups of 10; our group was Jess and me, two of the Korean boys and all the Germans. Right off the bat we were told to climb to the top of the barge for a chance to see some dolphins on the crossing but all we saw was water, water and more water. Don’t worry – this was a trend that continued throughout the weekend. Looks like I will have to make a trip to the Steve Irwin Zoo afterall……
After driving off the barge we took off on the sand highway in our 4×4s. You can’t swim in the ocean off Fraser as it is wildly shark infested but we did stop a few times to get some touristy tidbits along the way. First stop was to learn about pippies – a shellfish similar to a clam or oyster – they can be eaten raw, although they didn’t seem too appealing to me unlike others (our Taiwanese roommates went back to the beach on Saturday, dug up a half dozen and ate them raw in our room…. yummy). Later on we saw a baby dingo (“Don’t worry about taking pictures guys, you’ll see so many dingos this weekend you’ll be sick of them” direct quote from our tour guide Dean-o…. I bet you can’t guess how many dingos we saw) and then we pulled into the resort. I use the term “resort” loosly here as our resort felt more like summer camp – right down to the cafeteria. It was like Y camp with a bar and townies – yay! Our roomies were a young couple, Darren and Catherine – two sweet young kids practicing their English at University who strangely talked like they were deaf. They were also up and kickin’ every morning at about 5 am. I don’t know what it is but between our old Filipino roomie at Palace Backpackers and these two – I’m convinced asians are like the elderly and can only sleep in short spurts. Anyway…. we dropped our bags, changed into our togs (thats swimsuits in Australian) and were ready for our trip to Lake Wabby -
“Fun” fact: Lake Wabby is termed a barrage lake, which is formed by the damming action of a sandblow blocking the waters of a natural spring. Wabby is relatively close to the ocean side of the island and unlike the other lakes it supports several varieties of fish. It is also a good example of the sandblow phenomenon, gradually encroaching on the deep green waters of Wabby as the sandblow makes its gradual progress westward across the island.
We hiked a 1.8 km trail across the Hammerstone Sandblow to get to this lake and it was pretty rigorous. Half of the hike there was through forest while the other half was treading through soft, ankle deep sand over sandhill after sandhill. I was beat down – let me tell you. Walking through deep sand is a lot harder than it looks. I am such a whiner. Check out my photos on Flickr (I feel like I’m doing a paid placement here) and you can see the green waters of the lake – it was pretty warm and since the edge of the lake was a hill the tour guides suggested we all do a “crumbed sausage” and roll ourselves down the sand dune and into the water. Yeah…. I skipped that one – I had no desire to emulate anything crumbed or sausage-like. We took a different hike back and trucked on back to the resort for dinner. The cafeteria that evening was advertising “Mediterranean Night” – or as we called it at UND: Pasta Bar. I don’t know where they got their recipes, but the lasagne was seriously a noodle, ground beef, another noodle and a sprinkling of cheese. I would’ve skipped it even if it was veggie. The other offerings weren’t that bad and we overate anyway.
That night was spent in the Beach Bar with other travellers and a couple townies including one special gentleman with a handlebar moustache and a shirt that read “I lost the hair but kept the big dick” (sorry Grandma). He was a special treat. Uncle Tim, I think I could pick you up one of those if you’re so inclined. Jeez I am boring myself. Alright…… on to day two.
SATURDAY:
Rise and shine bright an early for continental breakfast in the cafeteria – Jess and I got our first taste of the infamous Vegemite on toast – words can’t really describe the intense saltiness. I don’t know if I’ll be back for round two on that one. The day was beautiful and we had it jam-packed with activities. First up was the Rainbow Gorge hike.
FF: As we learned throughout the trip, Fraser Island is so named for shipwreck victim Eliza Fraser. She and her husband were wrecked on the island and relied on the native Aboriginals to take care of them. Unfortunately, Eliza’s husband died and she blamed the Aboriginals. In fact – she blamed them so much she went all around the world spreading horrible stories about how evil they were. Well, people responded and Fraser Island became one huge Aboriginal massacre. In fact, there are no Aboriginals left on the island – the last remaining tribe was removed some twenty years ago because they “just couldn’t get along” with the other locals.
We hiked through the gorge and saw all the different colored sands- it was almost like being in the desert – and was pretty cool. Dad, you would’ve had a blast. After the gorge it was back on the sand highway to travel up to Indian Head. I don’t know what these guys did before “Finding Nemo” came out – because almost every story concerning the environment referenced that dang movie. For example – once we got to Indian Head we learned another FF:
Fraser Island is one of three islands off the coast of Eastern Australia with rock anchors such as Indian Head. The EAC (Eastern Australia Current) is a two-way highway carrying fish, marine life and sand up and down the coast. Without these three islands there would be no “speedbumps” for sand to hook on to and the sand would just keep on traveling up the coast – if this happened there would be no Great Barrier Reef. Cool, huh!
Unfortunately once we got to Indian Head it started raining – one of those freezing, sideways, needling rains that just sucks. We climbed to the top – all eager to see the sharks, turtles, stingrays and dolphins we were promised and after a half an hour we came away from Indian Head seeing one stinkin’ sting ray. When it was spotted the tour guides said “You know, Steve Irwin? Look in the water – that’s what killed him.” They really had a knack for words – who knows, maybe it was the language barrier. The rain stopped and the sun came out – we had lunch (super weird – it was a tupperware container with curry potato salad, lettuce with no dressing and some deli meat. Oh – and we got fruit cake for dessert – something I thought was only given as a joke or for punishment in the states at Christmas.) On the way back down the beach we stopped at The Cathedrals – a sacred place for Aboriginals.
FF: As Aboriginal legend has it – there was a young maiden that was promised to an fierce, old Aboriginal warrior. Before they were married, the young maiden would always go to the beach to play with her friend, the rainbow. After they were married, the warrior banned her from going to play with her friend because, you know, she wouldn’t have any time to play with all the cooking and cleaning she would be doing. One day the warrior was out hunting, or whatever warriors do and the girl finished her chores early. She figured she had enough time to slip down to the beach and play with the rainbow and be back before the warrior found out – but he came back early, and once he found her gone he flew into a rage and went down to the beach to catch her. He was so pissed he threw his boomarang at the maiden to kill her – (yeah – boomarangs were for hunting – not a game of frisbee for someone without any friends fyi) but the rainbow saw and at the last second jumped in front of the maiden to save her. Well, the rainbow shattered into a million pieces and the Aboriginals believe that is how all the colors got into the sands. I guess rotting vegetation, iron and minerals were just too obvious for them. Anyway – Aboriginal men are forbidden to travel any further up the island past the Cathedrals because of this legend.
Alright – back in the vehicles and on to the Maheno Shipwreck – thankfully it was getting a little warmer and we got out to take pictures. The ship seems pretty small now, but at in its heyday it rivaled the Titanic. The Maheno was a luxury cruise ship once upon a time – and was also comissioned as a hospital ship during the World Wars. In 1935 the Maheno was outdated and sold to Japan. A cyclone hit on the journey to Japan – the Maheno had been scrapped before the journey started and was being towed by another ship but the towline snapped and it came to rest on Fraser. Once the ship stood six stories high, but now all that is left is what you see in the photos. Definately a highlight of our trip.
After Maheno we visited Eli Creek – another of the island’s freshwater streams – with some of the clearest water I have ever seen. We had to walk up the creek in just our suits (yeah…… NIGHTMARE for me) and we floated down – pretty fun, but would’ve been better if the weather was better – it was pretty chilly.
While we were enjoying ourselves on Frasier – the rest of Australia was voting for a new Prime Minister. Their government works a bit different than ours – terms still run in four year increments, but someone in office can be in office for as long as they keep winning elections. Just think – we could have George W in office for the rest of our lives – or his. Also – if you choose not to vote, your vote automatically goes to the incumbant – something I am assuming gets more and more people to vote every year. They had quite a turnout and the challenger Kevin Rudd beat out the Prime Minister John Howard, a liberal party representative that has been the PM since 1995. For more info on Australian politics check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_2007 . All I can say is that the six weeks of campaigning was NOTHING like it is in the states – you hardly knew they were leading up to an election – there were probably less political commericals here than there is in the states right now, and we are a year away from our election. Crazy.
Alright – enough of this marathon….. I’ll end with part two tomorrow – if anyone is still reading this, that is – feedback in the comments is always appreciated. A few quick shoutouts – a BIG BIG thank you to Katie Nielson and my auntie Deb!!! Deb, I got your card yesterday and laughed so hard when I opened it and Gloria Estefan came screamin’ out – awesome!!! Thank you so much! Also, thanks to Katie for the best.package.ever!!! I loved every bit of it from the sunflower seeds to the confetti!! Oh – and your ranch dips made it through, whoo hoo!!!! I guess it’s the luck of the draw when it comes to the quarantine inspector. Thank you so much for the package – it made my day! Love to everyone else – my parents and brothers – and all my friends and family….. I’ll be back tomorrow – to finish the story.
