Sand, Sand, and More Sand

On Wednesday we woke up at the crack of dawn to prepare for our trip to Fraser Island. There is more sand on Fraser than the Saraha Desert. Rob and I were placed in a group with two Swedes, three Swiss, a German, a Norweigen, and an Italian so we had a great mix of people from all over.

The "A" Team

Wait wait wait, can you take one with my camera too?

The tour was a self guided tour meaning they give you food, tents, a map, and a really old Toyota 4x4 and send you on your way. Just before we left we found out about the costs that would befall us if we damaged the vehicle in any way. Lets just say that if anything happened to the truck we would all be coming home early because the repairs would have cleaned out our bank account. We heard a horror story about a group who took a corner too fast, rolled their truck, and had to pay $16,000 to have it repaired (4 days before we went out). So, we treated it like a million bucks and everything was fine.

Our sweet, but very expensive ride.

Driving on the beach.

Driving the truck was not an easy task. First, the steering wheel and shifter are on the right, there are no roads, just sand, and then throw in nine backseat drivers, and the fear of bankruptcy. Two of the girls sat in the front seat the entire time with their fingernails dug into the dash because they were terrified we were going to crash. I hit an ocean wave which put a damper on things for a while because everyone thought we were going to have to pay through the roof for salt water damage. One evening on the way to the camp site Rob almost rolled the truck becuase of the insane sideways slope on the trail in. That caused a few girls in the back to have heart attacks.

By the end of our three days we had had a great time but we were ready to leave. Not that it wasn't beautiful or the company nice. I just don't want to see sand again for a week. Everything I brought with me was covered in sand. Sand in my tent, sleeping bag, clothes, camera, my mouth. ahhhh. I think we are going to be spending some serious time indoors and away from our 5am wake up times in the furnace of a tent that we woke up to every morning.

During the day we drove around to a few beautiful fresh water lakes, a few look outs, and took pictures of dingoes when they weren't pilliging our camp site for food scraps. The Norweigen guy provided some comedy when both nights he stripped naked and went streaking through neigbouring camp sites.

Sunrise at our campsite.

Sand dunes in the almost desert we had to cross to get to Lake Wabi.

A shipwreck on the beach.

Thats right. We had to lug this pink suitcase around with us for three days. I think the bright colour might have scared off the dingos for a while though.

Fraser Island is the only place with pure wild dingoes. Here is one in all its glory.

A shot of Lake Mackenzie. It had the clearest water and the whitest sand I have ever seen.

The long walk to Lake Wabby. We forgot to bring water which really didn't help in the furnace like temperatures.

Lake Wabby. A small fresh water lake surrounded buy sand dunes and rain forest.