on an island in the sun...

ok, first off, i hope this posts ok. For some crazy reason the blogger site and pages are in some sort of asian characters so i can't read them and am just going off obvious points and memory to post this. luckily when i type it's in english!
so the final days in Bundaburg were very fun. Spent lots of time with Charlotte, Phil and Liisa, doing the usual Uno games and going to Central Pub. Excessive amounts of picutres were taken (184 to be exact) on our last night out and all of them are of us making silly faces. I'll post them as soon as i can for everyone to have a laugh. Our last night was a tame one despite it being a Saturday. We stayed in and watched a movie with the crew. Woke to a complete downpour which only made me feel even better about leaving the place. We went to the bus station with a cooler bag full of oranges/mandrins and wet laundry and were off to Hervey Bay.
Hervey Bay was our take off point for Fraser Island. Again, not a booming metropolis. More... Florida-esque retirement village. But a lovely spot to spend 24-ish hours. We went for a walk on the beach and attempted to socialize with those that might be on our Fraser trip.... but even the backpackers was a bit dead. It was all good, because we had to be up at 5:45 to get ourselves ready for a 6:30 take off.
We met up in the bistro and were put into groups of 10 for the self guided (yep, all on our own) 4 wheel excursion to Fraser. For those who dont' know Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island with the massive population of 100 people. It's 123 m long (184 000 hectares) and has dunes as high as 200m. Crazy!
Right... so back to our group. We faired rather well when it came to those in our group we had 5 people from England (Verity, Rachel, Ryan, Katie and grrr. Phil), Celine from Switzerland and Dirk and Fabian from Germany. Our first mission as a group at that hour was to plan our menu for the next 3 days. Despite the fact that everyone (aside from Phil) was not fussed about much of anything and we bascially went with the suggested menu, it was somewhat of a challange to get done. Marcy and i offered to be the shoppers and Fabian got the job of driving first. So while marcy and i are rushed off to have 40 mintues to get enough food for 10 people for 3 days the rest of the crew delt with getting teh 4x4 and the gear all organized. I have never really purchase in bulk before, let alone on a budget of $20/person. It's somewhat of a challange- especially when you dont' know the rest of them and aren't sure how much the guys will eat. But we made out rather well and even were able to give everyone back $1.
Off we went to the ferry which was 45 min. Some people saw dolphins, but (this is a surprise) was talking to our new friends and missed out on that. We traveled a very bumpy and sandy road to the "road way" which is the beach. It's hilarious to see big transport trucks go up and down the beach treating it like a highway. It's also used as a landing strip for airplanes. Seems so out of place, but very amusing.
We made a quick lunch as we had 4 stops planned for that day. Unfortunately, Phil decided that we'd just skip over the first (and the most important) of the day. THe rest of us were unaware of this fact until we had passed it and were all.... well, angry. We contiuned with 2 thru 4 and had a bunch of time left over so went back to number 1. Turns out the reason we had so much time was that it was a 2 hr hike to a beautiful lake that meets up with a high sand dune. And we missed it. This became the first of Phils many errors. But we did see a ship wreck, Eli creek and the Pinacles, which are pretty colorful sandstone cliffs.
I even drove (quite a bit actually) and it was SO fun. it's hard in the soft sand because you feel out of control and the 4x4 is a bit top heavy, but it was great fun! bouncing over creeks and down the beach. Loved it!
I will have to continue on about the camp and days 2 and 3 a bit later on.... internet time is up.... so, TO BE CONTINUED... :) XO