Going feral on Fraser

Camping is big in Oz and when I say big, I mean huge! These guys don’t pack their dome tent and camping stove into the back of the family saloon. They have a special camping car - an especially huge 4x4 with roof rack, trailer and trailer roof rack. They take their bikes, front room furniture, rugs, and even their garages camping. It’s true – people take their car ports with them to put their tents in. Some of the tents we saw were bigger than our apartment.

After our camping trip to Straddie, we were feeling a little inferior, having turned up without even a pair of barbeque tongs. So were very happy when Steve and Marie decided to join us for our camping extravaganza to Great Sandy National Park and Fraser Island.

Steve is not only Australian, but also has lots of family camping trips under his belt, so was in a good position to teach us a few things about roughing it down under.

The first rule is that you should always cover your camp with a very large tarpaulin. Putting up the tarp is a complicated and dangerous business which should only be attempted by boys. It usually takes 1 – 2 hours to fully erect a tarp and any contact with boys by errant girls during this time is severely frowned upon.

The positive side to this discrimination is that at 3am when it’s pouring down and the tarp is sagging ominously just above your head. It is the sole responsibility of the boys to avert disaster by running around in their pants getting covered in bucket loads of water.

Relaxing under the tarp….

We set up our first camp at Elanda Point, just north of Noosa in the Great Sandy National Park. The camp is surrounded by eucalypt forest and hoards of kangaroos. It is also next to a large lake, which is part of the Noosa River system and we spent a day exploring the lake and rivers in canoes.

It was really hard work, but the river was beautiful, especially further upstream where it became very narrow and still, creating amazing reflections in the inky black water.

We stopped for lunch at Harry’s hut camping ground and Steve took the job of keeping the Goannas away whilst we ate our lunch. As soon as we got back in the canoes to paddle back it started raining, and then pouring. There was something surreal about paddling away in the rain, but it kept us cool and we sped back to the camp, walking on the bottom of the lake some of the way and dragging the canoes when our arms got too tired…

The next morning we headed up to the top of the great sandy national park to get the barge across to Fraser Island.

Fraser is a huge sand island made famous by its population of genetically pure dingoes. It was named after Eliza Fraser who was shipwrecked on the island in the 1800s and rescued by the aborigines who lived their. To say thank you, the Australian government gave the island to the aborigines. Two years later, when they discovered valuable timber on the island they took it back – but it’s the thought that counts.. It’s now a world heritage site and seems to be completely protected from logging or development though I’m not sure what happened to the aborigines.

To get on the barge we had to drive across the beach and that was our first taste of Fraser driving and our first real use of our hired 4x4. There are no sealed roads on Fraser, apart from around the two small resorts, the rest of the roads are massively bumpy sand tracks or the beach at low tide, which is more like a motorway than a beach…

We drove off the ferry and immediately got bogged in the soft sand, which was quite embarrassing, especially as there were about 20 Aussies waiting to get on the barge all of whom started telling us what to do. We eventually got out and set off up the beach, considering it a learning curve…..

For the first three nights we stayed at a campsite in the centre of the island surrounded by massive rainforest. The place was beautiful. Every evening the cicadas were so loud that you had to stop your conversation or start shouting when they were in full swing.

Staghorn ferns at central station

The only drawback were the heaps of little ‘guests’ that we trying to get in the tent. Even when it’s on the other side of the mesh, sleeping with your head a few centimetres away from a potentially deadly spider is an interesting experience. Showering with a huntsman spider was a new one for me too, but I kept calm and found it a friendly shower buddy.

We spent a couple of days exploring a few of the islands freshwater lakes. Firstly, Lake Wabby, which is slowly being filled in by a huge sand blow.

The sand blow hits the lake a quite a steep angle creating the perfect setting for a spot of sandboarding.

Firstly Steve and Dave tried it sitting on the boards…

Which was fun….

But not nearly silly enough.

Standing was the way forward..

Well the way was certainly head first forward…

..and into the lake…

The afternoon resulted in only a few minor injuries; a bruised rib, sore back and a few scatches here and there, not that bad considering….

The next morning we visited the altogether more sensible Lake Mackenzie, where the water is absolutely clear and the lake a beautiful deep blue colour, the pure white sand having filtered the water.

Relaxing by the lake

Our next camp was further north at Waddy Point. The drive there along the beach was stunning, taking in lots of beach action, some fantastic coloured cliffs and the wreck of a Japanese luxury cruise ship, the Maheno, which is slowly rusting away surrounded by tourists like us, taking its photo.

Checking the map with the 4x4s…

Going feral is a big thing on Fraser. If you’re going to do it properly this means limited washing and eating whatever comes your way. And so, as well as not showering very often, the boys decided they needed to do the wild thing and catch them some fish.

Here is Matthew doing his hunter gathering thang on a big beach…

After around 5 hours the boys returned with dinner and a feast was had by all….

The journey home was a race against the clock with the high tide being unreasonably at 9am, not allowing us to start our journey home until at least 11am, still Matthew and Steve drove like tigers and we got back onto the ferry in one piece, stopping to say hi to a dingo, chilling on the beach.

Surfing and squid on Straddie

Continuing the extreme sporting theme we returned to Straddie for a few days after New Year for some surfing action.

We camped just behind Cylinder beach in a perfect location. Perfect apart from the ranger, who made us move our entire tent because our guy ropes were two inches over the ‘orange line’. Still it’s good to see crazy bureaucracy alive and well on a beautiful sand island.

Our surf teacher Murray, met us at 7 in the morning and taught us the basics of how to stand up on a surf board, we then went out on our enormous soft boards and put into practise our new skills. We don’t have any photos unfortunately as we were all strutting our stuff, but we all managed to stand up at least once and we all also put together some spectacular wipe outs.

Matt got stung by a bluebottle on the first morning and I did the second day but the excitement of surfing was too much to take us from the sea so we carried on just a bit more nervous of the little blue buggers.

The island is absolutely beautiful and the water amazingly clear, on a quick walk around the cliffs we saw leopard sharks, dolphins, turtles and these huge Manta rays with wing spans of way over a metre…

Yet again, we ate magnificently. On the first night we found a guy selling king prawns which we cooked on the Barbie with sweet potato roasted in a fire built by caveman Brown..

But it was the second night we surpassed ourselves with freshly caught squid marinated in lime and chilli and barbequed.

We got so excited by this that we may have had a little more to drink than expected….

Still nothing to stop us from getting up for surfing in the morning….

Happy New Year!

Gerry arrived from the UK on the 29^th December. We picked her up from the airport at 6.30am and quickly made her go walking and then play tennis to stop the jet lag from kicking in.

We also went over to Steve and Marie’s to make food for New Year and to test out their new pool!

On New Year’s Eve, the South Bank in Brisbane becomes one big party zone so we invited everyone we know in Australia ( and some people we didn’t know to make up the numbers) to come over to our flat to enjoy the party and watch the fireworks over the river.

We had a great night, the cocktail were flowing and the food was fantastic ( thanks to Marie…)

This is me with some new friends in the under 18’s disco we accidentally wandered into…

The fireworks were spectacular….

David on the balcony seeing the New Year in Havana style…

The hardcore partiers….

This is Ben…

At around 3.30am, Ben suggested that we all go rock climbing the next day and, it being very late and all, we decided it was a splendid idea and arranged to meet him on kangaroo point cliffs the next day.

In the morning the idea of scaling a sheer rock face wasn’t quite so appealing but, being hardcore to the last, we tamed our hangovers with coffee, creamy desserts and a couple of beers and went to meet Ben, who was also feeling a little delicate but had set up a couple of climbs for us nonetheless.

Fearless Fingers Brown volunteered to go first and scuttled up the cliff and abseiled back down with no problems.

Dave followed suit and then Gerry, who managed to battle her vertigo to get more than half way up the cliff. I then had to try to forget my fear of heights as I started clambering up the cliff. I discovered that a fear of heights is not a problem with rock climbing as long as you just keep going up – its when you get to the top that’s the problem!! We had to abseil back down again which meant just leaning out into nothingness letting the rope hold you. It took about 5 minutes for them to talk me down when every part of my brain was screaming ‘don’t do that it’s silly’. Once they got me down though I was hooked and I wanted to go back for more!

Celebrating our new found extreme sports abilities with Lisa and Kevin, friends from Hull….