Ok, my previous despondent attitude swiftly passed - I met most of my group at the briefing, they are Ollie and Ellen from England (Ollie has a Master's in Physics from Warwick, and graduated the same year as my friend Chris Ridler, I am determined to prove that they know each other, even if he isn't. Ellen is a small blonde girl about to go to law school, who has a surprising liking for rock and metal, I am to find out over the next few days), Jo and JK from South Korea, and Brian the Irishman. The briefing involved watching two videos, one on Fraser Island specifically and one on 4WD driving, mainly involving how not to get stuck in the sand and how to avoid wild Dingoes. Matteo, Manuel and Stephania from Italy (all on the same internship thingy in Melbourne) turned up later, just in time for our shopping trip. We were given a shopping list on which to base our shop, and in the end we followed it pretty precisely. In the end we spent $17 each on food for three days, which isn't bad. While we were shopping the other two members of our group turned up, Pablo and Seppi from Germany, who had met a week or so ago in Byron Bay. We got back, played some pool and ping-pong, most of us had dinner together, and then we sorted out the booze order - we ended up with 90 beers and 16 litres of wine between the 11 of us. I think this'll be a good trip.
Day 208 (Saturday 10th) - Late Start
We were all meant to be packed and out of the hostel early, to be at the 4x4 hire place by 7:45. For some reason we ended up being late, a fact that Bluey, the chap at the garage, made sure we were fully aware of. He gave us a quick run down of what we had to do, where we had to go, and what would lose us our $1000 deposit - most things would do this, it seems. Eventually we were underway, getting the barge across to the Island, and immediately screwing up - instead of getting the inland track through to our first stop, we followed the other vehicles and went tearing along the beach, with only 45 minutes before high tide meant we could no longer drive on the beach (driving through salt water: $1000 fine). Due to one unusually strong wave we ended up driving through salt water, and spraying it all over the car. I'm sure it'll rinse off before we get to the mainland though, no worries.
Ellen put herself in charge of music, for the entire journey in fact, and knocked up an awesome playlist as we went - some 180 songs were on there by the time we went to bed, and pleasingly rock-heavy. We drove to Lake Birrabeen for a swim - it was odd swimming in a freshwater lake with sandy beaches and crystal water, after only swimming in the sea for months. Odd but awesome. We stopped at Central Station (nothing but a picnic ground) for lunch, then did a 3km walk via Wonggoolba Creek to Basin Lake, a small oval lake with even clearer, fresher water than at Birrabeen. I tested out the waterproofness of my new camera, with reasonable success, then we mostly lay down, dozed and sunbathed - apparently I was snoring, to my shame. We were back at the Central Station campground by 4ish, and despite the advice of the video we seemed to have no booking. After driving round for a while pondering this we decided it didn't matter, and managed to get the tents up, dinner on and beers open in rapid succession. The Italians knocked up and awesome pasta dinner, before drinking games ensued. We started with the ever-dangerous Ring Of Fire, then a bit of Hi-Lo and Horse Racing (one I had never encountered before, and an awesome one too). All this made for stunningly efficient wastedness, with constant exclamations along the lines of "Sod off, it's much later than half seven!" and so on. A few people from next door came over too, although not much is remembered about them. Being the hardcore folk that we are, I think we were all fast asleep by half past 10.
Day 209 (Sunday 11th) - Wet Start
I awoke to find my sleeping bag soaked, as Pablo, Seppi and I had failed to do up our tent when we went to bed and it had started to rain torrentially. There were puddles in there. Also we found that we had demolished 86 of the beers last night, as well as 6 litres of goon, resulting in hangovers across the board. All this meant delays, so we didn't get underway until quite late as noone wanted to pack up while it was still raining. Eventually got off to Lake Mackenzie, with sporadic rain along the way. Even though it was raining, it was still incredible - huge, with crystal clear fresh water, and incredible sandy beaches fringing the whole thing. Brian and I ran straight in, as it was warmer in the water than out. Eventually we persuaded everyone else in, and we started playing Frisbee with the group from next door at the campsite - a few of them came up and chatted to me, referring to conversations we had had the previous night, none of which I really recalled, which was awkward. Another Frisbee and a rugby ball were produced, and all three were thrown at once - inevitably this resulted in some kind of contact sport evolving, led primarily by the Italians.
We headed to Eurong, the main 'town' on the island for lunch - the shopping list we had been given was somewhat inadequate, as we were already entirely out of bread and cheese after two meals. We had to wait for the tide to go out, then headed up to Eli creek, where we succeeded in getting bogged in the sand - this was fairly easily sorted out, but just worrying enough to be exciting. Next stop was the wreck of the S.S. Mereno , a former luxury cruise lined that ran aground here in 1935 and is now a huge mass of rust. Time was getting on, so we drove up the beach intending to get as far north as we could before setting up camp on the beach. We drove for ages, getting more and more concerned by the many No Camping signs we saw, until at almost 5 o'clock (it gets dark before 6, so we were rapidly running out of daylight) we found a site and swerved in sharpish. There was a minor altercation about tarp placement between team Matt and team Brian - Pablo and I had one idea, whereas Brian had quite another, and a wierd sort of not-argument occurred, with Brian and I trying to seem nonchalant when really we were both getting annoyed about the situation. a compromise was reached, and we quickly set about the business of dinner - on Charlie from the hostel's advice, we had bought a load of mince and eggs instead of burgers, and I started mixing these together by hand in a bowl. This was immensely satisfying and a little gross at the same time, and resulted in an awesome feed. There were no drinking games this time, just cups of goon at everyone's own pace. I went down to the beach with a few people, mainly Pablo & Matteo, where we watched the stars and drank the last four beers. I saw quite a few shooting stars, which was awesome, and had a chat with Pablo about group dynamics. He was saying how everyone always goes in a certain pattern on group trips like this, all awkwardness quickly passes, then everyone finds their place and everything gets done a whole lot quicker and easier - referred to the "bad vibes" situation with me and Brian earlier - apparently I am some sort of leader (Pablo thought I worked at the hostel when he first met me, as I was asking him for money for the food, and also organising the booze) and Brian was labelled as "the Don", as everyone seems to go to him or me with questions about what we're doing next, assuming a plan has been made. While all this was going on, a lone Dingo was spotted roaming between us and the tents. We raised the alarm and ran over, and immediately disobeyed the instructions given to us by the video (stay still, fold your arms, wait for it to leave) and Bluey (scare it off quickly). Instead we stealthily approached, cameras in hand, and snapped a few photos of it before it wandered off. He came back a few times that night and snuffled around, which was pretty cool - he would just appear between two of the tents, only a couple of metres away, then disappear again for a while.
Day 210 (Monday 12th) - Early Start
Today we were up in time to see dawn over the ocean, which was Stephania's idea - we looked east an saw an awesome daybreak, looked west and there was a rainbow forming over the top of the dunes - an awesome start to our last day on Fraser. We packed quickly and headed up to Indian head, where apparently one can occasionally see sharks in the water - we saw no such thing, but it was an awesome spot anyway. Ollie and I got a touch lost on the return to the car, then we went back down the beach with Seppi driving. The video had advised us to stop as each creek, get out and walk across it, as they can be deeper than you think and it's easy to get stuck. Seppi's approach was more one of Seppi vs. Creek. He hardly slowed at all, and seldom informed us when there was one coming. We would only find out as we bounced around the back of the car, jarring our spines and smashing into one another. To be honest, this was all a hell of a lot of fun, so I didn't object too much. The best bit was that the whole time all we could see was Seppi's face in the rear-view mirror, wearing aviators and an ever-so-slight contented smirk.
We stopped at The Pinnacles and Red Canyon, both of which are awesome sand formations, bright yellow and deep red respectively. By 9 we had made it to Dundubara campsite, where we decided that, due to time and provisions running low, we would BBQ all our remaining sausages and have brunch here, thereby meaning we didn't need to make any more stops apart from to see cool stuff. We were meant to stop at Lake Wabby, the deepest lake on the island, which has a sand dune encroaching into it which you can run down straight into the water, but unfortunately due to tide times we couldn't really manage it, so instead we decided to skip it and drive to Lake Boomanjin, which is a wierd tea-like colour, due to organic matter being leached out as it decays. It was really wierd swimming in it, as it was hard to shake the idea that it was a bit grubby, even though it was actually really clean and clear, just a bit brown. The Frisbee came out again, and an even more violent spate of contact Frisbee swiftly began, with everyone - even the somewhat reserved Koreans - joining in. Time got the better of us again, and Stephania drove us down the beach, wary of the ever-encroaching tide (we were already half an hour past our safety margin on the tides - fine for driving on the beach outside given times: $1000). We found the inland track to the barge landing with minutes to spare - the surf stopped only two or three metres short of where we were driving. The main track turned out to be the most horrible on the island - hard packed sand and gravel, really bumpy and generally unpleasant, either as a driver or passenger. After an hour of this horrible vibration, we ended up at the barge an hour before the last possible one went, about which we were pretty pleased. We got the thing back to the hostel, returned it to Bluey (he asked if we'd named it, we told him "The Incredible Rock Slut" was our chosen name, and he rejected it for being too long. Bastard) and managed to avoid any $1000 fines for anything, which was a relief.
We decided that it was easier and more fun to have dinner together again, which turned out to be a massive undertaking - 7 of us went to the supermarket, got supplies (Pablo and I took charge this time, and it worked out at only $4, not bad for the amount of food we had) and then came back and started cooking. We ended up using four of the 6 gas rings in the place, with Matteo's job being to immediately commandeer each one with a pan of pasta as it became free. An enormous amount of mince, onions, peppers, garlic, chilies and tomatoes went in, and with the tomato sauce too we probably had well in excess of 4 kilos of ragu, as well as a similar amount of pasta - not bad for 11 people. Oh, and Seppi knocked up a salad with all our remaining vegetables, cheese and ham as well. Astonishingly, we finished the lot (which pleased me, as Brian and I had had a difference of opinions in the supermarket about how much to get - he thought I was getting was too much), and even the Italians said it was good and had second & third helpings. We spent the rest of the evening playing pool and chatting, eventually having to move out by the pool as the bar closed - when this happened Pablo and I generously went and bought 18 beers for everyone, of which I think 4 or 5 got drunk. Oh well, there's always tomorrow night - I think everyone except Pablo, Seppi, Brian and I will have left by then, which is a pity. Oh well, we still have enough for a quiz team - Tuesday night is quiz night at Fraser's.
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