Fraser Island Day 1
Up at 5:30 AM, packed, and shuttle arrived at 630 AM for pickup. The Drop bear Adventures tour has a capacity of 30 people, though mine is small and has only 12 of us in total. Once we picked everyone up, we went back to the main office to sign a waver and watch a safety video. And instead of have 4 cars tag a long, there was only two, the lead car which our guide Luke drove, and the other car behind. And I snagged the front seat of the lead car. We drove 2 hours to Rainbow beach, seeing wild kangaroos on the side of the street, and then arrived at the service station in Rainbow to fill up gas and take air out of the tires to prepare for driving on the soft island sand. Then we drove to the water, hopped onto the barge with the cars at Inskip point, and in 15 minutes, we had arrived to Fraser! The water is so extremely blue and the sand so white, I knew in this moment I had made the right decision.
Also, another island I want to visit on this trip is the Whitsundays, though once again, I didn't realize that you have to typically do a tour to get there. So last night, when talking with Claire, I decided the tour and the transportation would cost too much so I would skip out on Whitsundays for this trip. But then I met two girls on my tour that were taking the overnight Premier bus to Airlie beach when we arrive back to Rainbow beach on Wednesday, so I did some searching online before the signal was cut out on the island. The Premier bus would cost me $107 AUD with the backpackers discount to take me to Airlie beach, whereas the Greyhound would have been $200, so this was already looking better. Then I called Drop Bear Adventures and they provided me with a 2 day 1 night Whitsundays and Whitehaven beach tour with a 10% discount, total coming out to be $269 AUD. Although this seemed like way more money than I was planning on spending, I knew I wouldn't regret doing the tour, and besides, I don't know when I will have the opportunity to do this again. So I sent my credit info over and booked my tour, leaving Wednesday night on the overnight bus, woohoo for spontaneity!
Anyways, we arrived on Fraser Island and drove the cars quite a ways up towards our campsite. Although it is called Fraser Island, the beach itself is called Gary beach, and there is a lot of history behind it. The whole land is very sacred and so upon our arrival, Luke had us stop for a welcome call. We stood in a circle, filled our palms with sand, and as we rubbed them together we said "What is good for the land comes first. If you have plenty, you must share. And if it is not yours, respect it, do not touch it." This is what the aboriginals, the native people of the island, lived by. This island also contains the purest drinking water in the world as it filters thru the sand for 150-200 years before coming up in the form of streams and creeks.
We arrived at camp, and I was highly impressed. There was an actual bathroom for us plus a shower and a whole kitchen area where we met Huey and Luke, our volunteers for the trip. They prepared some lunch for us, which were wraps with heaps of veggies inside. Oh and the sauce station was epic. Then we put on our swimsuits, drove about 5 minutes up the sand, hiked about 45 minutes thru big trees and sand dunes, and then we arrived at Lake Wabby. Not only is it surrounded by sand, but the sand is different colors from red to tan and even white. The white sand is silica sand and is the most pure, being used for scrubs and exfoliators. And the lake is literally in the middle of it all and is as green as you can imagine with catfish swimming around under the water.
I dove right in and played around, splashing the others and laughing together. And once I decided to lay down for a bit, I immediately fell asleep, even with all the local bees flying all around (they are super tiny and do not sting or bite, but they're just annoying). I'm not sure how long I was napping for but when I was woken up, everyone was laughing and my new name was koala bear, go figure! We hiked back 45 minutes to the cars, drove back to camp, took our showers, and prepared for dinner.
Another delicious meal by Huey and Luke, I chowed on some mushrooms, zucchini, potatoes with vegan butter, green beans, corn, and grilled onion, YUM! I think I had three rounds of it, I just couldn't get enough. Sunset was around 5:30, 6:00 PM, and the stars were out to play. We went to the beach for some stargazing and we could see the Souther Cross, which is only seen in Australia! Plus I saw three shooting stars and the beautiful sliver of the new moon. It was breathtaking and we together located other star configurations for about an hour before getting chilly and heading back to camp. We sipped on some wine, played some cards, and at about 9:00 PM, we got into our tents and went to sleep. Since we are such a small tour group, we each had our own tent, and Drop Bear Adventures provided the sleeping bag and linens for us. I snuggled up and passed right out.
