A camping we will go

It's been sunny ever since Surfer's Paradise and the rainy days from Byron were quickly forgotten. Arriving in Noosa, we didn't realize it was Anzac day, a day honoring casualties among Aussie and Kiwi soldiers in WWI. As it turned out, all cheap hostels were fully booked by the time we arrived. Eventually, we ended up in a nice motel apartment, which was way over our normal budget. Oh well, we need to pamper ourselves from time to time :) Luckily, we did find a cheap hostel for the remaining two days we would spend in Noosa.

With the great weather in Noosa, we kept surfing two days in a row, although I still suck immensely I got the feeling I'm getting the hang of things and was able to catch a few waves at the end of the second day.

After our surfing sessions, we went on a canoe trip in the bush for 3 days, in an area called the Noosa Everglades. Basically, they put you in a canoe, give you some camping gear, a map and dump you in the river. There was a camping site about 1-2 hours peddling down the river, where we spend both of our nights. There wasn't that much to do around the place, since there's no electricity and we weren't allowed to get a camp fire going.

Scenery wise it wasn't that interesting either, especially if you're used to the views from New Zealand. Erwin and me did have a good time though, tagging along four English blokes: Dan, Elliot, Tim and Tom and had our laughs with a full scale toothbrush competition and jumping around the beach like morons.

Back from the Everglades, we took the bus to Hervey Bay. We had a Nazi bus driver on his period, who ruled his bus with an iron fist. He scared the shit out of me, but got us there in time so I didn't mind him being so mean.

At Hervey Bay we met up with Chantal (from Kaikoura) and her friend Dominique. From Hervey Bay the four of us are going on a 3 day camping trip on Fraser Island, world's largest sand island. We were grouped together with two other Irish guys and two Frenchies, making the eight of us Team Two. That evening we got to know each other a little and were filled in on what we're supposed to be doing on the Fraser. Basically, as a group you bring food, camping gear and booze and self drive a 4WD across the island, camping at different locations each night and have fun along the way.

The next day, we were ready and excited to go and took the 4WD up the ferry to Fraser Island. The plan for that day was to drive inland for a while till we hit the east coast and do some sightseeing along the way. When we arrive at the coast, we drive along the beach up north to our camp site to set up the tents and have dinner.

The first of our problems started, when we realized we forgot the cheese and ham at the hostel. We had some real good mayonnaise and ketchup sandwiches (with salt and butter for extra taste) for lunch and spent the afternoon at Lake McKenzie. Supposedly, the lake is so clean you can drink from it and to be honest the water tasted pretty damn good. Anyway, the picture on the left shows our group at the lake. Going from left to right, we have: Fabrize, Simon, Peter, Me, Erwin, Dominique, Donal and Chantal.

As I said, the ham-and-cheese-thing was the first of our problems. Not long after leaving Lake McKenzie, we got stuck in the soft sand for the first time. We managed to push the car out quite easily though and were on our way to our first camp site with a bit of a delay. We were a bit worried however, as the car didn't handle itself as well as we thought it would. Chantal took the wheel and drove us enthusiastically through sandy pathways towards the beach, shouting "Aaaahhh, the car's not responding, ooooh, the car's not steering!" which made me put on the seatbelt a bit tighter than was needed :). We got stuck once more, right after we changed driver and after some more pushing we finally reached the beach.

We drove on the beach for quite some time till we got stuck once more, but this time we got stuck good. It was already getting late and we were running behind on schedule. Normally, we couldn't care less about the time, but it's a bit of a pain in the ass setting up the tents and cooking in the dark. But even more importantly, the tide was coming in. The beaches are only accessible for a certain amount of time, when the tide's not at its highest. Since we were running behind schedule, we were pushing it a bit and we saw the beach getting narrower and narrower. Luckily, some helpful people pulled us out with their 4WD and had a look at our car. According to them, our 4WD wasn't working and we've been driving in 2WD mode all the way till this point. It made sense we got stuck all the time.

We were sent to a mechanic who lived along the beach near where we were stranded. Now, I've met some weird people in my live, but this guy is certainly in the top 5. The guy lived in some run down shack, the yard was filled with broken cars and two dingo's were walking around the premises, which we think he kept as pets. The first thing he said (I couldn't actually understand his accent or what he was saying to be 100% sure): "You lot've come at a bad time. I'm grogged, it hasn't been this bad in years". He was standing there: bare feet, beer in his hand, dirty sweater, messed up hair and generally the looks of a drug addicted bum. Later on we heard, the crazy mechanic, already lives on that island for 25 years and is drunk about 24/7. They just use him, because he's dirt cheap (they pay him in beer or he forgets he ever did anything).

Anyway, he crawled under the car with a screwdriver, banged around a bit, crawled back up and stated the car was fixed. It was a temporary fix though, but would get us home. When asked if we could safely drive with it and whether it could break down again, he gave us some cryptic answer about planes being able to drive on the beach as well, but of course they have propellers (yes of course, why didn't I think of that). Well, we decided to take our chances, worst case 4WD breaks down and we'll just get stuck somewhere again. We were running behind schedule and couldn't make our way up to the camp site up north, because of high tide. So we changed camp site and would sleep at the site where we would have slept the next day and sleep at the site tomorrow where we supposed to be today.

With the 4WD fixed, driving was a lot easier and it made sensed we got stuck all of the time without the 4WD. We got to the camp site and finished setting up the tents just before dark. We cooked some pasta, had some beers and went to bed at a decent time.

The next day we did a bunch of sightseeing along the coast and ended up at our second camp site without much problems. That site was actually a lot nicer, as it had barbecue facilities, a lot more spacious, a ring fire and *yay* showers! We had a delicious dinner with the barby that night and sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows afterwards. We ended the night looking at the stars that night. It's just so amazing how many stars you can see over there.

I woke up early to catch the sunrise and was glad I went up going, as it was cold and dark when I woke up. We visited some other sights the next day and headed back to the ferry to get back to the mainland. Back at the hostel we were greeted by ham-and-cheese, which we gratefully binged on.

All in all, the problems we had, made everything more adventurous and turned out for the better anyway. I had a great time over there and am looking forward to all the other stuff we booked. The next few days are probably going to be a bit more relaxing and we have a sail trip planned in about a week. I'll just wrap it up with a bunch of pics of Noosa and Fraser. We made a shitload of great pictures, just too many to put on here. So check out Erwin's Picasa-thingie if you want to see them all. We have some funny movies as well, but you'll have to wait for those a bit longer. They're worth it though, promise :)

Our room in Noosa, every hostel should be like that.


Drinking with our roomies in Noosa


T-bone, the local drunk and village idiot, showing fancy dance moves

Toothbrush competition

Messy campsite at the Noosa Everglades

Everybody! Puuuuush! (wait a second, who's taking this picture?)


Lake McKenzie


Dominique: I hate sand
Erwin: I love how sand rubs in my swimming pants


Peter McDonald, the crazy Axekiller, uhm I mean Mechanic

Sandmen at Lake McKenzie


A shipwreck along the coast of Fraser Island


Go Dutchies!


Roasting marshmallows at night

Me and Nemo enjoying the sunrise


Partying in Hervey Bay