I guess he was just too immature and too clueless for me...I mean, I'll sit in the passenger seat and read a map for you, no problem...but PLEASE remember how to get back somewhere after we've been there three times! I mean, there's only one turn...how hard is it??? I should have known it wouldn't work when the first thing I had to do before we set out (super late, thanks to Steven) was clean a moldy cooler.
Anyway, Sara and I have been hanging out in Rainbow Beach for a few days looking for rides...no luck so far and after she got this text from a guy in Brisbane who is supposedly heading north, we decided to revise our plan. Here's the text. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. All she wanted to know was his name, his age and where he's from. The text came through in 4 parts.
"Hi my real name is dhaval, but my australian friend call me darren. I am 26 yr old male. I am from planet earth, at earth, on earth because I believe because there is no boundary created on earth at time of origin, still no boundaries for birds, water & breeze but we are most logical creation of god and we logically devided this world in countries. my main aim to travel around world to feel part of planet not creater of this planet. I hve been in australia since 1 & half year, staying in queensland, tell me something about you if you feel that i m not crazzy, by the way enjoy rainbow beach."Ooookay...We thought we'd tell him we're from Venus so probably not compatible travel buddies...Yikes! Sounds like a lunatic.
Anyway, yesterday we weighed our options...waiting for a ride, buying hop on/hop off Greyhound passes, renting a camper van. We decided to go with the camper van. It's slightly more expensive than the Greyhound but at least we can get out to see the national parks and all the beauty Australia has to offer.
So, to Crystal and Patty...I will be sleeping in a "van full of curtains."
We plan to get up to Cairns by the 20th. Sara will then spend a week with a WWOOFING family, I think, before she heads back to Berlin. I'll probably bum around the Cairns area for a few days before heading back to Perth.
So...Fraser Island was amazingly beautiful. It's the largest sand island in the world. It's just off the east coast of Queensland right near Rainbow Beach. I signed up, with Steven and Sara, for this self-drive safari. Basically the company that organizes it puts 9 to 11 people together in a giant 4WD Landcruiser, gives you some fairly detailed driving instructions, what to do if you get bogged, when to drive on the beach and when not to based on the tides, tells you what to do if you come across dingoes, etc., etc. Then he leads you to the vehicle ferry and send you on your way with your new big maybe-not-so-happy family for the next 3 days.
Our group was pretty good over all. I probably would have enjoyed a slightly older crowd...we had two 19 year old girls from Scotland, two 22 year old British guys, two 26 year old British girls, 20, 21, 22 year old German girls, 25 year old Belgian guy, and me. For the record, I have always found drinking games boring. Some of us were on the same page as far as getting up early to enjoy what we came there to see (mostly the German girls and me), and there is really a lot to see, so we needed an early start. But all in all it was okay, and we did see some absolutely beautiful landscape and a shipwrecked that washed ashore in 1935.
The dingoes stole some of our food the first night. They are sneaky animals and these dingoes are really not at all afraid of humans. One dingo crept in behind us in the dark as we were preparing dinner and stole the bag of wraps we needed for lunch the next day. So we had to improvise and ration out the bread for the next two days so we could have sandwiches instead for lunch the next day.
The government is working to keep these dingoes wild and enforces fines for feeding or attracting dingoes to your campsite by leaving food or food scraps around, but I think so many people come to Fraser Island every day that the dingoes are just very used to people.
Some of us were very fortunate the second day after our late start...we were supposed to go to a nice point called Indian Head where if you get there early enough you might see sharks (swimming in the water surrounding Fraser Island is not recommend due to sharks and strong undertows), whales, dolphins, dugongs (manatees), sea turtles or manta rays. We didn't get there early enough to see much and really didn't have much time to walk to the Champagne Pools which was another beautiful area recommended to see. We didn't even really know how to get to the Champagne Pools.
So I started asking around up top of Indian Head and stumbled across this Norwegian guy who said if I waited around just a bit his Australian brother-in-law would be up there and could probably tell us. So I waited, and the Aussie showed up. He told us it would take about 30-40 minutes but it would probably be a long hot walk. We thought about and decided we really didn't have the time because we had to leave Indian Head in about an hour and 20 minutes or so because of the tides...your car really can get washed out to sea if you're not careful.
But this nice Aussie guy, Mark, asked how many of us there were and offered to give us a ride over there in 2 groups if we wanted. Yes! Please! We weren't allowed to drive our vehicle that far per the rental agreement. So we piled in, and it turns out half of the people decided not to go, so it was just one trip. He zipped us right over there, and we passed Sara and Iris along the way. They had decided to head straight over there instead of going up to Indian Head. He said he'd pick them up after he dropped us off, and he did! It was great. We only had about a half an hour there, but at least we got to see it.
On the way back, Sara flagged down another Aussie in the parking lot who gave us 4 girls (the Germans and me) a ride back to our car. We really lucked out.
So, my memory card does have a virus. I got a new one for Fraser Island going forward, but all the pics from the west coast and when Crystal and Patty were here are stuck on the "sick" card. Once I get back to Perth, I'll try to have someone fix it up for me. Unfortunately I can't post any pics of Fraser right now because the computer I'm using at the hostel says if I plug any devices into the computer I will be fed to sharks!
I guess that's it for now...tomorrow I'll be in behind the wheel on the right side of a camper van driving on the left side of the road, but today...it's off to the beach.
