I've been getting to know the spare bedrooms rooms, floors Australia. I've feel shaken and stirred, and slightly obscured from every bump and bounce of the interstate. Anyhow, it's been a while and I apologize for that. My connection with the rest of civilization has been limited at best at certain points along my trip in Australia. I'm currently sitting within my hostel in the town of 1770. The town is named such to honor the fact that it was the second place in Australia to be landed upon by the Europeans. Like Surfers Paradise, the town was originally named something else, and was renamed to attract the attention of tourists. I think 1770 is a bit less catchy... but hey, that's just me. It is interesting however to think that this place was essentially settled just four years prior to our Declaration of Independence. Again, with the exception of a slow internet connection my ability to communicate with outside world is limited. My cell phone will only make "emergency calls only" so I apologize for not calling any of you back.
This past weekend I traveled Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. I arranged my trip through Palace Tours. It's a self-drive 4x4 company that groups about ten strangers together, gives them an hour to buy food for a camping trip, provides a beat up 4x4 SUV and lets them loose for three days and two nights. As you can imagine it's a trip that guaranteed to be memorable, and most definitely full of drama.
My group was composed of nine individuals. They represented various corners of Europe. The first person in my group was my Australian travel companion Helen. Next was an Irish couple named Richie and Leonne. Two Italians - Pepp and Stephon. Finally to wrap it up three Germans - Jan, Maximillion, and Manual. Pepp and Stephon were hilarious, and and Pepp turned out to be an outstanding cook! The Irish were extremely friendly and easy to get along with. The German boys however, would prove to be more difficult.
Day one was an early one as our check out was scheduled at 6:30 AM. I rose a bit earlier than to to call Grandpa & Grandma at 5:20 OZ time. After talking to my family and checking out, I headed over to the hostel common area for our trip briefing and group assignments. This was scheduled for 6:50 AM. One by one, people from all over the world filtered into the room. By the time everyone had arrived, it was like a scene from a war movie where everyone was awaiting their next mission assignments. Some sat eagerly awaiting the start of the mission, others appeared to be nervous or just perhaps just too hungover to properly focus. One person from that morning stands out in my mind. Immediately to the right of me sat "Toast Boy". A tall lanky lad, who held for pieces of gold brown toast and a squeeze bottle of honey. He stared off into the distance as if he were the only person left on the face of the planet. As he sat, he slowly proceeded to build a quadruple-decker honey sandwich. My only thought at that point in time was something along the lines of "please god, please don't let toast boy be in my group!"
At approximately 7:00 our "mission briefing" began. We were quickly informed about an safety waver and the provided an instructional video to watch. The video focused largely on common sense items such as 1) Do not feed or provoke the Dingos 2) Children are unpredictable, and caution should be taken when driving near them and finally, 3) the old adage of "Leave no Trace".
Immediately after our briefing our groups were assigned. Then we were let loose to the shed to pick up our 4x4. From the outside the truck appeared to be a bit sketchy, however I checked it out the mechanics and was pleased to see basic and major maintenance appeared to occur regularly. The vehicle was even freshly greased at all the points!
After the shed, we split we buy our food for the weekend. As I have a few NASCAR's under my belt, I knew trouble was around the corner. Nine friends can't agree what to buy for three days of camping, just imagine nine strangers from all over the world! Toss in a few cheapskates and here's' bound to be issues. Now I know you're all thinking that I was among the cheapies.... but seriously, I was not. Anyhow, the German lads were real penny pinchers. Oddly enough the were all about the expensive impractical food as well!? Some of the items they wanted were tim-tams (chocolate covered cookie biscuits), odd canned food, and various frozen goods. They also had picked up a super-saver magazine and argued over various specials that may save the group 10 cents. We had spent so much time fussing around with them and denying them of the random requests that we had essentially forget to buy what we really needed. Though, in the end, with a bit of rationing it all worked out.
We left the shop at about 10:20, giving us ten minutes to buy any alcohol we wanted for the weekend. Helen and I split a case of beer with Stephon and Pepp, and we also picked up a box of "Good." (Goon, is ay variety of boxed wine, it's just the nickname around here. Beer is expensive $42 for a case, while a 4 liters of wie is $10...you can see why its the backpacker's choice.) Once we were satisfied with our own selections we piled back in the land cruiser ad headed for the ferry to make our way over to Fraser Island.
The ferry ride took about an hour to make it over to the island. Once we were there, we drove the general store to reduce our tire pressure to 30 PSI for the sandy conditions and then hit the roads. We quickly learned that it was going to be a rough ride for all the passengers in the back of the land cruiser. But it was also going to be a heck of a lot of fun. The roads were one lane sand tracks cut deep into the islands forest. Every couple hundred yards or so, there was a small pull off to allow on coming traffic to pass. This was extremely challenging when driving up or down the extreme slopes. The interior roads reminded me of the small sandy backroads of Florida.
Our first stop was at Lake Wobby. We were advised to leave there by 3:30 PM. It was essential to leave there by the in order to make it our designated camping area by dusk, which would be around 5:00PM (Keep in mind it's winter here). Unfortunately for the group, we did not arrive to Lake Wobby until about 3:30 and we discovered that it was about a 1.5 return walk to the lake. We clearly did not have enough time to make all the way there. Naturally, this did not please the Germans at all. They immidately began to argue that we must venture to the lake, or redesign our itinerary so that they could see it. Their constant complaining and unwillingness to compramise with the others quickly began to annoy everyone within the group.
Eve so, we pressed on to our camp area and set up camp. We were based just off the shore of the east coast of the island. We were protected from the wind by a large sand dune that rose approximately 12 feet from the sea level and was covered in sea-grass and small trees. Additionally all four trucks were within shouting distance of one another which made the evening quite fun and social. Pepp cooked our group sausages and burgers. He also prepared cucumbers and mushrooms on the grill and they were delicious! I spent most of the evening on the beach with various members of each convoy. While we sat on the beach we could noticed dingos lurking in the background waiting for us to go to bed and steal our food and rubbish. the dingos had the look of a mid-sized domesticated dog and were golden in color. To be honest, they appeared harmless... however I was not about to test that theory out. On several occasions, the wild dogs quietly worked their way within several feet of us. We had no choice but to quietly respect their presence, make sure our area was clean of potential food, and ignore them at the same time.
I was the driver for day two. The plan for the day was to head north to Indian Head Rock and the Champagne Pools, then head back south to the Moreno wreck. Then finally were were to set off to Eli Creek to set up camp by about 2:00 PM. Driving the 4x4 was a lot of fun and it was not to bad shifting with my left hand either. After hitting up all the designated sites, we set up camp near the creek. I past the rest of the afternoon by playing rugby with some of the guys and girls of the trip. Though I could catch and run quickly, my talent ended pretty much there. I quickly learned that rugby is the opposite of football. There are no forward passes allowed, it's illegal to block, and the scoring team receives the ball again... unlike football where we kick off the opposing team. Despite all of this, I had a great time. I also provided the others a great laugh with my calamity of errors. Pepp again cooked diner for us on night two. He prepared spaghetti bolognaise. The sauce was homemade at the camp site and took about five hours to make... it was worth each and every second of it!
One day three we took off for Lake McKenzie. By lunch time most of us were rather cranky due to lake of sleep ad lack of food. We had to ration our corn flakes to a very small amount. Well not quite all of us... the Germans (by day three we were all randomly saying "Zee Germans" with Dustin in a joking manner) had their own corn flakes which they had failed to open on the first day when they helped them selves to two large bowls of the groups food. Leaving us with essentially nothing for the following morning. Lunch would prove unsatisfactory as well. We only had enough bread to make to make a sandwich for lunch, and unfortunately one slice of ham each. Again the German boys broke out their own meat, cheeses, and lettuce to dress up their sandwiches. As you could imagine this sort of riled up the rest of the group, however, it also helped the rest of us to continue to build a stronger friendship, which was the most important thing. Overall I had outstanding time! I really enjoyed my time with the majority of Europe.
We rejoined the rest of civilization at about 5:00 as we took our 4x4 and gear back to the shed. We cleaned everything up one last time and then headed back to the hostel. We happily chipped $10 bucks into the pot for an all you can eat pizza party put on my hostel. We were also excited to have a shower and eat a meal that was 100% free and clear of sand!
