Shannon in Australia & New Zealand: Fraser Island, the ULTIMATE adventure!

When we set out on planning a trip over our 5 day weekend, Jon and I decided we wanted a small group of us to head to Fraser Island. So myself, Jon, Joe, Mike, and Shabana set out on an unpredictable adventure to Fraser island in order to get away for a short while. I was a bit hesitant to go because we had a ton of work due right when we got back, but that was not a good enough reason to stay behind. We didn't really know what we were getting into but the trip was booked and all we had to do was show up to the hostel at Hervey Bay on Friday night and be ready to go early Saturday morning. We met a group of Swedes in addition to two Canadian girls and a random Austrian weirdo we dubbed as monkey man. Our group of 13 loaded up two 4x4 Land Cruisers with all of our gear for 3 days, including food and booze of course. It was a 3 day and 2 night self-drive tour, and Jon and Joe (& the Austrian dude) were able to drive us around this pristine island. They were the only ones older than 21 who could successfully operate a stick shift left-handed.
Fraser Island. Largest sand island in the WORLD. There is more sand on this island than the SAHARA DESERT. With that said, we knew that the trip would be quite the epic journey but also, that there might be a few bumps along the way. Sure enough, there is little to no development on the 1840 square km island and that means no real roads. Just sand. It was super fun riding through the rain forest but a ton of cars got stuck. Jon was able to get us through without any problems though. He was obviously the best driver. Basically the whole trip consisted of driving up and down the coast and through the forests, swimming in unbelievably crystal clear creeks and lakes, eating bland food purchased on an extreme budget, camping out in tents, and getting drunk. Everyone here loves to slap the goon (gnarly wine made with milk and fish eggs as ingredients), and sure enough we discovered a new found love for it too. Not that I didn't already appreciate slapping cheap bags of wine. And whiskey of course. You can't camp without whiskey.
We met a plethora of interesting people along the way. Our first camp site was on aboriginal land, and we met Nick who is of aboriginal descent. He showed us pictures of aboriginal ghosts that hang out around the camp and showed us around the property. He also brought us to his house where we were able to meet a full blood aboriginal. It was pretty awesome to meet such a person; however, they were trying to con me into buying one of their unique homemade baskets. It seemed as if they just wanted my money, but that didn't happen. They did indeed have interesting things to say though. We also met Joe Wold's significant other. By that I mean a cattle rancher who was also a park ranger and loved to fish. They were soul mates. Haha and we met him by means of a certain unfortunate event...
The MOST interesting part of the trip happened on the second night we were there. During the afternoon, the pretty blonde Swedish girls heard that there was a beached wale up at Waddy Point, just north of Indian Heads, while they were learning to fish from some older gentlemen. Mostly everyone was eager to see this so we hopped into the cars and headed up there. On 'accident' one of the cars drove through a large puddle of water. Sure enough, they engine completely flooded and the car immediately died. We were not even close to where we were suppose to be. A huge gang of older guys stopped and helped us try to restart the car. Surprisingly it worked and we were able to get it to the campground. Although the intinerary was shot for the rest of the night and the next day, we lucked out with the whole situation. Basically, we screwed a 60,000 car, which now required a new engine (big bucks $$$). I felt super bad for the guys that run the tour company and had to come over to the island to tow the car out. Thankfully we were fully insured for any accidents, and luckily the company that we booked the trip through is the only company that has full insurance to cover situations like this. Looking on the bright side, everyone was safe and we made it home on time and all in one piece. Shit happens I guess...

...but it was one of the best trips ever!

Oh and the whale, it was dead and rotting away. I didn't really care to see it in the first place, but it was fascinating to see how big they really are. We also didn't have any real dingo encounters, which are known to eat small children. They were seen by one Swedish girl eating off of the whale early in the morning however.

Sand dune