Heaps of Dingoes..in a big way.. Fraser Island & Sunshine Coast (Week 13)

G'day from Fraser Island!

so this weekend...where do i begin...well, 6:30am Friday Holly, Mari and Hayley picked Taylor and I up...in our little nissan (that legit quick glance was a CRV...ahah) and off we went! We named our pretty silver vehicle Judith..and Judith treated us well this weekend, even though we beat her up a little bit...

Our destination was FRASER ISLAND...  The largest sand island in the world at 1840 km² with a resident human population of 360 people. 

It took us until about 1:30pm to get to Hervey Bay/Rainbow Beach where we let down our tires, bought a vehicle driving permit and our barge ticket, and ate lunch. Pretty soon we were off to the Island...by now, we had no cell phone service and were not so sure the next time we'd get it again. Needless to say, we made it across tretcherous sand to the barge where we drove right on and of course exited our car and snapped a ton of pictures of the gorgeous water and backgrounds.

When we drove off the barge 10 minutes later we were on Fraser Island surrounded by crystal blue water on our right and sand dunes stretching on forever on our left. Holly was driving at this point and we flew right down the GORGEOUS beach. It was breathtaking to be driving freely down a beach, no sight of anything but sand and ocean..it was the most peaceful place in the world.

It was low tide, so we got lucky, and drove freely throughout the beach, it was the most thrilling thing in the world to have this open white sand beach waves crashing, just incredible. On our drive we stopped at the shipwreck called the Wreck of the Maheno (The S.S. Maheno was originally built in 1905 in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship for trans-Tasman crossings. During the First World War the ship served as a hospital ship in the English Channel, before returning to a luxury liner. In 1935, the ship was declared outdated and on June 25, 1935 the ship was being towed from Melbourne when it was caught in a strong cyclone. A few days later, on July 9, 1935 she drifted ashore and was beached on Fraser Island. During the Second World War the Maheno served as target bombing practice for the RAAF and was used as an explosives demolition target by special forces from the Fraser Commando School. The ship has since become severely rusted, with almost three and a half storeys buried under the sand. Climbing on the shipwreck is not permitted. -WIKIPEDIA).. it was pretty cool, though of course I tried to climb inside and in doing so smashed my head...there is a big bump on my forehead- not cool. Yet, we continued on and We drove to the point, and hung out there for awhile. We got in some sun, nice tanning spot. and over this cliff thing you could see all of the sharks, dolphins, sting rays etc. in the water. It was pretty cool. I was laying there with my ipod in and eyes closed next to Holly when all of a sudden I heard Hayley and Mari yell my name and point and I turned around to be only 4 feet from a DINGO! I legit did the exact thing you're told NOT to do...grabbed all of my things, jumped up and sprinted into the car screaming. Of course, once I was safe and doors were slammed shut I snapped pictures..but holy shit was I scared.

We left there soon after and drove back down the beach to this townish kind of place called Happy Valley. This is where we were staying at a friend of Holly and Hayley's house... The Rigbys. These are two guys that Hayley and Holly met when they had visited Colorado last year. The Rigby brothers house was nice, very beachy. It was nice to be able to stay in a bed, compared to our friends that were camping with the dingoes!

The boys hadn't gotten to the Island yet so we went into the backpackers right in Happy Valley and went straight to the bar... after sharing 8 jugs of Pure Blond beer between the 5 of us girls, the boys arrived and we went to their house. We ended up drinking and hanging out there the rest of the night.

Saturday morning we all got up and headed down to the water. We laid out for a bit in the sun and ran into our other friends that had been on the Island as well. After a few hours we decided to go pipin' which is similar to crabbing...and use the pips to go worming in the sand to use the worms as bait to fish. Needless to say, I took the pictures- no slimy moving creatures for me! That wasn't as successful as we had hoped so we headed back to Happy Valley for lunch. The boys took naps and we all laid in the sun on the roof. After showering we tried to venture to the next "town" over but the tide was too high and we wouldn't make it, so we turned around and ate pasta for dinner a second night in a row. After dinner we all hung out and drank again, sharing stories and "playing the friend game" as Taylor calls it- where we would tell ridiculous stories getting to know eachother. We passed out pretty early since we were waking up at 7am Sunday to leave.

When we woke up at 7am we drove off down to the beach to leave the island but the tide was coming up too high for our Judith and we knew we'd get stuck..so that was attempt 1 and we turned around, went back to the boys house and had breakfast/slept some more. At about 10:30 we tried attempt 2, but it was only an hour after high tide and we again weren't going to get out. So at that point we went back to the backpackers bar and ate again, only this time it was lunch food. After that we finally made it out to the barge and off the island. However, on the drive out..we picked up two French men hitchhiking their way down Fraser to the barge to go back to their car on the mainland. They were interesting, nice though..and they were willing to sit in the trunk so it worked out fine! We dropped them at their car and made our way back to Hervey Bay/Rainbow Beach to fill our tires back up and get gas. We went from there to Sunshine Coast..simply following the signs and our instincts, as we had no GPS! It was quite the adventure. At about 4:30pm we arrived in Noosa Heads, and it was amazing!

Noosa is basically a little shopping kind of town, with a gorgeous beach, it's a mix between  Nantucket and the cape in a way...it's the classy version of Byron Bay- even though Byron is my favorite and I am headed there next weekend...

So yes, we shopped and had dinner at a great pizza place and then drove our last 2 1/2 hours home. We finally made it back- clearly needing to extend our rental car a day. It was epic though, a weekend for the record books.

It's Monday now... I have a full day of class tomorrow followed by some birthday celebrations for my friend Kiki and the rest of the week will be busy getting work done to leave for BYRON BAY on Thursday night. We are spending a few nights there...it might just be my last trip to Byron...in who knows how long. I can't wait though. Sydney next week with all of the girls. Should be amazing!

I've been here 3 months now...it's been a wild ride! Can't wait to share more!

xoxo