No sleeping in today! Up with the first alarm at 4:30am and out the door by 5:05am, we were in a cab headed to the Gold Coast Transit Center for our 5:30 pickup to take us to Fraser Island. It was a lovely morning - cold and raining, and Stephen was both underdressed (in shorts instead of jeans) and over-awake by 5:30. I don't know how he does it.
By 5:40 we'd found our tour company (which was secretly disguised as man in flip flops and white socks and a small car with no company label) to take us back to Brisbane where the tour would start. 80 minutes later we were at a truck stop in Brisbane waiting for the rest of our tour group. They showed up around 7:30 with a fierce-looking truck.
There were already two couples in the van, which meant Stephen and I were unable to sit together. I took the middle row with a window seat and he got to play navigator to our tour guide, Eugene (whose real name was Brendan - we don't know the whole story).
After some heavy showers, and three hours of intense tailgating, we finally made it to Rainbow Beach, where the ferry to take us to Fraser Island was waiting. The ferry took all of 5 minutes to get us from the mainland to Fraser Island, which is when the fun began. No dock, no roads, no port - we literally washed up onto the beach, put down a "ramp", and took off on the day's journey.
We spent the first hour driving all over the beach, across red creeks that were emptying into the ocean (colored by the tea tree oil from the native plants), avoiding the serious potholes and all the wildlife. We saw maybe a half dozen cars over the entire drive - the beach was completely empty, which makes sense, given this stretch of beach is over 75 miles long and only 200 people live on the island year-round. The beach was so flat for so far into the ocean that waves were breaking 100 yards off the shore.We had also timed this tour particularly well, as it was currently low tide, allowing for lots of driving room and high speeds (over 70km/hr). If the tide is too high, you are forced on to a treacherous road that even the tour guide described as "hell". Here is the beach below:
This is one of the red creeks - though you cannot really see the red color in this lighting:
We were also quite lucky in that we witnessed two dingoes, both a female and the male (but no pups). Shown below is the female. We were strongly advised to stay in the car. We did.
After an hour (yes, an actual hour, though it went shockingly fast) of racing along the beaches, we turned inward to begin our jungle adventure. Below are some pictures of the drive, though none of them capture the giant potholes that caused us to smash our heads on the ceiling or the mud the covered the sides of the truck. Our tour guide was quite skilled at navigating the unlabeled, sometimes one way, roads, making us very thankful we were not driving this ourselves, something we had initially considered.
Once we made it into the heart of the forest, we were released from the truck with the knowledge that dingoes are only dangerous when you hear them howling on the prowl and that there are spiders in every nook and cranny with enough venom to kill thousands of rodents in a single drop. Yayy. Fortunately, we only heard one dingo howl (my money is still on it being the tour guide).
Unlike our previous bushwalks, this one was the Real McCoy. No walkways, no guide posts, no signs, no tourist photo op spots, no handrails or lookouts - this was the rainforest - one that had apparently been featured in a PBS special about the dinosaurs, as the King Ferns seen in the photos below were a staple for many dinosaurs.
These pictures do not even begin to capture the incredible size and beauty of the rainforest. However, its what we got, so enjoy them and use your imagination. RAWR (as said by dinosaurs)
Believe it or not, I totally survived - nothing bit me, I bit nothing - and I came out smiling - I did not run away.
In fact, I did so well, I was even aware enough to save Stephen from a wild animal attack. I saw it at the last moment and yanked him out of danger just in time. After the experience and the adrenaline levels decreased, we were able to capture the creature in its stealth position - ready to pounce.
After this near-death experience, we finished our bushwalk and had lunch on the roof of the truck, which had driven around to meet us at the designated lunch site. Our tour guide serenaded us with his harmonica before continuing on.
We spent the next half hour driving through the jungle, observing the different fauna and wildlife (our tour guide was quite knowledgeable - a former biology major, like myself). Maybe I have a future in tour-guiding!
After that, we headed to Lake McKenzie - a large, freshwater lake in the middle of the island that reminded us strongly of Wellesley's Lake Waban. We were given an hour to sit on the beachy shores, swim if we so desired, and discover a secret beach only reachable via sunken bridge. Being the adventurous people that we are, we immediately headed in search of the secret footbridge.
Here is the main beach, we elected to leave in search of a supposedly better beach:
This is the secret footbridge - leading through the reeds and colored deep red by the tea tree oil. As I was originally somewhat dubious of making this trek, Stephen did recon and crossed the bridge to determine whether the beach was actually worth the journey. Upon his return and his word it was totally worth it, I braved the deep waters and headed across. Stephen held the camera the second time, so alas, there are no photos of him on this somewhat slimy journey.
He was right- check out the secret beach below:
This picture is in honor of Steph Welch (a friend from college) - I hope she recognizes my sweet dance moves.
After the beach, we returned to the truck for another half hour of jungle driving until we returned to the beach for more photo ops and more awesome beach driving.
Here is another red creek - better picture, but still doesn't capture the fabulous color.
Check out the reflection off the water:
As you can see, we were really close to the breaking waves - even driving over some of the receding water - causing our windows to get wet, in some cases.
We were on board the ferry by 4:30pm (which fortunately waited for us in both directions), and we were on our way home again by 5pm. We finally made it back close to 10pm - we were quite tired, but definitely ranked this as our third favorite trip (behind SCUBA and Whitehaven Sailing - it would have been higher had we not spent 8+ hours getting to and from the main location, but still DEFINITELY worth it).
Off to bed and tomorrow we head to New Zealand! Won't have internet for a few days, but promise to have blogs up as soon as we do.
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