Defeated by Fraser Island

Rox and I just got back from fraser tonight. Feeling like crap. I will try and remember every detail, but it was pretty rough!
Australia Day:
we got up super early to prepare ourselves for the day! headed down to the beach with nicole, robyn and rox. we just chilled out in the sand and laughed at the locals. they were so wild! they were drunk by 10am! they were doing this crazy dance on the beach that involved the flailing of arms and kicking of feet. so funny, i will try and perfect it by the time i get home! later we went to woolworths and bought 2 litres of ice cream (neopolitan) and demolished it. we felt so ill after. but it was fantastic for a bit. then i napped for a while. next we put together a nice meal of rice and kanga bangers all with sweet chili sauce of course. so delish i loved it. we went out to look for some real live aussies and ran into a guy who works at our hostel. he invited us back to his friends place so we went. turns out there were only guys there and they just stared at us. not a very warm welcome so we peaced out right away. literally turned and ran. so funny. we then went to an irish pub, but it closed at 10pm, crazy early. the streets were dead. i guess the locals were tired from drinking at 10am. fair play! we ran into these guys who said they were professional skateboarders. i didnt believe them so one guy did a kickflip, i laughed at him, so then he did some wicked trick. maybe they weren't lying...but they were going on about how they own a 3 million dollar house so we left. couldnt be bothered to listen to their ramblings.
so that was our somewhat lame australia day....

Fraser Island trip!
We got up bright and early at 6am the next day. had to check out by 7am. then we got our briefing on how to drive the 4 wheel drive trucks. they told us that we were one of the last self drive groups ever because so many ppl had died doing it... got us good and scared. we had to watch a ridiculous video on how to avoid dingo attacks! they say you can either walked backwards with your arms crossed, or option 2 was to attack them aggressively! those are 2 very different approaches!
next we packed the trucks with the coolers, dishes, mats, tents, etc. took ages. plus the gear went ina compartment over the top of the trucks, seemed like a terrible idea to me, definitely increases the weight of the top of the truck, which would increase chances of rolling...seemed like a bad idea to me. also 9 ppl in each truck, very squished!
we also had to buy out own food. took ages. 9 ppl in our group, it was so hard to get ppl to decide what to we should eat for each meal. in the end we got way too much food and it cost about 200$. got loads and loads of meat, sausages, steaks, burgers and mince. no expense was spared... that annoyed me, but what can you do.
we headed to the ferry around 1230, nice ride over. then we got to the incredibly sandy roads. honestly i had no idea the roads we be 2 feet of soft sand! one lane too. and for most ppl it was their first time driving 4WD trucks, not to mention in sand with 8 backseat drivers screaming. it took us 3 hrs to drive 15km. we didnt get stuck, but most other trucks did, we helped dig them out. so annoying and it was so hot. flies everywhere too, giant march flies that are basically giant horseflies that bite so hard and cause way too much pain.
we got to the beach just as low tide was coming in, just made it to our campsite on time. if you are driving on the beach there is only a 6 hr period where its safe to drive each day. crazy!
anyway we had a great supper but got eaten alive by flies. we were all sandy and gross, but couldnt swim in the sea because of sharks and jelly fish. the jelly fish washed up all over the beach so you couldnt really walk much either. but the beach was gorgeous to look at!
no one had a good sleep because you could hear the dingos walking around, i was too scared to go to the bathroom even!
we woke up in the morning to thousands of flies swarming around you as soon as you left the tent. so brutal! everyone was swatting each other and screaming at each painful bug bite, the bites would swell like mad as well. we got out of there before we were supposed to and had to drive a bit in the sea. oops! didnt get bogged though, lucky us. we saw a cool shipwreck, the pinnacles, indian heads and took a walk to the champagne pools. we didnt realize how hot the sand would be it would melt out flip flops and i got blisters on my feet. so so so painful. the pools were amazing though, little fish around swimming with us. the waves would crash over the rocks sometimes. just amazing.
i drove us onto eli creek later, it was so fun driving on the sand! at eli creek we would just walk up the creek then drift back down. it was essentially a natural lazy river. it was freshwater too so we could wash the salt off. loved it. we got to our campsite just in time and set up camp and ate another great dinner. salad, spaghetti bolognaise, garlic bread...so good.
this morning we got up early because our tents were scorching at 7am. the heat was unreal. we drove off early again and ended up getting stuck in the sand roads. took us an hour to dig out of the sand. so annoying. our truck was so smelly, you arent allowed soap on the island and some ppl took this to mean no deodorant as well. so rank. and we never bothered to take our garbage to the dump site so it absolutely reeked. we made it to lake mckenzie early enough to attempt to swim across. the lake was quite a bit larger then we thought so after a 1/2 hr of swimming we turned back. nice workout though! the lake was breathtaking, pure white sand that was so fine it creaked under our feet. the water was so blue and still and clear. we made a giant pyramid and had chicken fights. we headed back to the ferry way too early so we chilled out for about an hour and half. was nice to just relax.
now we are back in hervey bay, ready for a shower and a long sleep before i bus it to rainbow tomorrow to meet up with robyn and nicole again!
Love!
Hannah