Well here I am, in sunny Brisbane. It’s in the sough-eastern part of the Queensland, aka the Sunshine State. Well after leaving the Airlie Beach I left for Hervey Bay and that’s the starting point for all those interested visiting Fraser Island. Like most of the parks in Oz, it’s a World Heritage Park b/c it’s the largest sand island in the world; it’s about 120km by 30km. For Fraser I did a self-drive 4×4 trip. Which means they pack a group of people together in a 4×4, give them camping equipment and hope that they don’t kill each other. Stuff like this is hit and miss, it always depends on the group dymanics, they turned out to me alright. The mission was to spend 2 nights/3 days on the island and explore its scenic points.
As for scenic points, we saw Lake Mackenizie, a fantastic crystal play lake on shimmering white sand, absolutely gorgeous. We loved it so much that we went back just before we left is island. We also saw Lake Wabby which is a small green coloured lake that is at the base of a huge dune. The fun part was laying still in the lake and having small fish nibble at the dead skin on your body. Not good if you’re ticklish. There were also a couple creeks and lookouts that could be seen around the island. One of the main reasons for the island being so protected is that it has the purest species of dingos roaming the island. There aren’t many left but they’re around, we managed to see three. Dingos are just really skinny bogs.
The fun part about the island is driving around. The inland tracks were fun to negotiate but since the were well worn, it didn’t take too much skill to manouver around them. The beach on the east coast is interesting in the fact that it is actually a registered highway. The hard sand makes it really safe to drive on, the limit was 80km/h but I didn’t feel safe driving that fast. Mainly b/c our truck was a heap of crap. But I think that I did worry some of my passengers b/c in the front seat you don’t realize how bouncy it is in the back. I was told a couple times by my passangers to take it easy, personally I didn’t see the problem b/c I felt fine. haha Sorry guys.
Since the island is a sand island, you get sand everywhere! And I do mean everywhere. But that might be due to the fact that the whole weekend I wore only my shorts. I never wore a shirt or shoes b/c the days were so nice. I also gotta admit that camping on the beach does have it advantages, I managed to catch two fantastic sunrises while I was there.
On a side note, every where I go I see people reading Dan Brown books, especially The Da Vinci Code. It seems that most people have either read it or are reading it. Even though I don’t usually ready fiction novels, I’d heard so much about it and I must say that I managed to read all 600 pages in a couple days. It’s a quick read and I’m facinated with the amount of research that went into the novel. It’s about the search for the Holy Grail and the origins of the Christian religion. I personally found the premise that it proposes really interesting and can only wonder if such a scenario is possible. The book has become such a phenomenom that it’s already scheduled to be put into a movie, to be released in 2006. With Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks playing the lead role. Should be interesting how this translates to the screen.