Fraser Island Day 1 (Road Trip Day 3)

A brief respite from driving 9+ hours a day, we were up with the sun to join a 3 day, 2 night tour to K'gari, or Fraser Island.

When we left the campervan site, it was a short drive basically down the street to the hostel where the tour leaves from. We parked the van, said goodbye to it for the next few days, and made our way inside after dropping our backpacks into a storage container while we are gone.

We had about 2 hours of admin, check in, and safety briefings before we finally made our way out to the cars. We left Rainbow Beach around 9:30 and headed to Inskip Point to get the barge across to the island. We unfortunately missed the first one, too full, so we waited on the beach for about half an hour and dolphin watched. Finally, the barge was back and we made it to the island!

We drove along the 75 mile beach for a few hours stopping for lunch at a spot unaffected by the ride. It was a nice drive on the beach with the waves on the right and sand dunes on the left. We also saw a few dingos along the way! They look pretty scrappy and their looks totally match the description of behavior (dangerous, don't give a fuck, etc).

We drove past Indian Head, a lookout point that is unfortunately closed, to the Champagne Pools. We walked off the beach to a boardwalk that led to the pools. They are the only safe saltwater swimming area on the island because riptides and sharks make swimming off the beach dangerous. The pools are named 'Champagne Pools' because of the way the waves wash over the rocks and foam into the pool made by the rock formation there. The pools are not sandy and have some sharp rocks around them. Some were flat and had algae which helped to walk to the pool, but we had to be careful on the edges where sharp rocks covered in oyster shells and barnacles can cut you. It was a nice temperature in the water, not as warm as the Great Barrier Reef, but still ok once you were in. There was also a lot of little algae bits floating around, which wasn't the best, but it was cool to see the water foam over and crash against the rocks.

After our hour and a bit at the pools, we got back in the car and drove down the beach to camp. We found a tent, got sleeping bags, and had quick showers after the salty, algae water from the Champagne Pools. After that, we chilled in the tent for a bit before heading to the picnic area for dinner. People were grilling bacon and burgers for dinner, so we jumped in to help. We had a beer and a nice conversation with a young Northern Irish girl called Kristen before brushing our teeth and heading to bed. Allan fell asleep pretty quick, but I got really into the last 200 pages or so of my book and read for the next two hours before finishing the book and trying to get some sleep myself.もっと詳しく