Fraser Island Day 3 (Road Trip Day 5)

Today was our last day in Fraser Island. After a shit sleep, we still planned to make the most of our day. Around 6am we all left saying goodbye to our campsite.

This morning was a longer drive as we made our way back to the southern end of the island where we got the barge the first day. At Eurong we began driving inland towards Lake McKenzie. It was a bumpy inland drive, but not as much as yesterdays. Once we got to the lake, the sun had come out and was shining on the water. It was a light blue color and scientists believe that the oils from the trees, the same oils that made the water brown in the other lake, must react with something in the sand that creates the beautiful blue color.

We got our sunscreen on and headed into the water. It was nice and warm. The lake has no inlets or outlets, so it only fills up with rain water and heats up under the sun. It was so nice to swim around and enjoy the sun and the warm water after rain the last few days. The sand was also very soft and a soft tan color. The first half hour or so we had the whole lake to ourselves which was amazing, but soon it started to fill up with other tour groups and people coming over to enjoy their Saturday at the beach. We left just before 10 and it had filled up considerably.

We drove back to the 75 mile beach and kept heading towards the barge. We stopped at one of the resort areas for some quick lunch shortly after getting back on the beach. Our final wraps were accompanied with muffins and lamington cake, a yellow sponge with chocolate and coconut flakes on the outside. We filled up on lunch not knowing what our plan was for dinner and that we needed to get back on the road to make some progress to Sydney tonight.

After lunch it was a pretty straightforward drive back to the barge. It had just left when we arrived, so we had some time to chill on the beach before it came back. When the barge was back, we loaded up into the car and onto the barge. Once on the barge, we got out of the car and went to the top deck for some nice views of Fraser Island and Rainbow Beach.

The barge didn't take too long, and then it was time for the last little bit of drive back to the town. We got our bags from the storage area, repacked the car, and then walked down to Rainbow Beach. We hung out there for a while enjoying the warm sand and the nice warm water. We also got a nice picture of the rainbow steps that lead to the beach from town.

We said goodbye to the beach and drove up to Carlo Sand Blow. This is a large sand dune at the edge of town. You get some good views of rainbow beach as well as some of the forest and harbors on the opposite side from the beach. After a bit of debate, we decided to stay for sunset and we were rewarded with a pretty good one. The sky lit up with some amazing reds and oranges and the clouds began turning a nice pink. However, we couldn't stay and see all the color changes because we still needed quick showers and to get on the road and make driving progress.

We showered at the campsite we stayed at a few days ago. The code for the door hadn't changed so we were able to utilize the showers despite not staying there that night. Once we were showered, we got on the road. Our destination was just outside Brisbane.

The road was uneventful and mostly nicely paved highways. Some were a bit bumpy though which was weird. It felt like we were vibrating at times because of the quick, but slight bumpiness in the road. We drove through Brisbane, and I wished we had a bit of time to stop and see the city. It looks like a nice place and the bridge was lit up with pretty colors like purple, blue, and yellow.

After driving through the city center, we were about 15-20 minutes from Johnson's house. He's the Chinese guy we met in the Galapagos that Allan made friends with. He had been out fishing that day, so we ended up getting there before him and confusing his poor mother about the random white people at the door. It didn't take long for Johnson to get back, and soon he had ushered us inside for a watermelon snack and we had a bit of a catch-up before we all made our way to bed (we were feeling pretty tired by this point after the lack of sleep from the inconsiderate girls the night before).

Despite the cockroaches coming back out, we managed to get some sleep because we were just so tired. It was also cooler, so there weren't as many to kill before bed 🙃.Læs mere