Australia - Fraser Island

The next stop was Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, for a self-guided 4x4 three day tour. Thankfully, our group was both diverse and incredibly cool. Dave Murphy (Murph) an Irish laddy who’s on his own world tour and had just spent three months picking fruit in Bundaberg; Murph was traveling with Tom, a British zoologist who’s been traveling for five years and reckons he’ll be doing it for five more and Jordan, a 19-year-old Canadian who reminded everyone of a cartoon character but no one could say for sure exactly which one; Sandra, a German who’s living in Brisbane with her boyfriend Sam, a native Aussie and big fan of Spiderbait; the lovely Italians Alessandra and Marina, who, through a mistranslation of the zen notion of keeping one's mind clear, had the word thoughtless tatooed on her forearm; and Vince from Paris, a mechanical engineer and huge fan of Shakti and Magma.

Over the course of the three days, a rivalry developed with the other group that left from the same tour outfit: Team B. It began the night before, when Sandra was awoken in her hostel room by three German women and the two Italians. The Italians were being considerate but the Germans were very rude and woke her up on multiple occasions throughout the night. At 3 am, after Sandra finally asked them to keep it down, they became nasty and even started talking about her in German, assuming incorrectly that she would not understand what was being said about her. Thus, she was quite relieved to learn that they were not in the same group.

The next morning, after packing all of our gear, we were off to the island. Since Tom and Jordan had been to Fraser before, it was like having our own tour guide, a huge bonus considering the ridiculous prices of the guided tours. Our first stop was the stunning Lake Birrabeen, with a white sand beach and turquoise water that we had all to ourselves. After frolicking around for awhile, we headed to Lake Wabby, an emerald green lake which was surrounded by these massive sand dunes. Tom and Jason climbed the steep dune and while Tom did somersaults down the dune into the lake, Jason, fearful of breaking his neck, rolled down sideways. After Lake Wabby, we returned to see a dingo, a type of wild dog, hanging around our vehicle. Thankfully it was alone so we didn’t have to worry about it becoming aggressive, as they do when in packs. Then we made our way to our first camp site. The evening was absolutely wonderful and we enjoyed an incredible moonrise while listening to good tunes and retelling our crazy adventures. All in all a great day. Jason also got to do a bit of driving and had good fun watching in the rearview mirror as the rest of the group got bounced during each bump.

The following morning we headed further up the coast past a shipwreck on the beach. The tide was in so the waves came splashing up through it. Next was Indian Head, which is a series of cliffs overlooking some more beautiful coastline. Supposedly sharks can be seen down below but none of us saw any. We weren’t supposed to take the 4x4 all the way to it but we did anyways since our “tourguides” had done it before. Upon spotting Team B’s 4x4 parked far away, we devilishly unlocked their front wheels, thereby relegating their vehicle to two-wheel drive. And then the fun began. We were hoping we’d get to see them digging themselves out as we drove by but no such luck. We proceeded to the Champagne Pools, which were a set of rocks that gave some protection from the surf and more importantly the sharks, as this was the only area of the ocean we were allowed to go into. Basically, we hung on for dear life to these spongy rocks as massive waves crashed into them, and then over them and us like the bubbly.

We headed off to another lake, where we ran once again into Team B. We saw that they had locked their wheels, but we unlocked them again just for good measure. We also unlocked ours to see if they would be dumb enough to change ours without looking at the settings. When we ran into them at the lake, our wry grins gave us away so they surmised that we were the culprits. We had a good laugh but they didn’t seem too amused. They made a joke about leaving our stuff on the beach and then left almost immediately. When we returned to our vehicle, we decided to eat since we weren’t going to make our campsite before dark (another no-no was driving after sunset…oops). After getting our stuff out, we realized that some of our food was missing. And, worse yet, some of our alcohol had been nicked as well. Those bastards!!! It’s one thing to have a laugh but their response was to engage in outright theft?! Murph was frantic and was ready to track them down but we weren’t absolutely sure the stuff was missing or buried. Several in the group had purchased alcohol that day at “island” prices ($4/can). They also took our last loaf of bread so we’d have to purchase more the next day. On the way to our campsite (in the dark), Tom took us down a crazy path and since we were in the far back we got bounced around like jumping beans. He also managed to get stuck and so we had to dig ourselves out. It took about 15 minutes but we had a good laugh…something Team B apparently was incapable of. During the nighttime festivities, Murph and Jason set to plotting Team A’s revenge. We settled on tracking down their families and murdering their fathers, since Australia’s Father’s Day was just around the corner. Teach ‘em a lesson they’d never forget! We pitched it to the group but they opted for something a tad less extreme. Reluctantly, Murph and Jason conceded. Shortly thereafter we realized our hammer was missing. One annoying thing about the Fraser tour companies is that they charge ridiculous prices for any missing equipment; thus it was decided we would liberate Team B's $15 hammer.

On the way back down, we stopped once again at the shipwreck because Jason had the idea to get everyone to pose like the Dali composition of naked women in the form of a skull. As the pictures will attest, the effect clearly isn’t the same when the women are clothed! (The tour company gave us a camera and requested we take creative shots and the best one would get a prize. Sadly we had dropped ours in the water the first day so it was likely a futile effort regardless.) Our final destination was Lake McKenzie, which is supposedly the most beautiful but I thought it was basically the same as Birrabeen but with bigger crowds. After providing action shots for some photographer while playing keep the ball out of the water (akin to hacky sack), we decided to take another crack at the photo contest by following Tom’s suggestion to make it appear as if we were midgets buried in the sand. Then we completely buried Sam, laughing the entire time. Soon after we departed, we realized we’d left our $25 shovel behind…doh! Unfortunately, we could not just turnaround so we had to take a ½ hour detour to retrieve it, only to find it stuck under another 4x4’s rear wheel! After a good team effort of rocking the vehicle, we managed to retrieve it. However, this delay meant that we would be hard-pressed to see the final sight on our itinerary, an invisible creek so named because from the vantage point the water was so clear as to appear non-existent. Vince did his best to make sure we made up the time, much to the shagrin of Sam and Sandra, who are currently seeing chiropractors to get themselves realigned (haha). We decided to skip the creek but ended up arriving with plenty of time to spare (thanks to our fearless Frenchman).

The return ferry was somewhat sad since we’d had such a blast on the island. Back at the hostel, we unloaded the vans and started putting our equipment in order. We turned in all of our equipment (sans hammer) and discussed how to get Team B to reimburse us for our stolen provisions because it didn’t appear likely we’d be able to get their hammer. However, while Team B was turning in other equipment, Jason managed to swoop in and nab their hammer while their entire group was fewer than five meters away. Great Scot! After surreptitiously disclosing his feat to the team, it was time for Sandra to have her revenge on the Germans. She accosted them and said, in German, “so are you going to repay us for the things you stole.” Oh, snap! This just goes to show that you should never hurl insults at people in another language until you are sure they don’t speak it. It turns out the Germans were behind the entire heist plan but yet were the most adamantly opposed to taking responsibility for their actions. Ultimately, after following through on our promise to inform the tour company if they remained obstinate in their refusal to make good, they agreed to buy us a round of drinks at the pub. At about the same time, the tour company informed them that their hammer was missing. Watching them get into a tizzy and then scrounging up the $15 was priceless, and I’m still not sure how we managed to contain our emotions in our moment of triumph. Sex on the Beach, purchased on their tab, never tasted so good and we can only hope that one of us run into one of them before we leave Australia so we can let them know what happened to their hammer.

Postscript: Tom was happy to report that he did in fact run into some of Team B so we can rest assured that they all found out about their hammer. WOOOHOOOOO!!!!