Worth The Trouble

"How did Benedict get to be pope so quickly? Because he was first to get his towel on the balcony." This was the best joke I'd heard in a while, taking a swipe at Catholics and Germans in one. What made it better was that it came from Aoife, a dormitory mate who was so stereotypical Irish Catholic that she could have been in the comedy show Father Ted. She even came complete with "Jesus, mother of Mary!" expletives.
I was in Brisbane, staying at a hostel called The Banana Bender. It was nice enough, with a large sun deck come eating and common area at the back for lounging around. But it just seemed to be mainly full of Germans. There was a couple of Japanese girls that I got talking to, Acorn and O-mommy, their names spelt phonetically here. O-mommy was a young girl in Australia to learn English. She'd only been learning for three months so when she asked where I was from, I decided that explaining Milton Keynes would be too confusing so said Nottingham. She hadn’t heard of it and so I started ranting about Robin Hood and the movie Prince of Thieves, at which point her face lit up with some kind of recognition. I think she got the wrong end of the stick and thought that I was Kevin Costner, asking to interview me for her English project and generally following me around the hostel from then on.
Brisbane was a nice enough city, but because of the way the river meanders, it makes finding the way around a bit confusing at first. The city itself isn’t an action packed one as most of the points of interest are outside of the city. I'm not usually a fan of zoos, but this being the home of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin, I thought I should take a look at Australia Zoo. I found it a little disappointing for the hefty admission fee. It was geared far too much toward younger children and parting visitors with more money, with shameless marketing for pictures with a cut out virtual Steve or the chance for pictures with some of the animals. And it wasn't that big, not yet anyway, the former family run zoo was still in development to match up with Steve’s global stardom, with a giant new African section under construction. I did get to see my first Cassowaries, Tasmanian Devil's, Dingo's and my highlight, the world's ten most venomous snakes - all from Australia naturally. And there was the famous Crocodile feeding show in the newly purpose built open-air amphitheatre.
I also took the tour of the Castlemain XXXX brewery, though I couldn't remember much about the history or how the stuff was made as my short attention span was pondering the four tall ones that would be received at the end of the tour.
An unexpected highlight was the trip up to Mount Coot-Tha, derived from Ku-Ta the Aboriginal name for a bee that lives in the region. It's a great view over the city with several walking tracks back down. I took one called the JC Slaughter Falls which featured an Aboriginal art trail. I don't want to be disrespectful, but I'm going to be - they are no artists. Some handprints, simple swirling patterns and piles of stones didn't work for me, though they'd probably get a Turner prize nomination if they were done in the UK.
On the way down I stopped at a picnic area. On the table read the warning, ‘Don't feed the animals, they may become sick or peck, bite or kick other visitors.’ Just as I unwrapped my sandwiches, a psychotic looking bird landed by my table. It looked like a Kookaburra but had an aggressive glint in his eye and looked as if he could give a nasty kick. I managed to stare it down but then his two mates arrived to one side, slowly encircling me. I then realised that I hadn’t seen any other people for quite some time. Had they all been pecked, bitten or kicked to death by these birds after someone had given up a ham sandwich? They withheld their attack on me when they realised I wasn’t worth the trouble, seeing that I was a backpacker and as such my sandwiches had the most meagre amount of ham in them in an attempt to stretch the food budget. I counted myself lucky to have made my escape.

I'd lost my lucky dragon pendant that I got from the fortune-teller in Hong Kong. I felt that I was in deep trouble and would be at the mercy of knife wielding muggers, pschycotic kicking birds, Portuguese/Macau madmen and my own clumsiness on a surf board. Maybe it was with my sunglasses that I'd already lost as well.
A couple of hours up the coast brought me to Noosa, a small holiday town that, while a little touristy hadn't gone to the extremes of Surfers Paradise, making it a very pleasant place. The sun was finally back out and I could get some more quality beach time.
The hostel I was staying at was called Koalas Beach Resort and with a free drink with a meal that cost under $10 topped off with a live band, I made the bar and restaurant my home for the evening. I've never been too self-conscious when dining alone, but I was glad to have received the company of Jen from Quebec who was the waitress that served my meal. Working at the hostel to supplement her finances for her travels, I didn’t even need to leave a tip to have her company when she joined me during her meal break. It wasn't much longer when my new dormitory mates arrived. They were Ralf, a Swiss guy who liked walking around the dormitory in just his underpants, Tanya, a Russian who's been living in Dublin for years and so had the strangest accent and Alexandro and Marco, Italians who talked like old women, especially early in the morning when sleeping should be done. Happy hour pitchers all round.
On the table next to ours were two locals. One of them could only be described as backward and reminded me of the character Cletus from The Simpsons. His mate also had a bit of the village idiot look about him with his baseball cap on at a skewed angle and he was sporting a fresh cut on his cheek and a black eye. The Chavs had arrived in Noosa. They stood up from their table leaving their nearly full pitcher, shiner coming over to our table.
“Can you keep an eye on our beer,” he said from the corner of his mouth, “We’re just going for a piss.”
”Sure, but I can’t guarantee I won’t drink some,” I joked with a wink. They seemed friendly enough but judging by their appearances I wouldn’t have dared to do such a thing. We got talking to them when they returned about the usual stuff of where we're from and compared and contrasted English and Australian beers which always seemed to be a topic of conversation when talking to an Aussie bloke. After talking to Cletus for a good while, I realised that we hadn’t properly introduced ourselves. I gave him my hand to shake and introduced myself.
“By the way, my name’s David,” I said, “And you are…?” I asked fully expecting a hillbilly name to reflect his in breeding.
"My name's Dave," he said.
I later got talking to Shiner. "What do you think of Noosa?" he asked me.
"I like it. It's nice and relaxed, not too touristy and the beach is beautiful," I replied.
"Na mate, it's fucked up," he said.
A little surprised at the degradation of his home, I pushed him further, "Really? What's wrong with it?"
"Noosa the place is OK, but the people are fucking fucked up," he said as if this explained everything. Later they both disappeared together again and Ralf and I made short work of what remained of their pitcher.

* * *

Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island and together with the Fraser coast on the main land is said to contain more sand then the whole of the Sahara Desert. All the way along the east coast are advertisements for tours and trips to the island - it is one of the main highlights of Australia for many people. A Swiss man I met briefly in Noosa confessed to crying when he saw the beauty of Lake McKenzie for the first time, one of the many fresh water lakes on the island.
Fraser Island has more ways to kill you then any other tourist destination and as such, the highest leisure fatality rates in the world. The seven most poisonous snakes in the world all live there as well as all the nasty spiders. Going into the ocean is out of the question as the chances are that you'd end up in either a rip or the belly of a Tiger Shark. There’s also a large population of Dingo’s that roam freely over the island. David Eason, A 46-year-old British backpacker who’s guide foolishly allowed him to walk by himself in the area of Lake Wabby in 2001 was never seen again after he’d set off. Months of futile searching went in vain until 18 months after he disappeared, a woman hiker discovered what the Dingo’s had left of his skull. They don’t know if it was the Dingo’s that killed him, but they certainly didn’t leave much of him to be identified. In the same year, 12 year old Clinton Gauge was killed after a mauling from a Dingo just a couple of hundred metres away from the safety of his campsite. There are numerous other stories of aggression toward humans by the wild dogs.
While I was in the country, legislation was being discussed to stop tourists taking the self-drive trips onto Fraser Island due to the high number of vehicles involved in accidents, with at least one incident a day being reported. Cars would frequently hit sand dunes too hard or get caught in waves from the ocean - it would only take a couple of feet of water to lift a motor vehicle out into the sea. And it’s all too easy to roll a vehicle over by turning too sharply in the sand.
None of this was mentioned in the brochures, though I was glad I might be among one of the last to be able to do a self-guided tour, if a little scared after finding out about all the dangers. I was glad when I’d found the dragon pendant at the bottom of my sleeping bag just prior to the trip onto the island.
It was the night before we were due to make the barge sailing and we were being given an orientation talk by Chris, one of the guys from the tour company Fraser Escape in Harvey Bay. Though he had the vast majority of the people worried about what we’d got ourselves into he was at least entertaining in doing so, telling us all about the different ways we could be killed. He was a very typical Queenslander, speaking slightly out of the side of his mouth as he told sexist jokes about women doing all the cooking and having to go into the bush in pairs to relieve themselves, carrying handfuls of toilet paper. He ended by threateningly saying, “I’ll kick your fucking heads in,” if we damaged his vehicles. I liked him a lot. After the scare talk, we were put into the groups that we were to spend the next three days in. I’d already met Gillian, a 23 year old from Southampton who was collapsed in the dormitory and snoring like an old overweight man from Newcastle when I first arrived at the Fraser Escape hostel. The rest of our group was made up of Miriam and Sharon, two delightful girls from Dublin who I was to end up having the strangest conversations about onions with. There was Geoff and his younger brother Lewis from Cardiff who seemed to be in Australia to drink as much Goon as they could. Then there was Hike from Germany who had the funniest laugh and her boyfriend Sven who knew no English but had the widest grin in the world. Finally there was a Belgian man called Keon who didn't seem to have had a shower in a very long time and by virtue of me, him and Gillian being the only solo travellers in the group, he became my tent mate by default.
Initially it was Geoff who tried to take the lead. “So who can drive? I can’t and nor does my brother.”
“I do,” said Gillian, “But I’m not too sure I want to after that talk.”
“You’ll be OK, we’ll just take it easy,” I said.
“Well, I’ll see how it goes.”
“Who else?” asked Geoff.
“Well I’m happy to drive.” I said, secretly wishing I got the chance to drive along Fraser’s 70-mile beach.
“We can drive,” Hike chipped in, as Sven continued smiling away. Surely his face must have been aching by now? “But we’d rather not,” She continued, “We are driving our way around Australia and so would be grateful for a break.” It looked like I’d get all the driving I wanted.
The next task to sort out was the food that we were to take with us. Chris advised that we nominate two people that would collect $20 per person and then head off to the supermarket. We all looked at each other, waiting for anyone else to blink first. It was already late, and I wasn’t sure at this point if the faintly rancid smell in the air was due to me or Keon, either way I needed a shower and didn’t fancy traipsing around a super market with no clue to what we really needed.
Geoff piped up “I’ll go if no-one else is up for it.” Good on him. I looked around; Keon still hadn’t said anything more then his name, Gillian looked like she may fall back to sleep at any time, Hike mumbled something about needing a shower – damn, that was my excuse. Sven sat there grinning and not understanding a word that was being said. Nobody was biting; fair enough, it was time to put my hat into the ring.
“OK, I’ll go,” said Sharon, just as I was opening my mouth to volunteer. Sorted.

“Do you mind driving first?” Gillian asked me in the morning. Dave, the head of Fraser Escape and a veteran of Fraser Island trips had just given us a second talk. There was no humour this time, as he went into detail about driving the 4x4s, just deadly serious stuff designed to scare us some more and maximise the chances of him getting his vehicles back in one piece.
“If you get too close to the ocean, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter... if you drive over too fast over a sand dune, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter… if you drive too far up the beach on the lighter coloured sand, you’ll get yourselves stuck…if you turn too sharply or go too fast, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter… if you don’t take responsibility for yourselves, you’ll be coming back in a helicopter.” I was beginning to think that Dave had a sideline in helicopter tours. To emphasise the danger, Chris had been called out to the island, all we were told was that another group had got themselves into trouble.
After we checked over the vehicles and loaded our kit onto the roofs, we were driven in our vehicles to the barge followed by the other two vehicles from Fraser Escape for the morning crossing. Stopping at some traffic lights, a man in a car caught our attention, motioning that we had a flat tyre. We made a quick check. Either our kit was loaded in such a way that it was causing us to lean, or else we had a slow puncture. We made it to the barge point and the Fraser Escape guys discussed our problem with great concern for our well being.
“Just go and whack some air in it at the garage around the corner,” one of them said to our driver, “It’ll be alright, there’s a spare if you guys need to change it.” I had visions of us stuck on a beach attempting to work a jack in the sand surrounded by Dingo’s.
I took us off of the barge and onto the sand into the rainforest after we’d made the barge crossing with my heart pounding, palms sweating and Chris and Dave’s warnings ringing in my ears. We were now on our own. We made our way along the narrow track, followed by the other two vehicles from Fraser Escape. My hands clung to the wheel nervously – it was months since I’d last driven and the 4x4 handled like a tank as I manoeuvred it through the trees. Now and again, the tires would slip on the sand, rain had recently fallen and the puddles disguised potholes that threw the passengers in the back violently around. It took a lot of concentration - the third vehicle stopped after 20 minutes, the driver already wanting a rest. But I was growing more confident, it felt good to be behind the wheel again and though the 4x4 was big with a heavy clutch and not the easiest to steer, I could feel the power it was capable of. I was loving it in fact. I just hoped that the tire would be OK.
Our first destination was Lake McKenzie. It's regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful spots. Many films and music videos have used its clear beautiful blue water as a backdrop to fool the viewer into thinking they are watching a scene from the Caribbean or Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the heavens opened up just as we arrived so it was an early lunch of ham, cheese and salad sandwiches. Somehow, even though Geoff and Sharon had bought the most backpacker budget friendly supplies they could, the sandwiches tasted like the best the world had to offer now that we were roughing it. After we’d eaten, the interspersing rain wasn’t enough to stop Miriam, Sven and I taking a dip in the gorgeous waters.
The couple of hours we spent at Lake McKenzie weren’t enough but there was a long drive ahead through the forest to the western beach and then northwards up along the coast if we were to stick to the schedule Chris had recommended to us. My confidence was growing handling the 4x4 as we made it to the start of 70 mile beach. We’d lost sight of the other two Fraser Escape cars as we filled up on our water supplies and had a last kick around the few buildings that marked the last tiny point of civilisation we’d see before we set off down the beach.
This was what the Fraser experience was all about. Cruising along the beach that extended as far as the eye could see with the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean to one side and the beautiful rainforest to the other. The mood was lifting and the horror stories that the Fraser Escape guides had told us were fading from memory. We had a good group of sensible people, it was only those reckless individuals that ended up turning over their car or taking on a pack of Dingo’s I thought. Geoff and Lewis cracked open the first box of Goon in the back and spirits were raised further while Sharon and I took in the view from the front.
The beach was practically ours. When a rare vehicle did come from the north a smile would be raised by everybody as the occupants returned our manic hand waving. We passed a light aircraft, taxying on the sand, preparing to take off. There are road signs that warn that the beach is used as an airstrip. I didn’t need to be told that the aircraft have right of way.
Suddenly, Sharon screeched “Look Out!” But I’d already seen it. A sand dune that had come out of nowhere. I made the decision that it was too risky to snatch at the wheel in an attempt to avoid it. I hit the brakes but there was no chance of stopping in time. We hit it hard and took to the air, crashing down in slow motion. The guys in the back got it worst, Geoff and Lewis by the back doors particularly so, with Geoff’s head being banged against the roof of the car and Lewis losing the contents of his camping mug.
“Everybody OK?” I called to the back as I slowed the car to a crawl.
“Ah, shit, Ow!” moaned Geoff. “I’m OK,” he managed as he composed himself after a few moments. Lesson learnt: take it easy and don’t get complacent. Sharon quietened down considerably as she scanned the beach for any more sizeable sand dunes as we continued on. When the rain started up again, although only lightly, I flicked on the wipers. No response. Something had happened to our electrics. I noticed that according to our odometer, we had only covered a few kilometres. We’d been travelling for half the day, there was no way that it was working correctly either.
We arrived at Elie Creek, a strong stream running from the bush that could be potentially strong enough to carry a vehicle into the sea. I stopped the car, got out and waded into it in my sandals to feel its strength like I’d seen in the video Dave had shown that morning. Back in the car I rolled up to it in second gear, hitting the accelerator as we slipped over the edge of the bank. There was a round of applause from the back after we emerged unscathed at the other end. I felt I’d made up for the earlier incident, though Geoff had drunk enough Goon by now to forget the bump on his head as he began singing welsh anthems.
The turning for the campsite that we were scheduled to stay at was 25 kilometres from Elie Creek, but without a working odometer we were lost for an accurate way to measure the distance. All we had to go on was a visual mark on a hill - a ‘scar’ of missing trees that Dave had told us about. We pushed on scanning the tree line. Preceding the Titanic, the largest ship in the world was the Scottish built Maheno. Just north of Elie creek is where it ran aground, now a permanent feature of the beach.
“I don’t know what that says about Scottish shipbuilders,” Chris had said during the talk, adding the Scots to the list of people he was to insult. I didn’t actually spend much time looking at it when we stopped, or even think of getting a photograph, absorbed as I was in trying to find something out of place as I checked the wiring in the car.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” asked Gillian as I fumbled about.
“It’s probably a lose wire somewhere,” I replied, “I can’t really get to it to have a look,” I said as if I knew what I was doing. I didn’t.
We carried on North looking out for the scarred hill and anything in the bush that looked like a turning. Out on the horizon loomed Indian Head, a large rocky hillock looking out over the ocean that marks the end of the section of beach and not on our schedule until tomorrow.
We’d missed the turning.
We turned around, deciding that it wasn’t worth a stop at that time with the day getting old. Stopping every so often to check anything that might indicate the campsite we finally found the scarred hill and made it to the campsite grounds as twilight set in.
We rolled up to a familiar looking 4x4 just as the rain started. One of the groups that had left with us this morning had already set up, a group of ten Irish in full song with a bewildered looking Canadian couple. I jumped out of the car feeling elated but relieved, I’d enjoyed the days’ driving but the tiredness from all the concentration had set in. I necked a mug of Goon straight away.
There was more work to do before we could relax and the rain just got heavier. It wasn't much fun putting up the tents and getting the food cooked in the rain and the Goon didn’t take long to set in. I wandered if I might get a helicopter ride back to the mainland as I climbed onto the roof of the 4x4, trying to pick through the equipment by the light of my mag-light and my head spinning from the alcohol. But moral was high as we eventually sorted ourselves out, eating the sausages and steak that Miriam cooked. Lewis missed most of the fun, collapsing into one of the Irish guys tents as the Goon he got the better of him. It’s a good job the two Irish lads whose tent it was had such a good sense of humour, the tent was wrecked and flooded. We sang the night away with the guitar the Irish had brought. I just wish I could've remembered how to play Champagne Supernova better, or better still obeyed my own self-imposed rule of not playing the guitar when drunk. The night was rounded off when a few us took our drinks and torches to the beach.
Somehow we managed to get up and packed up camp by the 8am start we had scheduled. The early morning brought some much-needed sunshine and the drive to Indian Head that had seemed so long the day before was soon covered. Gillian took on the driving for the day, and it was good to be relieved of it, even if she insisted I sit up front with her. We got to the point where we needed to drive through the softer sand around the back of Indian Head. Gillian engaged the gear putting us into full 4x4 mode that would lock and put extra power into the wheels. She lined up the car with a worried look on her face.
“I don’t want to do it,” she said suddenly.
“Don’t worry, you can make it,” I said
“Will you do it?” Hike asked me.
“I will if you want me to, but Gillian, can do it.” I said, passing the buck back to the beginning. “Just keep the revs up and don’t stop,” I said as reassuringly as I could.
“OK, I’ll do it,” She said. “Does anyone wanna get out?”
She gunned the engine and we all shouted encouragement, at least I think we did, I didn’t notice much over the roar of the engine and my own shouts. We ploughed into the soft sand and were making progress, but then one of the wheels moved up the side of some previous tracks. We lurched to a dangerous angle. I heard the engine note dropping pitch.
“KEEP GOING! GO, GO, GO!” I yelled. We continued moving, making agonisingly slow progress as we all shifted our weight in an effort to balance out the tilt of the car. And then we made it to the harder sand. We all cheered. Gillian had done well.
Climbing up Indian Head allowed a fantastic view of the ocean with the chance to see the migrating Humpback Whales blowing water in the distance and the odd Tiger Shark dorsal fin surfacing. Around us we could see Fraser Island in all its glory, there can be fewer sights less impressive with dense rainforest spawning from the sand plains that stretched as far as the eye could see. We were limited to just an hour or so, high tide was due and we had more miles of beach to cover.
Continuing on northwards, we arrived at the Champagne Pools, the only salt-water area of the island that was safe to swim in. The Tiger sharks know that you’re there, they just can’t get to you. A small beach opens out onto the pools that were thronged with backpackers. Going for a swim in the pools is no easy task either – this was Fraser Island after all. The rocks that lead in are sharp and jagged with the large waves that come flying over the end of the pool walls that are powerful enough to knock you off balance. As I turned into one of these waves, I lost my balance from the force, readjusting the position of my feet as I fell. I stood directly on a piece of rock hidden out of sight beneath the water surface. Messages of sharp pain came to my brain from my right foot. I paddled out to the pure sand bed of the centre of the pool to inspect the damage. I could see my own blood turning the water a wispy red in the area around the flat of my foot. The Tiger sharks would have been going crazy out there.
Late in the afternoon, we headed back to the 4x4. Geoff got a splinter caught in his foot that rivalled my own injury. Everything we owned was now covered in sand, including the sandwiches that we made for lunch. We were looking like we’d spent weeks out on the island and not just a day and a half. We headed off earlier then scheduled, hoping that our broken odometer wouldn’t prove too much of a hindrance in finding the second campsite. We knew that there were no scars in the tree line or any other distinguishing marks to look out for, just the potluck of our spotting the turn off into the trees.
We drove up and down the beach, retracing our steps again and again with the paranoia that we’d driven past the turning again. The light was fading with the day turning into the gloom of twilight. Another vehicle approached, its’ headlights ablaze. We could hear the voices in the back singing a now familiar tune as they approached: “I love you baby, if it’s quite alright, I need you baby, trust in me and I swear…”
The second Fraser Escape vehicle.
The Canadian couple sat in the front looking even more perplexed then usual and a little hard of hearing as we tried to figure out where the damned campsite was.
“How about we just camp on the beach,” the guy suggested.
“Well we could do… I spotted a small clearing in the trees we just passed about a quarter of a mile back. We could camp there, we should be far enough back to be out of the way of the tide.” I said.
We found the spot I was thinking of, an old track ran around the back of the beach with a couple of clearings. We got to work on setting up camp for the night in the fading light as a third group of campers rolled up and started setting up next to our combined group. A ranger pulled up as we were sorting ourselves out.
“You guys gonna be OK out here?” she asked.
“Yes!” We all called like an assembly of children.
“Well, look out for Dingo’s. You do know what to do if you see one?
“Stay together, and stand your ground. Fold your arms and stare them out. Whatever you do don’t run,” answered Geoff, repeating the instructions that Chris had given us, only with less swearing. She was satisfied with that and left us to it. Still, it was reassuring to be part of such a big group.
Geoff volunteered to do our groups cooking, a bucket full of bolognaise. The pot of meat and vegetables was good, even though the sand that got into it added a crunch that wasn’t needed. Still it was a good meal, and the alcohol was soon flowing again. As we sat playing drinking games I looked up at Keon who was sitting on an upturned crate opposite me. He’d suddenly gone pale and was gazing out behind me into the pitch black.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Thought I saw something,” he said scanning the tree line by the light of his torch. I got my mag-light going and scanned around too. Nothing.
“I must have imagined it.” He said.
“Dingo!” yelled Gillian who was sat next to me on another upturned crate. “It just ran along the back of the tents!” Keon and Geoff grabbed torches and followed some of the Irish lads that were already on their way to the outer ring made naturally by our tents. I followed with my mag-light in hand.
The Dingo stood proudly at the top of the dune that separated the track from the beach, defying us as we shone light into its eyes. We formed a line and began pacing slowly toward it causing it to lose its nerve and run down the dune to our left. Our torchlights swung in an arc to follow it and caught the movement of a second Dingo. And then a third. We held our line and continued our advancement, intimidating the retreating Dingo’s whose numbers kept growing as their pack clustered together away from our torchlights. There must have been about 20 of them out there, but even though they had so many numbers, we were managing to intimidate them enough for them to realise that Geoff’s sand filled bolognaise wasn’t worth taking on a posse of drunken Irishmen for. We returned to camp, hearing the odd Dingo brushing along the back of the tents and not daring to go out to the bush for a piss without several buddies. The fun and games carried on into the night. Hike and Sven retired early and I wasn’t too far behind, Gillian was tired from her days driving and was glad I was happy to take over in the morning. Somehow I managed to sleep through the chaos when a couple of the Irish lads heading out for a piss came across a guy from the third group of campers, rummaging around the back of our truck and going through our bags. They stripped searched him and found he had taken Sharon’s credit cards and a bunch of Keon’s cash from their wallets that they had left in the car. The uncomfortable times I had spent sleeping on my own wallet now seem justified. He was lucky the Irish lads couldn't find enough rope to tie him to a tree for the Dingo’s.
The next day, we miraculously were all awake and packed up camp as scheduled for the second time. We worked out that the turn we had used as the makeshift campsite was 500 metres from the track to Lake Wabby, our destination for the morning. Luck was on our side.
We began the couple of kilometres hike to the lake after taking a look at The Pinnacles, some unique rock formations at a point in the cliffs at the back of the beach nearby. The big attraction of Lake Wabby is the steep sand dune that runs into the lake. It’s perfect for sledding, rolling or tumbling down into the water. It's a shame that it was raining again and me and Geoff used our foot injuries to chicken out of throwing ourselves down the slope. I had the voice of Chris in my head saying, “If you don’t do it you’re a big girls’ blouse.”
It was a long drive back, returning down the beach and through the rainforest in the increasing rain. We were scheduled to go and see Lake Mckenzie a second time, but with the weather worsening we had to abandon the plan in order to make our rendezvous with the barge back to the mainland. The brief showers materialised into full-blown downpours and the windscreen became so blurry I had to stop and get out to manually wipe it down every few minutes. It took all of my concentration to drive through the forest, squinting through the little gaps I could see through the rain spattered glass with the rest of the group deadly silent, their knuckles white from clinging onto anything with a solid base to brace themselves from the impact with the pot holes. Even Sven couldn’t manage to smile. At least I managed to get a laugh when I sprayed the screen with the windscreen washers.
We made it to the barge in one piece and the shower back at the hostel felt like five star luxury. Everybody was on a high and it was off to the hostel bar where the beer flowed and the music played. As part of the fun, the Fraser Escape guys held a mini award ceremony, the winners of such categories as ‘best driver’ or ‘best cook’ receiving a free beer. It’s a shame they didn’t accept our suggestions for ‘best foot injury’ and ‘biggest thieving cunt’.