Australia - Week Six

I left Noosa last Sunday feeling a bit guilty – I hadn’t had chance to properly explore the town and National Park because I’d gone to Australia Zoo. I’d done the same in Brisbane and also didn’t really explore Coolie either as I was so exhausted from Murwillumbah. I wish I’d have gone to the zoo directly from Brisbane and then arrived in Noosa on Friday evening, so I could have had Saturday there instead. Damn hindsight, I’m having a fantastic trip, but it’s so annoying when you think how things could have been better had you done them differently. I could have easily have spent my original 6 weeks going up the East Coast, but never mind, I’ll get to see Western Australia in February and that will be another great adventure!

Anyway, I arrived in Hervey Bay on Sunday afternoon and greatly appreciated the shuttle bus that collected me from the Greyhound terminal, and the welcome drink and cake at check in! Shame the dorm that I was put in was like a furnace, with the tiny fan merely pushing the hot air around! Welcome to Queensland! It was a weird setup as well as there was a door leading to the outside and another on the opposite wall connecting to the kitchen, so it was a bit of a thoroughfare for many guests! Plus, I overhead a conversation about how 3 girls had been robbed in that room just a night or two before, probably as one of the guests had forgotten to lock one of the doors. So, I got all packed ready for Fraser Island that night and locked all my other belongings away in the hostel’s secure locker room!

On Monday morning, I was collected at 8am by The Fraser Island Tour Company and it was great to see a friendly face waving at me from the bus – it was Lotte (Denmark), who I had met in Noosa the day before! We were soon on the ferry on our way to the world’s largest sand island. We drove along the bumpy sandy tracks through the forests in Mog, the company’s trusty jeep-bus, then after a delicious buffet lunch, along Seventy-Five Mile Beach before trekking over the desert-like sandblows to Lake Wabby, an emerald lake coloured green from algae and nitrates. Then it was time to visit the wreck of the Maheno, washed up right at the water’s edge. We arrived at camp at about 4.30pm and I was delighted to find that inside my tent, was a wooden decking floor, two beds with crisp sheets and fluffy towels and an electric light, more luxurious than many of the places I had stayed in so far!

Lake Wabby, Fraser Island

Dinner was another delicious buffet cooked by our guide, Barry, consisting of steak, potatoes, salads, garlic bread, ice cream… wonderful! I really enjoyed the evening chatting with Lotte and some more new Danish friends, Mike and Stinne. Mike hates Manchester United, so we had a common interest right from the word go! They are also travelling on to New Zealand and parts of South America, but unfortunately, our paths won’t cross over there – although I’m hoping to bump into them up in Cairns at some point!

On Tuesday, it was an early start so that we could set out and see all the remaining sights in good time. The massive huntsman spider that I had spotted the night before in the dining area was still there, and everyone else was now enthralled with it. It was huge and you can imagine my screams of terror as it raised its rear end and squirted a jet of something out at me standing below. Not nice! Moving swiftly on… On our second day we went to Champagne Pools, Indian Head (saw lots of Manta rays but no sharks, damn it!), Eli Creek and Lake Garawongan (or something like that), this time a lake coloured brown from the tannins in the trees growing around it, with a low pH that made your skin feel soft and you could polish jewellery to a high shine in the fine silica sand!

It had been a great trip, and I was thoroughly worn out by the time I arrived back at Hervey Bay that evening. I retrieved my backpack from the locker and the staff kindly let me use the showers and facilities, even though I’d already checked out, as I waited to take the free shuttle back to the Greyhound stop. Unfortunately, the onward leg to Airlie Beach was the only one that I didn’t get my first choice of bus, the 8.25pm, arriving at 9.35 the following morning! As it turned out, Lotte, Mike, Stinne and myself were all in the same boat and had to take the half past midnight service, meaning it would only be mid afternoon by the time we arrived in Airlie Beach, wasting another day! But, we all met up at the Greyhound stop early, making the most of the free shuttles and at least having some friendly company for the 4 hour wait!

Now, Queensland is rather hot, but it decided to hammer it down whilst we waited and the temperature plummeted, so I bundled myself onto a bench, covered myself with my Jet Star blanket and shivered away as I waited for the bus to arrive, all the time praying that I wouldn’t catch a cold and therefore be unable to dive at the weekend! It was great relief when the bus arrived and we could finally board and head further north. It was glorious weather again when we arrived in Airlie and as it happened, if I had been on the earlier bus, I wouldn’t have been able to check in anyway until 1.30pm, so I didn’t lose much in the end. I then had to organize a day trip to the Whitsundays for Thursday and it was forecast heavy thunderstorms. So, I had a dilemma – should I go on that day, the only chance I had and get soaked and have not good photos of Whitehaven beach, or save the money and spend a day in Airlie?

I made the right choice in the end, as I went out on board the Mantaray, who had a great crew and by some miracle,the rain held off and there were glorious blue skies with fluffy white clouds over the beautiful sands of Whitehaven. It was truly a paradise, as featured in the Australian Tourism TV commercial, the one that got banned in the U.K. because the girl on the beach said “So where the bloody hell are ya?” LOL! Some trivia folks – NASA was granted permission by the Australian Government (in return for a huge grant) to take over 5 tons of sand from Whitehaven. It is 98% pure silica, the purest in the world and they used it to make the lens for the Hubble telescope. The sand is only found on Whitehaven and another island across the water from it and it comes from Fraser Island, being so pure and fine, it is carried hundreds of kilometers up the coast by the sea and deposited in the Whitsundays!

The World's Most Beautiful Beach?

That afternoon, I snorkeled on the reef and saw some cool fish, a huge Napoleon Maori Wrasse and big parrotfish, which could be clearly heard munching away at the coral. It was a fantastic day and I was glad I went on the one trip that I was least bothered about in terms of saving money! It was absolutely stunning over there, hopefully one day I'll be able to come back and spend more time sailing around all the islands!

There’s a pattern forming here – on Friday I had another early start to catch a Greyhound to Townsville, and I left Airlie Beach, not having had enough time to explore it properly! So that was the fourth place in a row that I had sped in and out of, feeling guiltier and guiltier every time. So I need to come back to Australia sometime in the future to do it again at a slower pace, which believe me, would be absolutely no hardship whatsoever! It was easy-peasy to get over to Magnetic Island from Townsville: the Greyhound stopped at the ferry terminal, and then once on the island, a bus took me straight over to my accommodation at Bungalow Bay Koala Village YHA.

I spent the afternoon chatting to my new roommates and I met Sophie (UK) just before the daily rainbow lorikeet feeding time! Well, I was in my element, I love these colourful little birds and I've fed them before at Paradise Park in Cornwall. "They like to nip, you know" I generously advised Sophie, "yes, they can give you quite a peck!" As it happened, lorikeets in the wild don't peck at you like the captive-bred ones in the UK do... oh no, they just have claws like needles instead and when ten are perched along your arms and they decide to fight amongst themselves, they grip on really hard for balance... OUCH! Most of the other guests left the feeding area after about ten minutes, but I was determined to spend as much time with the birds as possible, until all the soggy bread had gone! So although by the end of it, my arms were shredded and raw from their claws, I spent a good hour with them, I just love wildlife!

This morning, I was up early and back at Nelly Bay to go diving on the SS Yongala! The sea was reasonably calm and the rain was clearing up. After a couple of hours, we all geared up and buddied up and in we jumped. I turned round to the guys on the boat to signal them my OK sign (just as I had learned in Ko Tao) and they all screamed "GET TO THE LINE!!!" at me! The current was extremely strong, and we were in danger of being rapidly swept away. When I made it to the guide rope, I was incredibly out of breath and, for the first time whilst diving, I started to panic. I couldn't breathe enough through my regulator and I felt like the wetsuit was squashing my ribcage. Aron, or dive guide asked if we were ready to descend, and I had to stop him, I was quite scared about going down... I then thought about how much I'd spent to be there, and that soon got rid of that thought!!!

Luckily, I then realised that in the rush to swim to the rope, I had forgotten to inflate my BCD, so there I was, struggling away with 6kg in weights strapped around my waist, trying to catch my breath in a really strong current, doh! Once inflated, I started to calm down and we began our descent. Within a few moments, I was soon back in the zone and diving as normal! The wreck soon appeared and we were diving with huge wrasse, turtles, olive sea snakes and many more. Unfortunately, after only 20 minutes on the wreck, we had to turn back as some of the people in the group were low on air. It was really disappointing to get back on the boat after only half an hour with nearly half a tank of air left! Little did I realise, that if I'd had just two more dives under my belt, I wouldn't have needed to go with a guide and so would not have been put in a group with divers even less experienced than me! You live and learn, I guess.

We did get a little more time on the wreck that afternoon, but it was still quite a short dive. We did see some more amazing fish though and loads of barracuda. By the way, the olive sea snake is apparently the world's most venomous snake and I have swam with them. (Admittedly, they can't actually open their mouths wide enough to bite you, but that can be our little secret!) It was an amazing dive site, but due to the fact that I had such little time there and the low visibility today, it is another thing I have to come back to Australia for to do again! Really, I think I need to seriously work out how I can live here, where do I apply for a work visa?!!