Fraser Island

Bright and early Friday morning we had to make our way to campus to start our adventure to Fraser Island. Since we had to be awake so early, it would have only been foolish to go to sleep or pack in advance for that matter, so we just stayed up to do laundry and get our stuff together for the weekend. 4:30am came around and we decided it would be a good idea to gather everyone and get ready to get moving. We spent about an hour looking for LB because she decided not to sleep in her room that night which gave us a shaky start to the weekend. We got to Bond to meet up with the other 7 girls and our tour guides. Our tour guides, Wes and Sal, two extremely rugged individuals driving large jeep safaris took us on a four hour drive to Fraser Island.

Fraser Island is the world's largest all sand island (75 miles 

long). It is home to rain forests, fresh water lakes, beautiful sights and a unique animal called a Dingo. Since it is an all sand island, there are no roads on the island so we used the beach as our highway. 

Flying down the beach (and back "roads") was quite exciting. We drove to our campsite which was surprisingly nice. It had clean and new bathrooms/shower areas and cabins for those unwilling to camp out. We had a nice corner of the campsite set apart for our crew and five of us (Craig, Sahill, Scott, LB, and me) shared one large tent while the other 7 girls split themselves up (Rhode Island in one and Maryland in the other). 

We boarded our jeeps and drove to this rainforest pretty deep in the island. Once there, we filled up our water bottles with the fresh water from the creeks and walked about 1.5 miles through a rainforest. Our tour guides met us on the other side, we got in the jeeps and drove to McKenzie Lake. 

This fresh water lake was huge and the water was crystal clear. 

 We stayed there for about an hour and a half then got in the jeeps again to go to the campsite for dinner. Wes and Sal concocted a huge dinner of freshly caught fish, salads and something else. Some of the spices used for the fish were picked off trees/bushes from the island. Delicious. After dinner, we hung out around a bond fire and looked at the stars. The stars were incredible. We were able to see stars as far as the eye could see in any direction. It was absolutely wild.

In the morning, we woke up to some cereal and toast, then proceeded to board the jeeps and make our way to Eli Creek. This creek was sort of like a lazy river pouring fresh water into the ocean. Some other tourists were there playing cricket along the creek and a few of us hopped in and gave it a try.

 After spending a while there, we made our way to a fantastic lookout point called Indian Head.

Indian Head is one of three rock cliffs on the island and it acts as a sort of anchor for the sand. We hiked up Indian Head and had a fascinating view of sand dunes, waves, beaches and trees. 

We stayed up there enjoying the view for a while before our hike back down and into the jeeps. Wes and Sal then drove us to this trail that would take us to Lake Wabby. We got out and followed the sandy trail through another forest for about 2/3 of a mile. Then the trees disappeared and all of a sudden all we could see in the distance was sand. Over the past years, sand has been accumulating in this area that was once a rain forest. We were now walking across sand dunes covering an entire forest of trees beneath us. 

The heat was pretty intense and no matter how far we walked new signs would continue to say "Lake Wabby: 1 Kilometer"... Finally we got to a steep sand dune and saw Lake Wabby. A small fresh water lake surrounded on one side by trees and the other by a mountain of sand. We played for about an hour and a half, took some photos, dried off and made our way up and down a different forest path until we could see the ocean waves and our Jeeps again.

It would now be time to go home. It took us 3 to 4 hours to get home and we played a bunch of games to pass the time. Especially the "i'm thinking of a person" game which we managed to play for an hour and a half. We finally got home at dark and I jumped right into the nice clean Meriton shower and got on some nice clean clothes and cooked up a nice and clean meal. Civilization feels great after tents and camping for a few days.