Australia Uncovered.

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Fraser Island

“Early to bed and early to rise”. We got up at 6 O’Clock and got a bus outside the hostel to bring us to the port. A few people were picked up along the way. We headed on the Boat that would bring us to the Island. You never do get sick of these boat journeys with the breeze in your hair and the views along the way. Fraser Island, is an island located along the southern coast of Queensland, Australia, approximately 300 kilometers (190 mi) north of Brisbane. Its length is about 120 kilometers (75 mi). Once we arrived we met our tour guide, Craig. We opted to do a guided tour of Fraser Island as opposed to the self drive tour. Our tour included “all you can eat” breakfasts and dinners as well as lunch (which was pretty much all you can eat aswell). The tour also includes getting up at 7am to go view the features of this magnificent Island but its worth getting up that early because it takes a while to get to some of the places here….it’s a bloody big Island you know!!! We got in our big four wheel drive bus and headed to the Basin Lake. Mike got bitten by a Spider which he claimed was poison! No sign of the Spiderman suit yet. We then went on a big trek through a forest which reminded us of our Illha Grande escapade. This is a great way to get to know you tour and we mingled with everyone at this point. After this treck we met our tour guide and had some luch. Lake McKenzie was the next stop. It is a "perched" lake sitting on top of compact sand and vegetable matter 100 metres above sea level. Lake McKenzie has an area of 150 hectares and is just over five metres in depth. The beach sand of Lake McKenzie is nearly pure silica and it is possible to wash hair, teeth, jewelry, and exfoliate one's skin. The lakes have very few nutrients and pH varies, though sunscreen and soaps are a problem as a form of pollution. The water was crystal clear and we played a bit of footie on the white sand. We were gasping for a cup of tea and luckily Craig was on hand with this and cookies. We chatted with another tour guide about the AFL and how “tough” their players are. An Irish man on our tour, Brian from County Tipp, joined us and told us that he had been living in Bondi for almost a year. He even played for a hurling team there!

After Lake McKenzie we checked into our lodges/cabins! It was like the Big Brother house. Conor, Kieran and I roomed together with Mike and Tom rooming with Roger (from Switzerland) and Louis (from England). The rooms were cool and once again it was bunk beds (note here that Kieran lost our rock paper scissors game but I let him sleep in the bottom). We freshened up and got the cards and the goon ready! “Kings Cup” was the game of choice. I’ll explain the rules:
An empty cup is placed in the middle of the table and all the cards are spread (faced down) around the cup in circular form. All the players have a turn and pick up anyone of the cards. Each card has a meaning:


Ace: Waterfall (i.e. Mexican wave of drinking until it does a full circle)
2: Drink with a buddy
3: You have to drink three fingers
4: Last person to put their thumb on the table has to drink
5: Sky high= last person to put their hand in the air has to drink
6: Categories
7: Make a rule (change a name, little green man J )
8: Word association
9: Remove a word
10: Nominate someone to drink
Jack: Guys drink
Queen: Girls drink
King: Fill the middle cup (after each King) with your own drink and the person to get the last King drinks it

Everyone was in great form and it was good to hear about why everyone went travelling, where they had been before this and what was there favorite place. We played cards until the early hours of the morning and fell into the bed with the tiredness. We would have to be up at 7am.

Day Two:

The second day began with a buffet breakfast which was the perfect cure for the demons of Kings Cup. We all loaded the bus and headed off on an hour drive across the island. The island’s roads being made of sand leaves us with a very bumpy bus ride. I mean seriously being tossed and hopped all over the place, the seatbelts are a must. What awaited us on the other side of the island was breathtaking, 75 mile long beach about the width of a motorway. The ocean was crystal blue and the sand was perfect orange. The beach is so wide and long that it has basically turned into a road run for buses and 4x4’s where the vehicles speed along the beach. You have to be there to believe it. Ocean to your right, forest to your left and sand beneath us doing 120k/hr in a 4 wheel drive bus! Pretty cool. Craig pointed out a dingo to us which he believed was pregnant. Pretty much looks like a wild dog but interestingly enough they don’t bark. We also seen dolphins swimming in the ocean as we drove along, wildlife is everywhere.

A major landmark of Fraser Island is the shipwreck of the S.S. Maheno. The S.S. Maheno was originally built in 1905 in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship for trans-Tasman crossings. In 1935, the ship was declared outdated and the ship was being towed from Melbourne when it was caught in a strong cyclone. She drifted ashore and was beached on Fraser Island. Lots of snaps were taken and it’s a good sight but not as amazing as the hype makes out. Rust, age and the ocean is taking its toll on the ship. After a full 30 minutes of driving along the beach we get to Indian Head which involves a short walk to the top for amazing views across the island and over the ocean. We could make out whales in the distance on their migration from the Poles. Snaps were taking and as we returned to the bus we couldn’t find Mikes ball. Someone stole it! Bastards!

Next stop was the champagne pools where we had lunch and went for a dip in the pools. They are naturally formed rock pools, shielded from the ocean by a line of rocks, the oceans waves pour over the rocks forming a foamy, sudsy froth on the pool hence the name champagne pools. Had a good auld chat with our tour guide Craig, his from NZ and loves his job. He is a big lad and very like Ray Houghton but if Ray had that weight on his waist he never would have put the ball in the English or Italian net!!! Craig used to do the tour guiding for Franz Josef in NZ, which we did. He described it as the best job he will ever have, where he and the other guides used to get a helicopter lift to the top of the glacier after their shift for some beers and a ski. A good guy Craig and he loved us Irish rogues.

On the drive back along the beach we saw a washed up Stingray which we all got out to have a look at and poke! A few people from another tour (and Conor) tossed it back into the sea, doing their bit for the world! That was the end of the excitement as a few metres on another tour bus was caught in the soft sand and Craigy boy had to pull him out with the bus to the response of our rapturous applause. Final stop of the day was Eli Creek, the largest creek on the east coast of the island with a flow of 80 million litres per day. There is a boardwalk for visitors to reach the top of the creek and swim or ride down the creek if they wish which of course we did. Another tour group member had a boomerang and was throwing it perfectly on the beach, coming back and everything a boomerang is supposed to do but it typically never came back for me, Kieran or Mike on our attempts. We had some cookies, tea and muffins beside the Creek, great day and we were all well satisfied.

DAY 3:

Another day on Fraser and again we headed off early day for our final trip as a group. By this stage between the shared experiences during the days and the drinking and banter at night we all got on very well. Special mentions are deserved for Brian, Janette, Michaela, Nicole, Roger and Mary (Karin). Great the people you meet when you’re traveling. Anyways, our first destination of the day was another fresh water lake (Lake Wabby) with a massive sand blow beside it. The sand blow was awesome and bigger than the one in Rainbow. We chilled out here for a while and some of us went for a swim. Next up was another fresh water lake just as spectacular as Lake McKenzie with the water crystal clear and the sand pure white. We lounged out here; some read books and chatted about the weird and wacky facts of life thanks to Nicole’s intriguing book, interestingly named “Why do men have nipples?”!! Gary got to massage one of the girls…which he wanted me to add in!!! More cookies and tea were had before we got the bus back to the resort.! We were back by 2pm. It was time to say good bye to the group….I hate these good byes. Emails were exchanged and hopefully we will meet a few of them as they are heading to Sydney.
Once the rest of the group left we decided to go take advantage of the King Fisher Bay resorts Jacuzzi. Funnily enough a few girls from Ballinasloe joined us and we chatted about Galway for a bit. We were getting on well until Conor brought up the “Mental Hospital”….the conversation went down hill after then. We never laughed as much as! The Jacuzzi warmed us up but we were knackered after the last few days and went back to our Cabin which had two more occupants. A Czech and Japenese girl were there. They had to be up early to start their tour so after a brief chat they headed off to bed. One more guest joined us, a girl from England named Rachael. She came into the Kitchen to feast her eyes upon us listening to REM “Everybody hurts” and drinking the remainder of our Goon. We looked awful depressed. Rachael cheered us up by teaching us a new card game. Our heads hit the pillows hard and we finally got a good nights sleep.

I can get use to waking up to the Sunshine; it is a great way to start the morning. We blew up our bags of Goon (which some backpackers use as pillows!!) and took a few pictures. Since we had to board the boat at 2pm, we decided to chill by the swimming pool and get a tan. Ben from the tour joined us and he was in great form. We checked the net before this and to our amazement Michael Owen had signed for United! Mike, Kieran and I went down to one of the beaches near the port and we were surrounded by mini crabs….there were millions of them. We sprinted to get away from them. We boarded the boat and said our goodbyes to an Island that surpassed all expectations and rounded off a great holiday for us. Australia is a beautiful place and every place has something different to offer.

Gary & Tom

Somewhere over the Rainbow

We arrived in a deserted paradise and checked in to our hostel, Fraser’s on Rainbow. We had a few quite pints beside a barrel full of fire (there’s no better way to explain it). We all got hot headed over the transfer window and with that we went to bed. We had a female backpacker in our room and she was outside the balcony on her phone so when we went to bed we actually never got to see her face…apart from Mike and myself for a brief hello. It was hilarious enough because we started to have a massive conversation with this girl who none of us knew…and some of the lads couldn’t even pick her out in a lineup! We chatted about her favorite tv shows, music etc… We even got her 2nd name! The lads described it being like a blind date episode…if only Cilla Black was in our room J After what seemed like hours of chat, we all got a good nights sleep.

The following morning we decided to head off and see the Sand Blow. Tom described it as being “a fucking desert up in the forest”. It was amazing, miles and miles of sand! The lads tried to sand surf on a buggy board, but they failed miserably!! We took numerous pictures and decided to head down to the amazing beach we could see from the cliff edge. This Cliff edge looked like it could take us right down to the beach as the sand was sloping downward… hell Kieran and myself felt like we could just slide down it and magically land on the beautiful beach! Tom, playing the part of the nagging Mother warned us not to do it but what did we care, we had a buggy board which made us way better than him!!! The lads went down the correct route and we could see them down the beach having a laugh. Kieran started the descent and slid down the cliff…so far so good! I followed and Kieran then went down another mini cliff. A silence followed and I knew that something was up. Kieran was struggling and so was I!! We were quite away from the top of the cliff and I started to feel a bit uneasy about the whole situation. Conor, Tom and Mike had big happy heads on them running and skipping on the beach. Our situation was very contrasting. I was on the edge of one cliff and Kieran was half way down another so we had to talk things through! Kieran decided to dig his way up the cliff by creating holes in the sand for his feet and hands and then climbing up them in order to reach me and eventually safety!! It was tiring stuff, I feared for the guy but his hard work and endeavor was typical of the man, he kept going! This guy is a modern day Rocky Balboa, pity we didn’t have the theme tune!! With Kieran within touching distance of me, I reached out with my hand and he grabbed it tightly and I dragged him up to my level (all the time looking down at the guys who at the time weren’t even watching…how could they not acknowledge me doing my hero thing). Now that Kieran and I were together it was a lot easier. Kieran dug the holes again and I followed suit. We eventually made it to the top and were knackered after this!!

When we reached the lads we went for a swim and took in the glorious sunshine and thanked our lucky starts that we could bask in this delightful day. One of the stranger sites we gazed upon was a car submerged under the sand. After our traumatic day we headed back to the hostel, had a bit of lunch, got haircuts and purchased our Goon for Fraser Island. We boarded our bus to take us to our Hervey bay hostel and hit the hay early enough to get ready for what this trip is all about, the magical Fraser Island!!!

Let Loosa in Noosa

So on the suggestion of the travel assistant in Brisbane who organised everything for us – buses, accom, Fraser tour - we headed for Noosa. We didn’t know a whole lot about Noosa before but really took to the place once we arrived. On departing our bus we decided to try to walk to our accomodation following the map, however after 20 mins of not knowing where we were going we decided to return to the bus stop to find a courtesy pick up bus to our hostel waiting for us!! We missed it last time! How stupid! The accom was really nice, an outdoor pool, nice kitchen, pool table, table tennis table and a clean, new 6 bed dorm. The room was really a converted apartement with the 2 bedrooms being 2 separate rooms, the living/dining area was populated by 3 bump beds and a perfect kitchen was there but wasn’t to be used. A little Japanese lad we called Yoshi was our other roommate, id say he was glad to be leaving the following day when he seen the sight of us loud, boisterous and crazy Irish lads.

That first night at Noosa we relaxed, availed of the table tennis facilities and went for a nice meal in ‘Tapas’ a fancy restaurant along the riverfront. I got a Piella which was nice but nothing on the Ilha Grande one. After splashing out on a fancy meal we went for a cheap dessert at an ice cream parlour, it tasted cheap too – my honeycomb ice cream was like eating a scoop of cold dust! Yuck! So we returned to the hostel and ended up chatting to some of our fellow hostelries, a young London lass who couldn’t understand Kieran and he couldn’t understand her!! It was funny stuff as Kieran misinterpreted her talking about the ‘nightlife’ to talking about ‘Koalas’ and after she finished telling us about the nightlife than asked ‘So whats the nightlife like?’!! We played cards than with a bunch of hippy Canadians and a Scot who supported Dundee.

We woke up to the morning sun and decided it was the ideal day to discover Noosa and the National Park. Firstly, we took advantage of the free kayaks and went to the river for a gentle row. It was relaxing and a good way to start the day but got a bit boring after a while. We got a nice breakie at hostel than to set us up for the day. We strolled around Noosa and went on the beach for a while, kicking ball and taking some pics. We had a good auld chat with an old Croatian guy who is in Australia 40 years and still has pigeon English, a bit of Italian he says and has forgotten his Croatian! After the beach we headed to the National Park. We got a map and headed off on the Coastal Track. It reminded us of the trek on Ilha Grande, fascinating forestry, passing by various little quiet beaches and good view points across the ocean. There were plenty turkeys flapping around, they are like pigeons at home, everywhere. Gary, Mike and Kieran headed down a slope to Alexandria Beach while me and Conor took a different trek home. Gary and the other two jogged back to save time and work off all the alcohol and shit they were eating!

Crikey shes a beauty!!! Yep, today our next adventure was a trip to the world famous Australia Zoo where the late Steve Irwin displayed his crazy crocodile skills in the past. Gary and I picked up some toast and a takeaway tea before boarding the free courtesy bus with the other lads to the Zoo. The bus is class, covered in signage outside and the seats have designs of little animals. Its roomy, comfortable and the Steve Irwin documentary, shown during the hour and half trip, about his life was intriguing and made us appreciate where he came from and who he was. The first thing we saw on arrival at the zoo was a huge tortoise and Michael, I call him the zookeeper cause I don’t know what else to call him, gave us a demonstration. Next up was feeding the elephants which was a 2 second experience but cool none the less. The Wildlife Warriors show, which Steve Irwin used to star in, is the highlight of the zoo and was next up. The Crocoseum was class and well set up for the show. The show involved all types of exotic birdlife, elephants, snakes and of course the crocs! Terri and Bindi Irwin were the stars of the croc show throwing him food, toys with the purpose of displaying his power and ferocity.

The kangaroos jumped up next! We saw the latest edition to the zoo, the red pandas which were playful furry tings that could climb along trees and were a lot smaller than the traditional panda. The tigers were sleeping were asleep initially but returned later to see an awesome tiger demonstration in which the tiger handlers played games with them, fed them and even got them swimming. With the glass screen protecting the audience it allowed a really close up but safe demonstration of the awesome grace and beauty of the tigers. The elephant demonstration which Conor and I saw was also excellent with insightful commentary about elephants as they were washed, scrubbed and than dirtyed again by the zookeepers!! One fact I remember is elephants skin colour is actually black, there grey appearance occurs from dirt that is layered on the elephants by themselves to act as a sun protector. Now for ya! Gary, Mike and Kieran held a python aswell for a while for the photo opportunity. Overall the zoo is cool, lots of hands on experience and as close encounters as you can get from a zoo. While the range of animals is quite limited (no giraffes, lions, monkeys) the ones that are there are demonstrated very well and it is all the best of Australian wildlife. After a long day at the zoo we were shattered so just drank some coon, played some cards with our roommates Lizzy, James and Colin. Tomorrow we had another big day planned.

Gary and I had to try surfing yet having been here since Novemeber we still haven’t been on a surfboard. So Gary, James, Lizzy and I headed to the beach with the free surfboards from the hostel to try our surfer dude poses! Mike and Kieran went to do Jet skiing on the river and said it was unbelievable!! Kieran wants to buy one when he goes home and drive home along the Corrib Saturday nights! Drink driving laws don’t count on the water!! While we were doing all this Conor went to get his hair done!! The surfing wasn’t very successful but the waves were shite and it was very hard to get into a rhythm when one good wave would come every 20mins! We got the surfboard pic though and can say we tried it. That evening we boarded our greyhound bus, next stop Rainbow Beach!!!

Tom