On the day after we arrived in Hervey bay, we were off to Fraser island on a 2 day guided tour. Most backpackers do a 4WD self drive camping tour, as its the cheapest. This is where you're put with a group and 2 of them drive the rest around the island. But we had seen too many pictures of crashed vehicles, where the group has had idiots driving them and the whole group had ended up in hospital :s so we decided to do for the guided tour. For this, your're on a 4WD bus! Your're with a group of about 22, and lucky for us, most of them were german! Luckily they were all ok except for one (also a lesbian!) who was really rude and liked to talk over the guide really loudly-he eventually told her to shut it! The roads round the island are just sand tracks as the whole island is one big sand mass (the biggest in the world)so it was very bumpy and the bus skidded everywhere-very funny! Also, the beaches acted as the main roads on the island which was cool. It meant we had a really good view of the Humpback whales that were jumping around out to sea. It was an amazing sight-the guide said he'd never seen them so close to the shore! Our guide was called john and he was a legend! On the first day we visited Eli creek and Indian head- a cliff face to the north of the island with great views of manta rays, whales, and often sharks although we didnt see any. That night we slept at a campsite in Happy valley, but we were in permanent tents so we had proper beds :D john also cooked an amazing meal for 22, this was at 9pm and he had started work at 7am when he picked us up! On the second day we were supposed to visit Lake Wabby but the battery went in the bus so we missed it :( We saw the SS Maheno wreck and the coloured sand pinnacles before having a picnic. We then went for a walk through the rainforrest and John was going to meet us at the other end on the bus. So we got there and he wasnt there! about an hour later he came bursting out the rainforrest to tell us the bus had broken down, and he'd ran all the way to get us (see why he's a legend!!) so we had to walk allllll the way back and wait to maintenence to arrive. On the way back one of the girls in the group was bitten by a bull ant which was quite scary to start with as she was shouting and swearing and no one knew what has bitten her! Theres some nasties in the forrest but she was lucky-bull ants really really hurt but they wont kill you! Eventually we were sorted and on our way. The next stop was lake Billabeen-really beautiful. The bottom is made of coffee rock which keeps the water in-its really black so looking down in the lake was quite scary!! I loved the lake because it looks like a beautiful beach but its fresh water- so no yukky stickiness and best of all-no sharks/jellies!! After the lake we caught the ferry home...
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