Fraser Island

[Photos are up!!-- i left noosa sunday evening where i was learning how to SURF!!! DUDE, it's AWESOME!! now in Rockhampton/Yeppoon where i finally met Laurie. He's AWESOME!!! we are going to have a great time traveling together!!on thurs, i will be headed to Airlie Beach where i will immediately hop onto a sailboat to the whitsundays islands for 3 days. so, there will be very little time to interact with computers or think about the blog-world. my apologies again for the future absence...but i will be done with the East-coast by Sept 7th...so i shall return to yeppoon where i have found WIFI! So please check back and of course, stay tuned!]

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Barely 12 hours spent (getting off a bus, looking for food and sleeping) in the town of Noosa, I hopped aboard THE trailblazer for a 3 day 4WD-safari-tour onto Fraser Island! Known as a world heritage land and the world’s largest sand-bar island, it is something along the lines of 70+miles long and a fisherman’s dream--though only accessible by 4WD:

Here’s our 4WD trailblazer!


There are even traffic rules and traffic on this island (you must follow regular road-rules at all times—they apparently even have radar guns and cops patrolling the area in the summer because of all of the drunk-sand-bar-driving)!!


Ok, so here is a "wild" dingo.



I don’t know if this is the same dingo that stole my St. Kilda water bottle that I paid A$4 for…but Tuesday morning as I was minding my own business, watching the sunrise with a few of the people from the tour, an awfully ballsy dingo came up to me and started to sniff my clothes as well as nibble/tug on them! This was my first encounter with the “wild” animal and being told that they do bite…I hesitated enough that I completely forgot I was holding my camera…trying to take a photo!
So Mr-ballsy-dingo (MBD—though I think he was female) came right up to my sleepingbag (where I was trying to keep myself warm at 8 in the morning) and literally stole my water-bottle RIGHT OUT OF MY HAND! I was beside myself and nearly chased after it, but soon after MBD turned around, s/he had punctured a hole in the bottle and it was rendered completely useless.
Well…the story doesn’t stop here! This MBD comes back for another round about 20 minutes later and this time, tries to steal one of my sandals!! This time though, I’m not about to let him/her have his/her way…and so I start threatening it with shouts of: you’re not gonna get away this one, you f***ing thief! And lo and behold, turns out s/he is not anything more than a dog. S/he backed away right away at my exhibition of authority and as I gained a little bit of confidence, I even got up onto my feet (this time)!! MBD ran away knowing fare well that I was no fool-twice-to-be-had, and did not return for any further thievery or mischief! Welcome, welcome to the wild-world of Fraser Island!

Being one of the largest sand-bars known to man, I felt right at home after having spent numerous summers around Napa Tree Point. This view is looking down 75 mile beach (though I was told that it is actually only 68 miles long). Fraser island is very interesting in that it once was inhabited by aborigines (as most of OZ once was), and it has some of the purest water known in the world due to the sand-filtering system on most of the island. The water is of the purest quality, and indeed a great pleasure to be consumed! But more importantly, fraser island is extremely protected and does not allow any other animals on the island in order to preserve the natural state of its wilderness:

This is another view from Indian Head—a beautiful area where temptations to swim are great, but the tiger-shark breeding grounds are reason enough to keep your feet safely out of the water. From an 80m vista point, we saw sharks swimming everywhere like fish with occasional sightings of whales and dolphins.


Another part of our tour, was a Japanese shipwreck (Maheno) that has been left behind on the shores as a relic that will undoubtedly disintegrate out of sigh in due-time. Our tour guide told us that Fraser Island is looking for another willing-shipwreck ^_^



This is a view from a sand-bar as we walk back towards the beach. By the looks of things, I am feeling quite cold as the sun was hiding and we even got to enjoy a few sprinkles that day:



And finally, here is my artsy photo of the week—they are very strange tire-marks in the sand but for some unexplainable reason, there are also perfectly circular sand pellets. I am still quite curious how they were made as these beaches are in their majority, shaped by sand, sun, wind and tires only!

Fraser Island offered many many many more photo opportunities...so I will post those on my snapfish account if you want to check them out(see login info on "Great Ocean Road" posting from July).

And finally, I have many photos from Noosa, Rockhampton and Yeppoon to post...but tomorrow I plan on doing a 70Km ride and then Thurs, I have to leave for Airlie Beach at 7am...so don't know if I will actually get a chance. I am thinking of leaving my computer behind with Laurie while I finish up the last leg of my East-coast trip as I will have very little time to sit down at a computer terminal.

I am seeing Sofie up in Cairns this Sat, which I am very excited about!! And, unfortunately, I think I have to see a dentist before leaving on my caravan trip!! Hate the dentist!!!

TA!

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HOT-DAMN YUMMY DISCOVERY: sweet chili sauce. i don't know where it comes from (it's a Thai influence!!) but while on this trailblazers tour, i was privy to tasting "sweet chili sauce"...a sweet and HOT sauce that pretty much goes on "everything"!!! no kidding! i made some crazy rice-pasta noodle concoction with mayo, tuna and sweet chili sauce--and it was AMAZING! (then again, i was on a pretty "restricted" diet while on the safari tour as i couldn't eat 1/2 of what was being offered...dairy/wheat...*sigh*...when will the rest of the world turn lactose intolerant and gluten-sensitive like me??)