Travelling Madmen

He stumbles out of the tent. Its 6.45am and its already 26 degrees. He has sand in places he didn't know he had, he hasnt showered, had a decent meal, drink or bathroom break in 3 days. He has no clean clothes left. He has cuts on his hands, legs, knees, feet and toes. There are dingos 7 feet to the left, jungle to the right and flies the size of small bats hovering in front of him. He is hungover and he is me.

After i realized I had drank most of a bottle of whiskey (yes of course I shared with Conor) i decided it was breakfast time and fortunately, like me, Conor is also an early riser. This was the third and final day of our trip on Fraser Island and as Conor and I tried in vain to wipe all of the sand off our cooking utensils I thought to myself. "F@#k....this weekend was amazing."

Frasier Island is 122km of white sand, blue water, massive sand dunes and a bit of jungle thrown in for good measure. In the 6 months Ive been away from my broken homeland ive been to many beautiful places. I have seen places, sights and people you read about in books or see in those "DONT YOU WISH YOUR LIFE WAS BETTER? LOOK HOW HAPPY THESE PEOPLE IN COSTA DEL SOL LOOK! BY LAND IN SPAIN!" advertisements on the telly. Nothing measures up to the tranquility and brilliance I experienced on this blessed sand island of wonder. We got to drive a 4 wheel drive jeep that was built in 1992 down dirt tracks and on beaches that would challenge Colm McCray. We swam in fresh water lagoons that God himself would go for a swim. There was wild-life everywhere. All that was missing was a running commentary from David Attenbouragh.

The first day consisted of loading the van up in the hostel we stayed in at rainbow beach. 80 cans of beer, 4 bags of goon and one bottle of whiskey and what ever food there was. Along with 3 tents and cooking gear. Little did we know that most off the booze and food would be gone after the first night. All packed up we squeezed into the jeep......all 8 of us! 2 Irish guys, 1 Welsh man, 2 english guys and 3 english girls. The banter was fierce. 1 boat trip and 40 bouncy minutes later we pulled up on on the biggest fresh water lake on Fraser. Lake McKenzie. No one warned any of us. none of us had a clue and we were all shocked at how FRIGGIN AWESOME IT WAS!! Crystal clear water that was cleaner than any swimming pool Ive ever been in and sand as white as clouds. After gawking at all the ladies in swimwear and a filling lunch we headed to our camp site and began to drink. My night went something like this.

Drinking games
quick walk on the beach
more drinking
scene missing
being chased by bugs
scene missing
Conor shouting something about dingos
running from dingos
more drink
scene missing
waking up in a roasting hot tent

Day 2
As you can imagine it was a bit quieter on the second morning and more than one person was holding their head. A nice walk up Eli creek sorted that out. Amazing clear water and soft sand once again. The banter continued and we headed out to the champagne pools for another swim. Let me stop your train of thought right there. No they were not literal pools of champagne. They were in fact the only safe place to swim in salt water what with the sharks and the jellyfish and the 10 foot waves with rip currents. Its a massive rock pool this is where Conor and I had the great idea of swimming to the front of the pools and held on for dear life as long as possible without being blown back by the massive waves crashing against the walls. On the way there we passed the brown skeleton remains of the (ship name) After it had served the British and ozzy navy it was turned into a cruise liner and then it was sold to the Japanese where on it was beached on the way to japan. After it very ling life of service it was used for target practice by the ozzy airforce. Typical ozzies! Private "its stuck commander what will you have us do?" Commander ".....................lets.........lets blow it up!" So there it sits all rusty and burned out. Bits of warped metal fading away against the waves. A quick trip up indian head for some sight seeing where I finally saw my sought after turtles and we headed back to camp. That night was a milder repeat of the sat night and the following morning was is described in detail in my intro to this blog.



il tell you this, after 2 nights sleeping in and around sand the hostel was like a 5 star hotel. I didnt stop after we got cack tho I headed straight for rainbow beach to do some surfing on waves im clearly not able for. I had an amazing, sandy time on fraser. One of my life ambitions was to see turtles on this island and even tho i didnt get a close as I would have liked I can say, with confidence, that I can tick this off my "things to do in life" list.

We continued south to Brisbane and met with more of my family and we finally have the camper. It is a nice piece of metalwork and as i sit here in Byron bay writing this I can only think that I hope that conor and i have more fantastic manly adventures like we did on fraser. We did have a good time in surfers paradise with all the schoolies plaguing the place and il write more
on that soon.


Redman out