Happy Holidays you lushes!!!

Sorry no pictures yet, but many to come! See you in the New Year!

Fraser Island

The big 4 day holiday has come and gone, with much fun and many pictures! We found a great spot to set up camp, with good cover, good fishing out front and a nice hill for me to climb right behind us. Our operation was pretty top notch too, we had 3 tents, a stove, fridge, lighting (power coming courtesy of a honda generator), an enclosed toilet, and a shower!

As usual, I was able to witness plenty of aussie wildlife. We had a dingo that regularly visited our camp, as well as a poisonous toad that John literally had to beat away with a stick. Kathryn and I saw a stingray from our perch on top of Indian Head (the other people told us if he had arrived 5 minutes earlier we would have seen sharks pass the point). And, of course, fish! Including a monster Maree pulled in Sunday night.

We had a lot of fun, got to see nearly the entire east coast of the island, did some good 4x4ing on some inland roads (laughing at all the other blokes that got bogged down), and had plenty of beach time. Anyhow, onto the pictures...enjoy!







Yup, that's me driving on the beach! The east beach is the main highway on the island.









Our campsite. My tent was the rounded one in the middle. Kathryn and Maree slept in the blue pyramid style and their parents slept in the palace you see in the background.












Headed down for a swim at the Champagne Pools, apparently we should be careful.









And these are the Champagne Pools...its a good place to swim because you get ocean water without the worry of sharks, stingrays, and jellyfish because the rocks protect against all but the smallest fish.











Catching this one was a stroke of luck. I was facing the other way with the camera when I heard the crash, I swung and around as fast as I could and snapped it - and I reckon it turned out pretty good!









Hello fishies!














Sailboat in the distance.













A lot of the trees shed their bark, leaving a smooth red surface that looks pretty cool.




Below is a picture of Indian Head - a large volcanic rock jutting out into the ocean.

















Edge of Indian Head.

Standing out on the edge of Indian Head - sheer drops down to the ocean on either side. Its a beautiful place to sit down and chill out for a while though, one of my favorite spots on the island.

More edge of Indian Head.

Playing a game of Chinese Rummy in my tent...it was too windy outside to play on the table so we retreated indoors for a little while.

On Sunday I got up at 4:30 and climbed the hill behind our camp so I could watch the sunrise from up high.

Probably my most popular sunrise picture.

Eli Creek. A Boardwalk runs alongside the creek for a few hundred meters, at the end theres a ramp down to the water so you can walk back to the beach in the creek. Kids were boogie-boarding their way along.

Walking in the creek.

Sitting in Eli Creek, eating grapes, now that's how to spend an afternoon!

A Fraser Island Airport! And we're parked on it!

I scoff at rules!

A look down the beach. In case I didn't mention it before, this particular beach is called "Seventy Five Mile Beach". Now that's a long beach!

John, Maree and Myself fishing away. I was having a good night here - I caught 6 respectable Dart. But the spotlight went to Maree this night...

And this is it - the biggest fish I never caught. But definitely the biggest one Maree ever caught! We all took turns posing with it. 800mm long and at least 20lbs.

This is a normal Dart, well, its actually a little smaller than some of the others I caught. But after the big one we just pulled in..it seemed all too much like a baby.

The remains of the SS Maheno. A luxury liner built in Glasgow in 1904, saw duty as a hospital ship in WW1, and was sold off as scrap in 1935. A cyclone snapped the tow rope that was dragging it and carried the unpowered ship to shore where it remains to this day.

No trip to Fraser Island is complete without a Dingo!!

The different colours of sand are exposed here at The Pinnacles.

One final look down the beach from our campsite the morning we left. It was high tide here, so we had to wait a few hours before the water had dropped down enough for the beach to be driveable again.

And the conluded my Fraser Island pictorial. We're headed down to the Gold Coast on the weekend for a few days, Back next week with new Gold Coast pictures.