From Nimbin we made our way to Byron Bay, aka quintessential Australia. We spent 2 days there, mainly because Dave was obsessed with surfing and wanted to try it again. On our first day there we happened on a free board rental. So, off we went to the beach and only found out much too late that the board was broken in two. We did some beaching and swimming instead. The next day we had much more success with our board rentals. We spent the day at "the pass", which was a great surf spot. An amazing point break with long waves and tons of people surfing there. After we got tired of surfing we stumbled upon some live music by a Canadian girl so we stayed to watch for a bit. Overall, we really liked Byron - it was an awesome beach town!
We were supposed to spend a day or two on the Gold Coast before we made our way back to Brisbane to stay with Woodie, but we were starting to get eager for a bed, shower, house and friends so we only spent a day in Surfers Paradise. It was a busy place - busier than I pictured it in my head at least. But it had a great beach. We were feeling a little beached out by then though so we explored the city for the day and then made our way closer to Brisbane. Woodie was kind enough to let us show up a day earlier than we had expected and we were very thankful for that. We were only supposed to stay for 2 nights but we stayed for three - did some laundry, went to the gym, booked some flights and travel things for our trip to Asia, organized more visas and spent some good ol' quality time with Woodie. It was so nice - and it made us excited to come home to our apartment soon.
From Brisbane we made our way up to Rainbow Beach because we were starting a 3 day, 2 night Fraser Island Tour. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world so they host a lot of 4x4 tours, where people can drive on the beach and check out the inland fresh water lakes. We showed up at our pre-Fraser Island briefing and who did we see - the two English girls, Fran and Zoe, that we met at surf camp. Not only were they in our group, but they were also in our car. Everyone was divided up into groups of 8, for each car, so that everyone had an opportunity to drive one of the 4x4 cars. We left early the next morning after getting everyone organized and made our way by ferry over to the island. Our first day was awesome. We did some driving on the beach, some driving on some inland tracks and made our way to Lake Mackenzie, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in the world. It was crystal clear blue water with white silicon sand and it was fresh water! That was the best part...you didn't have the grime of salt left on you after you swam. While we were there, our guide was even able to find a few turtles in the water. They were so tiny and cute!
Beautiful Lake Mackenzie
We also got to see a bunch of dingo's. They look like really skinny, malnourished dogs, but don't be fooled because they can get pretty vicious apparently. We then made our way back to the camp to celebrate Zoe's 30th birthday!
Maybe the dingo ate your baby
The next day we continued our driving around the island to the champagne pools, an area where water from the ocean spills over into these little pools at high tide. It was really beautiful, but really busy. From there we then made our way to Indian Head, which was one of the highest points on the island. You could walk up to the top and see down into the water. While we were there we saw a small whale and a few pods of dolphins. After we left some other people in our group said that they even saw some sharks swimming around too. We were sad to have missed that. We finished the day off at a little fresh water river. There were a bunch of groups there so it was a big party with sunning, swimming and beach volleyball.
Driving on the beach
The third and final day was a hike to another lake, Lake Wabby. It took us about an hour to get there, and in the heat of the day it was exhausting, but worth it. We made it to this huge sand dune and at the bottom of it was a nice freshwater lake. We spent a couple of hours there but then had to make our way back to the ferry. Overall, we really enjoyed our time on Fraser Island. We got to spend more time with Zoe and Fran, who are hilarious, and we got to know 4 other people in our car pretty well. Unfortunately, there were a couple of downers to our trip. We had one girl in our group, Nina, who was a total wet blanket. She didn't help with the cooking or the cleaning and barely ever smiled. Also, the trip was basically what I expected Spring Break in the USA to be. There was probably a hundred 20 y.o. drunk and gallivanting. A few of them got so belligerent that they got kicked off the tour the next morning, while one unknown source went #2 on the ground outside the bathroom. It was wild! Also, the actual camp they had us staying in was pretty much crap. We were in tents with zippers that didn't work (this was after they told us that there were snakes that frequented the camp), toilets that broke and stank, cooking facilities that were brutal and just filth everywhere.
Thanks for reading
xoxo
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