No glitches this time. We were up at 4:45 and were picked up at the condo at 5:30 in a passenger vehicle. While we were waiting in the lobby the only living thing around was

– I think this is the Worldmark, Golden Beach mascot *lol*

The driver explained that we were the only pickups on the south end of the run – we felt bad until she said that she lives in Caloundra and has to go up each morning anyway. We met up with the tour bus

at Noosa. The bus holds 18 passengers and there were only 10 people on the tour so there was lots of room to spread out. Another really neat thing was that there are two seats beside the driver and everyone got a chance to sit in the front.

 We started out by crossing the Noosa River on a small cable ferry that only took a few minutes to cross and then we were driving up the Teewah Beach.

The sun was just coming up when we started up the beach. The dunes were very exposed and the driver explained that there had been a huge cyclone in January and a lot of the sand was swept away leaving large rock exposed. The sand is coming back now but will take a while longer before the dunes are softened again.

There is a large camping area along the beach – you just need a permit to camp there (and to be self-contained). Ken, the driver (who reminded us of Gordon Nikirk – without the cowboy hat and with an Aussie accent) told us that at Christmas and New Years there can be up to 6,000 people camped along the beach. We had a quick stop at

the Teewah Coloured Sands

and then continued up the beach. We couldn’t go all the way to Rainbow Beach on the beach road because the tide was in too far to go around Double Island Point so we headed inland on the Freshwater Road – a 4 wheel drive track. We weren’t far along it when we spotted a road construction sign – no photo as it was hard to take photos on the bumpy road *lol* We were going to have morning tea on the beach at Rainbow Beach but Ken took a look at the sky and predicted a shower so we went to a picnic shelter at the park.

Not sure if you can see from this photo, but the spots are heavy rain.

The crossing to Fraser Island is via a barge which loads from the sand (like a double ended landing craft).

There is no set schedule – it just goes back and forth as required. The crossing only takes about 12 minutes and then we were off on the beach road. It was funny to see speed limit signs on the beach – and signs warning that you were sharing the road with a runway.

We left the beach at Eurong (a resort area) and travelled through the rainforest. Ken explained what the trees were and what they were used for as well as the history of the island. We stopped for a lunch break at

Lake McKenzie where we had the opportunity to go swimming. John made it in all the way but I chickened out at the tops of my legs. Lunch was fantastic – when we booked we were given a choice of steak, fish or vegetarian and we both chose steak. Ken bar-b-q’d while everyone else was relaxing and when we got back to the picnic area (fenced to keep dingoes out), the meat was ready, there were about 5 different salads out, and we were offered either beer, wine or soft drink. For dessert, we had fresh cantaloupe and pineapple. It was great to be able to eat what was offered (the second tour that has happened on).

Once back in the bus, it was time for John and I to ride up front. It was a good time to be there – we saw rainforest and the beach. On the beach road, the tide was starting to come in which made it interesting in spots – especially when other vehicles didn’t want to move over so that we were driving in the surf. We saw a dingo – who wasn’t interested in us at all – and a sea eagle who didn’t want to move and then reluctantly took off right in front of the bus.

Once back on the mainland, we took a short trip down Rainbow Beach (on the beach) and had our afternoon tea at some of the coloured sands there. Apparently it’s a good area for paragliders too – we saw one guy packing his parachute and another one playing in the thermals above us (we thought he might be checking out what we were having for tea and deciding whether to come and join us). We couldn’t stay too long as there was one spot the bus wouldn’t be able to manouevre over if the tide came in too far. The trip back to Noosa was interesting – we had a scenic tour past and through Queensland’s largest pine forest (planted) – the good thing was that John and I saw real, live wild kangaroos – they were in the distance but they were definitely kangaroos.

Ken dropped everyone else off and then took us for a tour of Noosa before we met up with another bus that was coming back towards Caloundra. It was filled with school kids who had been on Fraser Island on a field trip. We rode part way down on the bus and then transferred to the same vehicle that took us up.

I can’t say enough about Fraser Island Adventure Tours – they were very safety conscious, eco-friendly (not one piece of anything we took with us was left behind on the island or the beaches), knowledgeable and friendly. We had a really good day – just wish we could have got out and looked around more often but the roads really weren’t wide enough (even though the signs kept saying 2-way traffic) for Ken to stop safely. We did have a walk at Wanggoolba Creek that was really neat – it’s at Central Station which used to be a forestry camp. The information centre there is an old forestry worker’s home.

Temperature: 23 C – sunny with heavy rainshower in morning