We had a really early start because we had to watch a safety DVD about the island – how to drive the car on the sand and what to do if we saw a Dingo (wild dogs that live on the island)! Gav went with a couple of other lads to pick up the cars from the mechanics. There was the tour guide’s car which had 1 Irish, 1 Swiss and 2 Germans that couldn’t drive (either under 21 or with no driving licence) and then 3 cars following his directions with up to 7 people in each. Our car was obviously the best, with 6 out of the 7 of us up for driving! Then there was a car full of 7 Danish people and then the Multi Cultural car which included 1 Swiss, 2 Dutch and 3 Germans.
By 7.30am we had all packed the cars with our sleeping over bags and food, in the torrential rain(!), sat in the car ready to go and suddenly as we started the engine, smoke started filling the front of the car!! Zoe and Rhod were sat in the front with Gav driving, and all their eyes started to sting with the smoke whilst Zoe is shouting “the car’s on fire”. We went and told the tour guide, and he said it is just because we had the fan on, if we kept the fan off for the whole trip, we would be okay. He said “Is that OK?” and we all said “No, we want to change the car” – after all, we had paid good money for this trip and we didn’t want to be driving around a hot island with no fan in the car, with god knows how many other problems it may have had. The whole group had to drive back to the mechanics so that we could swap vehicles. We were sad to see ‘Smokey’ (as we had nicknamed him) go, but after they put wheels on another vehicle, we jumped into that one instead. Let us introduce you to ‘Leaky’ – in the heavy rain, the holes in the roof of the car didn’t fill us with much confidence. However, the car drove a lot better and we stuck with it. Once we got on the island, we had no problems with the car which was great. Gav drove us on to the ferry and we started our adventure!
The ferry arrived on to the island at Wanggoolba Creek and the drive from there to Lake Birrabean was great fun! Muddy sandy tracks left Gav feeling like he had little control of the car and we all had fun bouncing around through the rainforest wondering where the road would take us. At Lake Birrabean we stopped at some toilets so that we could get in to our swimwear and then we walked down to the Lake for a swim and we all played catch with a ball that Gav and I got free from Melbourne. We shouted out our names as we caught the ball so that we could all learn each others names. Lake Birrabean has famous sand surrounding it. The sand is so fine that you can use it to exfoliate – we all scrubbed our arms and legs, some people washed their hair with it, and Zoe scrubbed her teeth with it (were still not sure if the guide was joking when he made this recommendation) and we all came away feeling silky and smooth!
All starving hungry, we headed to Central Station to grab some lunch. There were large picnic tables here. Courtney, the Canadian girl in our group had volunteered to make up the sandwiches the previous night, with the shopping that we had all bought. On presenting the sandwiches, let’s just say, it wasn’t what we were expecting. We had got 3 types of sandwich meat and grated cheese for sandwiches during the trip – Courtney used all 4 fillings to make the sandwiches for the first day alone – suddenly we realised that these 2 sandwiches needed to last us for the next 3 days. After some giggling, we realised that Courtney’s sandwiches were twice the size of the rest of ours – she claimed not to have noticed. After much laughing and in some cases crying from laughter, Mand tried to calm everyone down and said “At least Courtney was nice enough to volunteer to make the sandwiches” and Zoe said “And we all know why, look at the size of her sandwich!” – more laughing...and as you can imagine, the sandwich joke got brought up for the whole trip. Anytime we were talking about food or hunger, we said “Courtney will be fine after them sandwiches”, or if she was daydreaming they said she was busy thinking about sandwiches...poor girl!
Central Station had a large map which the tour guide used to explain where our stops were going to be over the next couple of days –the order at which we were going to see things wasn’t planned, as it all depending on the weather along the way. There was a rainforest 5 minutes away from where we had lunch, so we enjoyed a half an hour walk through the rainforest seeing a fresh water spring, large ferns, and to Mand’s disgust, a leach stuck to her ankle! The tour guide had warned the group that the leaches would be around because of the rain in the morning, and so we were all checking our feet constantly. Mand grabbed the leach off as soon as she saw it, but then it stuck on to her finger and Gav’s finger as he pulled it off – all very horrific but we managed to get rid of it.
Rhod was next to drive and our stop was at Lake Wabby. Once we parked up on the beach, Rhod had a foot full of blood – he must have had a leach between his toes and not noticed – gross things! Once they’re full they drop off. There was a good 45 minute walk between where we parked the cars and the Lake. The walk was amazing, looking over huge sand dunes, and then the lake was down a huge sand dune itself – very steep hill. Clear warm water, with the fish that nibble your feet in it, just like the shops in the shopping centres! There was also huge catfish in there! We all went for a swim and sunbathed for a good hour and a half. Rhod tried to catch a catfish as the guide had said that he would give anyone $50 if they caught one – it was impossible.
Our next stop was at the already set up Camp – felt like we were on “I’m A Celebrity... Get me Out Of Here”, just no Ant and Dec or Bushtucker Trials (luckily). The camp was on the beach, just behind a sandune, so we could hear the sea. There was a kitchen unit with all the pots and pans we needed and so Gav, Rhod and Mand cooked pasta for the group – it was delicious, and we had enough for lunch the following day – thank god! After a few drinks, we went to bed in the private tent that we managed to get. It was strange to sleep on the beach and hear all the noises of the forrest at the same time. At points in the night we could hear things outside but didn’t think much of it. When we got up in the morning we found large paw prints around the tents – Dingo’s had been in camp in the night, looking for food!
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