Diving The Poor Knights Islands

Sunday was awesome!!! I dove the Poor Knights Islands (with Dive TutuCaca) which was rated by Jacques Custo as one of the Top 10 Diving Spots in the WORLD! The trip definitely lived up to it's reputation.

The trip started at 8:30am and the skies were beautiful, blue and the temperature was warm enough... Even the ocean was calm (unlike my experience in OZ on the reef!).









The islands were formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago and there are about 8 of them. Most of them have holes in the rocks formed by erosion which makes them superb for diving tunnels and caves. The islands were once inhabited by Maori but the people were massacred by a rivaling tribe and since then have been considered a Tapu "sacred" spot and no one has lived on them. There are reptiles and insects that grow to huge proportions considering there are no natural preditors on the small islands. There are even plants that are only found on the Poor Knights Islands...

Jen, my Hawaiian diving buddy!

My dives were amazing... we wore really thick wetsuits and lots of weight to sink in the icy cold waters. There was tall kelp growing as opposed to the coral reef of OZ and there were huge boulders underwater covered in what looked like splatter paint in colors that you can't even imagine! We saw about 10 scorpion fish which disguises itself as a rock with mean eyes, an Eagle Ray, and a bunch of Moray Eels. They looked just like the discovery channel in yellow, grey, and spots peeking out of small holes with their mouths open, ready to attack!

The walls of the rocks were mesmerizing as they were covered in tiny living creatures and teh brightest colors... you could stare at the wall for an hour and still call it a great dive! We took an hour for lunch and headed back down.

Dive #2 was even better because we dove in the Blue Mao Mao Arch ... nothing could have prepared me for this experience. There were about 8 schools of demoiselles and blue mao mao swimming in opposing directions like it was a two lane highway but they looked like a swarm of locusts filling the arch! I couldn't see through them they were so dense and they were swarming us!

We spent some time admiring the walls...even touching them (felt like velvet) and my dive lasted 54 minutes ... which is my longest dive yet!

Scorpion Fish Yellow Moray Eel

Mt. Bledisloe, Haruru Falls, Whangarei (pron: Fung-ar-ae)

Saturday, the Kiwi driver dropped us off at Mt. Bledisloe for a photo op of Paihia and then he took us to Haruru Falls which is roughly a 1.5 hour walk through forest. We saw a tree hiding along the path with a Maori carving of a face on it... how cool is that? Maori carving and Mt. Bledisloe


We headed back south to Auckland and I hopped off at Whangarei (again, Meagan and I part!) and stayed at Bunkdown Lodge. This has been my favorite hostel since travelling as it was a wooden house in a small town owned by a couple with a golden retriever! They greeted me at the door, walked me around the large home, and introduced me to all the visitors. There was a large sitting area with over-stuffed couches for curling up in. I watched a movie and read my book before going to bed.
This is a Silver Fern, in the Maori culture, the leaves represent family and the deal leaves on the ground represent ancestors... there is a curly thing that comes out the middle representing new beginnings.

At 6:30 am they woke me up for my New Zealand SCUBA trip...

Day Trip to Cape Reinga

Cape Reinga is the northern most point of New Zealand where the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea clash. It is considered a very sacred place by the Maori people... more specifically the departure point for the spirits of those who have passed away into the afterlife.









The weather today was terrible. It rained hard all day with thick clouds and strong winds. Our trip was not delayed... we started at the Puketi Kauri Forest containing the most sacred trees to the Maori people. They are the second biggest trees in the world, just behind the North American Sequoia Trees.These trees can live up to 2000 years but there are only one or two left standing that are even near that age. When Captain Cook and the other early explorers found these huge trees, they cut them down and used them to build boats and masts.












Only about 2% of NZ's sub-tropical rainforest is still standing but there are efforts to fight that by planting primary forest which grows quickly and shelters the growth of the Kauri Trees and the protection of the native Kiwi bird. We saw one area that apparently a tourist crashed his vehicle and it caught on fire and burned the forest for 3 days... taking with it 1000 acres of newly planted primary forest. It was burned trees as far as the eye could see! How's that for a guilty conscience?

We drove up Ninety-mile beach (which is really only 64 miles) in the rain, up a quick-sand creek (famous for eating cars) and over to Cape Reinga. We walked through one of the strongest winds I've ever felt in my whole life!



One of the most recent cars consumed by the beach! It was apparently in good condition before the "accident."








On the way back, we stopped at a sand dune that was HUGE and slid down it on body boards. Needless to say it wasn't very fun due to the weather conditions... strong winds pummeling sand at you and pouring down rains in addition to the New Zealand cold temperatures!Yep, that tiny thing along the track on the right is me body boarding down the dune!

We did see a random seal laying on the beach on the way back home which was cool. Finally, we stopped at the Ancient Kauri Kingdom where they sell wood products made from Kauri forests preserved underground 20,000-50,000 years ago. Basically, they were preserved after volcanic eruptions and Tsunami's and then dug out for use as current day products.

Paihia

At 7:15am the Kiwi Experience bus (which is our chosen method of touring the country) left Auckland to head north towards Paihia. This was our first experience looking at the New Zealand countryside. Rumor had it that NZ was beautiful, but there were no exaggerations! The land is bright green as far as the eye can see with rolling hills in every direction covered in rain forest. There are something like 40 million sheep (as opposed to only 4 million people!) and some of the most productive dairy cows in the world grazing on these hills!

We had a few stops along the way including a stop at Honey Bee Cafe where they make their own honey and you could watch the bees swarm a hive. We arrived to the small beach town, Paihia, around noon and quickly boarded a boat to swim with dolphins... well I honestly didn't care to see any dolphins, but apparently there were Orca Whales in the bay on this particular day (which is pretty rare) feeding on Stingrays. It worked out really well because we didn't see any dolphins so we got some money back, but we saw Orcas surfacing a few times throughout the trip!

Yeah, that's all I got of the Orca's, but they were about 9m long!

Harbour in Paihia

Meagan and I had dinner at Toast, the only "posh" restaurant in the whole town and enjoyed a glass of wine and some pumpkin calzones. We stayed at Pipi Backpackers and made it an early night.

What is there to do in Auckland?

Well sleeping was one of the best things we did in Auckland as we slept the day away. The highlight of our first day in New Zealand was walking around in the rainy weather and coming across a Mexican Cafe. Now, this is the first time in 6 months that we've had Mexican food (you can't count the one night we spent at one in Byron because the food didn't taste Mexican). It was really authentic and tasted great! There were pinatas and even a live band ... okay the band was not really Mexican, but definitely some sort of ethnic music!





Meagan and I had a couple of really great margaritas each and a Dos XX (which is not available anywhere else in Oz/NZ) and some chicken quesadillas. The margaritas gave Trudy's a run for it's money! After dinner we were pretty toasty and headed to Sky City in the Sky Tower and spent an hour or so gambling at the blackjack tables. She's so silly ;)


Yikes... scary fog!

Goodbye Oz, Heading to the Land of Kiwi

Tuesday morning, Meg and I boarded a plane for the final leg of our "year of procrastination!" We are off to New Zealand ... some of you might not be familiar with it so here's a bit of history:

New Zealand is under British rule and is located just south east of Australia and is a tiny country surrounded by water. It is composed of a north and a south island both of which are very different. The people are called "Kiwi" after the native bird found only on the islands but rarely seen in the wild. Both islands combined have a population of roughly 4 million (that's about 1/5 the population of Texas!) Located on the island are indigenous people called Maori who migrated here from the Polynesian Islands about 1000 years ago. There is a close relationship between the Mauri's and the Kiwi's and thus many of the Maori words for towns, animals, and trees have been retained.
Meagan and I spent the first night eating in Wendy's... yes, pitiful but there were no other choices at this time of the night and the thought of Wendy's sounded brilliant! I must say, it was better than I remembered.

We stayed at Base Backpackers in Auckland (population 1.2 million) and were very excited to hear about the "Sanctuary" which is an all-girls floor and for a couple of dollars extra, you can have your very own fluffy, white towel, Aveda shampoo (sorry Hadley), and 100% Egyptian Cotton sheets and feather comforter! You know Meagan was a sucker for that one... and I was secretly also!Auckland's famous "Sky Tower" at night. It's 196 meters high and is the highest bungee jump in the world... I didn't do it though!

Cape Tribulation - Daintree Rainforest

Sunday morning bright and early we were picked up and driven about 2 hours north of Cairns through the Daintree Rainforest (the oldest remaining rainforest on the planet!) to our ultimate destination, Cape Tribulation. This rainforest is amazing because it is the only place in the world where there are 2 World Heritages that meet... the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. Also, the rainforest actually grows right up next to the beach which is rare.



Fan Palm Trees








On the way there, we stopped off at the croc infested Daintree River which flows right through the forest and we hopped on a boat that gave us a tour of the riverbed. We didn't see any man-eating crocs (despite the fact that there are a lot in the water) but we did see one frightening one ;) We also saw a couple of rainforest birds and two amethyst pythons chilling on tree branches. Then we were given a tour of the boardwalk running through the forest and many of the trees were pointed out to us. For example, the Mangroves which are abundant in the forest and the Strangler Tree that drops roots from the top of another tree and then eventually causes the death of the host tree.


Crikey! That's a big one! ;)
Below: Amethyst Python

Mangroves and their weird root systems.

Strangler Fig Tree has brutally destroyed the host tree and has left a hollow core. They don't do it on purpose though!

After the "tour" we were dropped off at Cape Tribulation... the loneliest town I've ever been in. It was literally composed of 3 "resorts" which were really nice, a tiny grocery store, a pharmacy, 2 restaurants with limited hours, and a Take Away restaurant. Apparently we were there in "low season" and there were literally 8 people in the whole resort! It was so lonely and quiet. It was good for reading another book though. I think I'm at 13 books for this trip!

Monday it rained... okay not just rain but rainforest rain! It was pouring down. The psuedo-streets had red rainwater rushing down them and the trees looked beautiful! Despite the fact that it was beautiful, there was nothing to do and my favorite person to watch the rain with was not there. I guess you'd expect rain in a rainforest considering this one has already had over 4 meters of rain since January!

Coolest part of the trip: We saw a male Cassowary and his chick walking along the road and it blocked traffic for about 10 minutes. There are only about 1200 of them left on the planet and we saw a wild one!! Awesome!

SCUBA Adventures II

Shortly after was my final dive in training!! Then the next dive, later that afternoon was supposedly on the best reef we would dive. Well, my buddy and I (Robin from England) missed out because we got lost and went the wrong way completely. Basically, we saw a bunch of sand and a stingray. Awesome. I AM CERTIFIED!


Robin, Nigel (my instructor), Me, Edith and Will (France), and Alan from DC.






That night, we had a "night dive" which was in complete and utter darkness. Our instructor briefed us on what to expect underwater, if we saw 2 green lights very far apart, it's the eyes of a really big shark and we were instructed to form "The Ring of Steel." Come to find out, this "Ring of Steel" involves all of the divers encircling the instructor, linking arms, with our tanks facing outward. Then, if the shark doesn't leave, quickly inflate the vest of the closest French diver, unlink arms, and PUSH them out of the circle! haha of course the Americans found this funny ;)
We had flashlights and glow sticks on the back of our tanks but you couldn't see either from a meter away! We cruised around for about 20 minutes, but didn't see anything unfortunately. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty happy to get out of the water and get back into the boat for a cup of tea! We played silly party games until about midnight and then hit the sheets for another early morning.



Nigel failing at an attempt at demonstrating his flexiblity.





Our 6th dive, Robin and I followed an instructor around so as not to get lost! It was so amazing! We saw a HUGE Cod that was probably bigger than a human, and millions of fish including Nemo's and my favorite Moorish Idols. The colors on this reef were more beautiful that any I'd seen since I was in Australia. Our final dive, we went with two other newbies and we found the reef this time (after a slight mis-direction) but we didn't get to see the GIANT clam that was supposedly so big that when it closes, the whole reef shakes, nor did we see Nemo's School where they have cameras set up to film the next Nemo "star" for Finding Nemo 2. My diving buddies ran out of air when I still had about 20 minutes left, so we all had to take it in. =( It was a good dive though!

Saturday night, back in Cairns, Meagan and I went to Rattle and Hum with the people on my dive boat and we had a good time. Then, we headed to Rhino Bar for a fun night.



Melanie (Germany), Javier (Spain), Robin, Me

SCUBA Adventures

Thursday morning Meagan and I separated for the first time as I was going for my SCUBA adventure and she was going to do an overnight snorkeling trip. We hopped on the ProDive II early in the morning, had some breakfast and then off we went. The instructors weren't joking when they said it was a choppy ride and described the technique of throwing up in a small brown bag, twisting the end, and throwing it over board!... it was so bad that 5+ people were hugging brown paper bags in the first 5 minutes. Mind you, these were people who took sea-sickness pills too! It was a miracle that I didn't get sick too!



This doesn't even give justice to the swells that were well over 5 meters high!




We arrived at Milln Reef were we did our first dives with the instructor. The water was beyond choppy, the waves were slamming over our heads and the boat was being tossed left and right. We were like ragdolls on the surface, but once we went down, the water calmed down and it was so peaceful. I was pretty scared at first because the thought of a false breathing system under 10m of water is freaky but I did great!

We had one more dive that day in which we had to demonstrate all of our skills like clearing a mask that is full of water while you're still underwater... demonstrating neutral buoyancy... taking off our unit and then putting it back on... emergency surfacing in case you run out of air... borrowing your buddy's air unit...etc.




This is where we put our gear on in the front of the boat.






That night we played Taboo and hit the sheets early because our first dive in the morning was at 7:30am! I saw a sea turtle and a million of the fish that we had learned about in the lecture... performed all my skills with ease. One guy that was diving with us had some trouble because apparently he didn't equalize the pressure in his head very well on the way down and his nose started bleeding buckets into his mask! When we did the mask clear, bright green stuff came out and I thought he threw up! Well, when you're that deep, the color red is not visible thus, the green goo was really blood! Yikes! The guy was freaking out but the instructor was able to calm him down under water so he wouldn't have to surface.

Cairns and Learning to Dive

Monday (8th) Meagan and I toured the city of Cairns. We came across two shopping malls which was pretty exciting for us since we haven't seen a "real" mall since we've been in Oz! We came across an Aboriginal man who sells handmade boomarangs, didgridoos, etc so we bought a few souveniers. It is really rare to meet the person who actually made your item! Then, I got my medical examination completed for my SCUBA trip that would begin in the morning. For lack of anything better to do, we watched Ice Age 2 at the theater (not recommended) and then ate dinner at Sushi Train. The Sushi actually rides past you on a conveyor belt and you choose whichever item you want!



Where's Jenna? I'm hiding in the plush rainforest planted along the sidewalks.








Tuesday I was picked up promptly at 8:00am and taken to the ProDive school to start my 4 hours of theory and 4 hours of diving in a pool. By the end of the first day I was taking to the course very well and had all of the diving skills down. I really enjoyed being in a classroom again... learning and taking notes! That night, Meg and I ate a free backpacker meal at The Woolshed and then watched a blues band at Jono's Blues Bar. Considering there were less than 4 people watching the band, two young girls from Texas got quite a few shoutouts from the 70 year old band members!

Wednesday went similarly, with diving and theory. Then we stopped by the ProDive shop to pick up our equipment and I was convinced that I needed to buy a very expensive diving mask and snorkel to make my trip better! I did... and I really liked them. I'm considering it an investment. ;) We also went to "Reef Teach" which is a performance by an eccentric marine biologist that teaches you how to put the fish you see on the Great Barrier Reef in to 1 of 9 families of fish. It also taught us about the coral, how it's formed, and why it's dying.

Ex. Did you know that a parrot fish encases itself in it's own mucus every night so that the mucus bubble acts as a barrier that conceals the heartbeat from preying sharks... in the morning it eats the mucus bubble and carries on with it's day. If you disturb a parrot fish while it's in it's bubble, it won't be able to make another one that night and will be in danger until morning!!

Airlie to Cairns

Friday night (5th) we returned to Airlie Beach and the group from the sailing trip met up for drinks on the Skipper at Koalas. Afterwards, Meagan and I hung out with the Dutch guys for some dancing and goofing around at local beer garden. It was so awesome because we ran into a bunch of people from the Surf Trip and from Fraser Island. It's a small world, especially when you're a traveller.

Saturday (6th) we checked out of Backers by the Bay and entertained ourselves in Airlie Beach for hours thanks to Peterpan's wonderful internet facilities (where I am currently spending the day waiting to leave Cairns... notice a pattern?)

The bus ride was eventful despite the fact that it was a 10 hour ride from Airlie to Cairns. We hopped on at 8:30pm and by 10:30 pm we were rudely awakened from a bus-sleep by a shattering window! Apparently a kid on the side of the road had thrown a rock at the window and the tempered glass just exploded! Yeah, so needless to say, we were in for a long bus ride with multiple stops to "temporarily fix" the window with plastic bags and later cardboard, then finally a replacement bus at 2am.

After arriving in Cairns at 7:30am (7th) with no scheduled accomodation, Meagan and I decided to stay at a hostel named Parkview because the guy was at the bus stop recruiting people. Bad decision! The guy was creepy and the place was even worse! We were put in a nasty room with two other girls from the Czech Republic and the floors were dirty, the beds creaky, and the bathrooms nasty. There was no light in the hallways and the place was just otherwise dodgy!! Needless to say, we took showers and left the place ASAP to find a new hostel to stay in. We stopped in the first hostel we found The Cairns All Girls Hostel which had a sign posted "Cleanest Hostel in Cairns, Come in and Inspect!" Guess what we did.

Apparently Parkview is one of the dirtiest accomodations in Cairns and everyone knows it! The lady at the Girls Hostel told us to hurry and get our bags before we got bed bugs in them! Yikes, we definitely sacrificed the accomodation money on that one in order to avoid bites!

We spent the day walking around Cairns checking out the Esplanade's shops, eateries, and lagoon. We had a nice Aussie style breakfast of eggs on toast at a little cafe on the water and took hilarious pictures of the beachfront property.



Lagoon on the Esplanade







Cairns has a muddy swamp instead of a sandy beach... a little history: The Cairns Post newspaper reveal that the esplanade was once a sandy beach, but it is believed that the dredging of the Grafton Channel for shipping resulted in mud completely covering the sandy beach because the sediment gathered during the dredging process was dumped offshore and promptly swept back in to silt the inlet and cover the esplanade beach with mud. So basically when the tide is low, it's about 2 km of brown mud instead of a white sandy beach! haha How unattractive! They do have a nice man-made lagoon next to the mud for swimming since the fatal box jelly-fish prevents swimming in the ocean during the summer months.

Sailing in the Whitsundays

The Whitsundays are an archipelago of 109 islands just off the coast of Australia (of which only 74 are named) that are reknowned for their natural beauty. The most famous of the Australian beaches is Whitehaven Beach which is over 9km long of pure white silica sand and crystal clear blue waters.


We literally had 30sec of "sunshine" to take this picture!






We stayed at the Backpackers by the Bay in Airlie Beach. Airlie was one of my favorite stops along the coast because it was small enough to familiarize yourself with the city in a day, but had 3 or 4 open air beer gardens, small restaurants, shopping, and a really nice man-made lagoon. I'm sure it helped that the first day in Airlie was one of the most beautiful days we've seen in Australia and we spent it laying in the sunshine by the lagoon.



What a nice lagoon! This was such a beautiful day in Oz!





Wednesday we got up early to meet our skipper and deckie for our 3 day/2 night sailing trip. We opted for the nicest of the sailing packages because we really wanted a relaxing trip as opposed to the "party scene" that some of the other ships offered. Our yacht was called the Ileola and was a classic 18 metre, 3 masted schooner, launched in 1952 and had sailed around the world something like 15 times!





Ola and Natalie (Sweden), Rob (Holland), and Meg




The trip started out with crap weather and it never improved. I'm talking the clouds were so thick that there was no sign of the sun for 3 days. I didn't think it was possible for clouds to block out that much light! The sad thing is that it not only affected the smoothness of the ride (as we were all a little sea sick from the huge swells) but it also changed the color of the water from a crystal clear blue color to a murky deep blue/green. Therefore the visibility duing snorkeling on the reef was poor and the water/islands didn't look nearly as beautiful as the postcards!



Me, Meg and a Fish!





There were 12 people plus a skipper (Mark) and a deckie/chef (Phil) on the boat. The two things that made up for the crap weather were the fabulous gourmet-style Italian cooking and the company. There was a couple from Sweden and one from Germany, and two guys from Holland, as well as a woman from England, and a girl with her parents from Ireland. Good times and a ton of laughs. Meagan and I had a blast teaching new words to the Dutch and the Germans (ex. Procrastinate...every morning I tested them to see if they remembered the word!)





Me, Rob, Meg, and Dennis in our Stinger Suits ... we looked like superhero's .... "Stinger-Man!"






We spent most of the time cruising around Whitsunday Island (the biggest of the archipelago), and docked in Cid Harbour, Turtle Bay, Tongue Bay, Hill Inlet, snorkeled at Dumbbell, and another location. There was such beautiful coral on the reef!! The colors were magnificant shades of pink, lime green, orange, purple, and red. Just a taste of what was to come in my SCUBA adventure.



There were some clams (blue) big enough to consume me! They would close up when you touched them.



The sleeping accomodations were quite small but overall, the boat was spacious enough for all of us. Due to the poor weather, I came back whiter than before but with one more book under belt. I seriously read whenever I wasn't being social and finished an entire book in no time at all.


Christian, Natalie, Ola, Me, Meg, Heather, and Elaine

Sea Kayaking

So Monday afternoon, I had the opportunity to go sea kayaking! I have never done that before and it was so much fun. I went on this adventure alone because Meagan hurt her back at some point during the surf trip but it ended up being really cool because I knew 5 of the people who were on the 10 person trip!

We drove down Rainbow beach in a 4x4 and hopped out just near some cliffs ... we got in two person kayaks and headed out into the blue waters. After we got past the waves, we immediately closed in on a group of Manta Rays. These things were HUGE! Just for perspective, they can grow up to 9 meters in width (that's about 30 feet!) but we saw some that were probably about 1.5 meters or about 6 feet. They were so close, maybe 5 feet away? These creatures are the "sweethearts" of the ocean apparently (that's what the guide said).

After following the Manta Rays around for about 30 minutes, we saw two dolphins swimming past doing synchronized jumps and flips! It was so cool! I mean I have seen dolphins before, but never from in the water next to them! All in all we saw about 20 dolphins and about 10 manta rays... there was a sea turtle also but I didn't get a good look at him.

I got back to Dingo's (our hostel) just in time to catch the 5:30 bus to Airlie Beach. The bus ride was 16 hours but for some reason seemed really short! We booked an overnight bus in order to save on hostels and figured our could sleep the trip away! It worked because I slept about 14 hours! Yee haw!

Fraser Island

Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world and is virtually untouched by humans. It has a 12 km beach with unswimmable waters due to dangerous sharks but also offers a few fresh water lakes in the center of the island. There is bush covering most of the land with rainforests and plenty of wildlife.

Friday morning bright and early we got our tiny day packs all ready to head to Fraser Island. When I say day pack, I'm talking a bag smaller than I carried my school books in ... for 3 days! Yeah, it was tough but I roughed it fabulously.

Meagan and I had heard from previous Fraser visitors that this trip could be amazing or it could suck based on who was in your 10 person group. Well, that comment was spot-on because we had a group of people that couldn't be any different from us and to make it worse, they were all travelling together so Meagan and I had no say in anything... thus the trip had much to desire.

Don't get me wrong, the island itself offered some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, but the bickering that went on in the vehicle concerning directions and decisions was not my cup of tea.

We learned how to pack the roof of our 4x4 truck with our eskies (ice chests) of beer and food for 3 days, tents, bags, and crates of dishware. We were taught how to drive in sand and what to do when we saw dingos (wild dogs that roam the island... i.e. "Maybe the Dingo took your baby" from Seinfeld), what to cook for each meal, where to go on the island, and not to get in the ocean or risk getting eaten by sharks.

So the adventure began... no supervision, just 10 people in a 4x4. Hesitantly the driver got us squared away on a barge to the island and we drove about an hour to Lake Wobby. This is a fresh water lake with the biggest pure sand dune I have ever seen in my life! I was like a fat kid in a candy store... I started doing flips in the sand (since I didn't think I'd get hurt in sand!) and convinced Meagan and a few others to roll down the side of the steep sand dune into the water (yeah, that makes you really dizzy and sandy!)

This is at the top of the sand dune... it's so high and spreads out as far as the eye can see.

That night we camped along the dunes and ate steak, salad, and garlic mash potatoes (a la Jenna and Meagan) with tunes playing from our 4x4 and tiki torches set up around our camp.

Saturday morning we had a cereal breakfast and then waited for the high tides to recede so we could start the trip to Lake McKenzie. We stopped at a campsite to do dishes and eat lunch... but finally arrived at Lake McKenzie. Never in my life have a seen a more beautiful oasis. Literally after driving 30 minutes through brush and sand, you come across this white sand beach with a HUGE fresh water lake with the bluest water I've ever seen. I couldn't help but stare!

The craziest thing that happened was when we were driving about 50 mph down the beach and we saw an oncoming car to our right splashing through the waves. We were all calling them morons because we knew we weren't allowed to go through the water... well just as we looked back at the sand road, we realized why they were diverting through the waves... there was a HUGE drop off (called Eli Creek) running perpendicular to us. It was literally like a movie, the driver slammed the brakes and we stopped virtually at the very edge of the ledge! haha we had to back up and go through the waves too!!

That night we met up at the "shipwreck" at the northern part of the island called the Maheno. I wish it had a better story but it was built in Scotland and used for luxury travel but was sold to the Japanese. While being towed to Japan, a storm caused it to break loose and the ship was "lost at sea." The Japanese didn't know where it went but it landed on Fraser Island. It was later used as target practice for the Australian Army.... Needless to say, it's my first shipwreck.

Dinner that night was an Asian stir fry and we tried to make a night mission to the wreck but the tides were too high. Dingos visited our camp and scared a few members of our group but no harm was done. We had an early rise (5:00am) to watch the sunrise and get our bags packed up to beat high tide and head up the island to Indian Head and the Champagne Pools. The tide was our biggest issue on the island because it's not safe to drive 2.5 hours before or after high tide which comes at both 9:30am and 9:30 pm ... AND we weren't allowed to drive in the dark... so no later than 5:30pm. That left a small window of time during the day to travel up and down the island.

Dingo at sunrise running along the beach. How cute! :)

Indian Head is the only rock formations on the island and were formed by volcanos before the island even existed. It offers a lookout sickeningly high up where you might see dolphins, manta rays, and sharks swimming below. We saw the dolphins and manta rays, but disappointingly no sharks.

A quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and we headed on a 40 min walk to the Champagne Pools which are where large rocks formed a pool which waves violently crashed into... allowing a "safe" place to play in the water and the white foam from the waves gave a champagne effect.