Oli Reveals: XIV (14)

Another installment of Oli’s round-the-world emails:

Greetings to my faithful readers,

Don’t say anything, I know what I kinda promised last time!! My time in Oz
is coming to an end, I give myself a week before I fly off to Singapour and
see my uncle and his family- It’s gonna be so good to see family again!

The last 8 days for me has been lapping up the gorgeous and expansive
coastline of eastern Oz, stopping every few hundred kilometres at various
spots. Port Stevens was my first call north from Sydney, a quiet submerged
valley with some little towns and unspoilt beaches. Explored the Stockton
Blight sand dunes, looking like a cover to that famous Pink Floyd album with
that song “learning to fly” and relaxed on “one mile beach”. Same relaxed
scenario at Port Macquarie, although the swell was better here, but still
relatively cold to enter the sea.

Had a really great piece of driving scenery from the port to Coffs Harbour,
detouring into the interior of the state, driving up the famous “waterfall
way road”. It took me through lush green countryside, just like I was back
in England, where I was surrounded by several world heritage-listed national
parks. Did a 6km rainforest hike in the Dorrigi national park, where the
birds sounded like human babies, the insect clicking sound deafening, the
vegetation sub-tropical and some great waterfalls and lookouts to observe.
Got to Byron Bay in the same day ( a lot of driving!!) and….went to the
beach there. Notice a pattern yet?!! Spent the next couple of days briefly
stopping at the in-your-face commericalised beach settlement of “Surfers
Paradise”. I detested the place as soon as I saw it, high rise buildings
lining the beach and shopping malls/ bars/ tourists everywhere you turn!! An
Ozzie Las Vegas. Funnily enough, I bailed after a whole hour here, sighting
and staying in the infinitly better place of Brisbane. Had a nice couple
days here, skulking around the city and remarking about how pretty the city
looked with its green spaces and artificial lagoon on its south bank, the
botanical gardens with its mangrove swamps, the manditory china town and
downtown’s colonial buildings.

To round off the last leg of my trip, we high-tailed it to Hervey Bay, which
is the staging ground for the 4×4 tours to the famous Fraser Island. We
paid out for a self-drive tour, where the people staying in the hostel were
organised into 3 groups of 8-9 people, each group issued with a land rover,
fuel, tents, cooking equipment, camping permits and barge
tickets…basically everything bar food and drink to take onto the island.
My group was a great mix of 3 Brazilians, 2 Koreans, a danish guy and us two
limeys. The following morning, we gathered around our PINK land rover,
packed our gear and stocked up on BBQ food/ booze before boarding the
morning ferry.

The 3 days spent on Fraser Island were AMAZING. We engaged 4×4 mode once on
the huge (120km long) sand bar, and drove through the lush forested interior
of the island on sand tracks, to reach the eastern beach and arrive at the
walking trail to lake Wabby. Surrounded on 1 side by a huge sand dune
“sandblow” and on 3 sides by Eucalypt forest, the lake had a limpid green
colour to it, filled with catfish and the occasional duck. The water was
blissfully warm (all accumulated rainwater), where the 3 groups relaxed and
chatted away the whole afternoon. Even by that point, there were stories of
all the trucks getting stuck in the sand and everyone having to dig/ push
their vehicles out of the sand!! Made camp behind the sand dunes on the
beach and had an awesome BBQ. The evening was spent with almost everyone
getting ratted on their chosen poison (mine was a bottle of rum), playing
cards and then the hilarious “Viking” drinking game where everyone’s a
viking and has to make pointy helmets with their hands when nominated, their
adjacent buddies having to row in the correct way. I was a victim of my own
game and ended up polishing the rum. I just thought I would show this game,
as there were a few Danish in attendance….the two girls didn’t fare much
better than me!! One of the Brazilians managed to pass out in our pink jeep
as well as me and a couple of guys managing to remove the stereos of the two
jeeps and swap them using a multitool while semi-pissed. A great idea of
mine. Spent our 2nd and day on Fraser checking out the refreshing cold
waters of Eli creek, running through the bush and enabling us to float down
it, and then up to the wreck of the Mahino (pretty screwed, but an
impressive size), some cool banded sandstone cliffs and Indian heads- The
view was spectacular from here, where we could spot huge sea turtles, game
fish and sharks swimming in the turquise waters way below our rocky vantage
point. We could see a lot of the island from here too, reminding us as to
how vast this island is, all from sand accumulation!!! BBQ and more booze
on the second night, 3 litres of wine went down very nicely!! Our final day
was spent at Lake McKenzie- a beautiful clear-water lake that was warm to
bathe in and kinda stupid to swim across (not my idea). Throughout the
whole trip, we must’ve dug and pushed our land rover out of a lot of holes/
ditches…but group 2’s was the best!! Previously that day, I had unlocked
their wheels, so that they weren’t in 4 wheel drive. When we saw them stuck
on the track on their way back to the ferry, we all laughed, knowing exactly
why!! We came to their “aid”, with 8-9 guys pushing the truck out to hear
many “thanks”. They still don’t know who did it…so immature….don’t you
think?

A lot of fun and a lot of relaxation and distance covered. Hope you liked
my latest tales and aren’t planning to flee the UK on my return?!!!

Missing you all,

Oli