East Coast of Oz 2005 – I Was a Dirty Backpacker

[mobs00]

There’s another larger falls up near the top. Here we found a friendly eel that you could pat and play with just like the eel whisperer. Full on Croc Hunter I was but I ain’t playing with no stingrays.

[mobs00]

Just up the main road and further inland brings you to Eungella State Park. Now one thing that we just had to do was see a Platypus. We were told that there are lots up in the park so that where we headed next for a day trip away from camp.

Here’s the local watering hole in Finch Hatton.

[mobs00]

Eungella is located on the top of the plateau. A nice scenic road brings you to the top where you can look down on the valley below and out to sea.

[mobs00]

We get to the park just outside of Eungella town and are directed to where we may see a Platy. The park ranger points us to a viewing spot under the bridge on the main road. Not really the bush Platy site I was hoping for surrounded by wilderness but sure enough we got a glimpse of one. Fast little things and quite hard to get a picture of.

[natalie8]

I love your friend in the bathroom and your shot of the two dolphins. I really appreciate all the time and effort you're putting into a thread for the rest of us to enjoy. Australia has always been near the top of my list of places to see.

BTW, what's the criterion for that hotel?

[mobs00]

A few days in the bush camp and we headed off again. This time with our sights set on Fraser Island.

[mobs00]

^^ No worries. I am enjoying putting this all together as it's bringing back a lot of memories I thought I forgot. I am terrible with keeping travel journals so I take pics instead and use those to remember my journey. A few I've looked at I have no idea where or when but after a while it's all coming back.

Glad you all are enjoying it. I only wish I could do the trip again.

And to answer your hotel question, it's beer. Nedwalk's favorite to be precise, 4x Gold

[natalie8]

Great stuff. I love taking pictures too, especially of scenery.

And to answer your hotel question, it's beer. Nedwalk's favorite to be precise, 4x Gold

[nedwalk]

Nedwalk's favorite to be precise, 4x Gold

thats it mate, no vegemite for you..

[mobs00]

^ I have no idea how you guys can stomach that stuff. I almost hurled the first time someone spread it on my dry toast. Terrible stuff it is, wouldn't give it to my worst enemy.

[nedwalk]

health food of a great nation mate

[Marmite the Dog]

I have no idea how you guys can stomach that stuff.

It's just the gay version of Marmite. Aussie aren't tough enough to handle that though.

[nedwalk]

It's just the gay version of Marmite. Aussie aren't tough enough to handle that though.

sorry mate i read this real quick and i thought it said marmite is gay and can,t handle tough aussies, carry on, ya big poof

[Lobster]

Just found this thread.

Back in 2006 I rented a van and did something similar, however it looks like your trip kicked mines ass!

Unfortunately my harddrive on my old computer just died...along with all my pics of OZ....

[Cujo]

Unfortunately my harddrive on my old computer just died...along with all my pics of OZ....

Which is why I burn all my pics to CD from time to time.

[BeingNosy]

Love the pics man. Been in Oz for a few years now and have travelled a fair bit. But no so much the east coast.

[mobs00]

I guess I should probably finish the thread now that everyone has had enough time to reload their greens.

[mobs00]

Sorry for the delay. I just forgot about finishing this thread. I'm gonna put some time into it now and see if I can get it done.

[mobs00]

Here’s a map of our next stop at Fraser Island. Some info on it can be found here on WIKI:


Fraser Island - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


“Fraser Island, is an island located along the southern coast of Queensland, Australia, approximately 300 kilometres (190 mi) north of Brisbane. Its length is about 120 kilometres (75 mi) and its width is approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi). It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1992. The island is considered to be the largest sand island in the world at 1840 km².It is also Queensland's largest island, Australia's sixth largest island and the largest island on the East Coast of Australia.”

[mobs00]

We left Finch Hatton and headed south towards Fraser. On the way we passed through the Rum region and Bundaberg. I only wish I had stopped here sooner as it would have saved me wasting money on a bottle of Bundy Rum. It smells like shit around sugarcane processing plants and the Bundy that comes out of them pretty much tastes the same.

I think it was all the camel piss that gave it the unique flavor.

[mobs00]

We spent our first night at Hervey Bay. You can go to Fraser from here but we decided to go further south to Rainbow Beach where all the backpackers hang out and book a 4wd trip out of there.

The drive to Rainbow beach was through mostly sugarcane fields and the cane toads were everywhere that night. I did my part for the indigenous wildlife and racked up at least 80 kills in 30 minutes. Big bastards they are and the next day our van smelled like a corpse with all the can toad shrapnel on the undercarriage.

Here we all are with the 4wd.




And here is our luggage for the 3 day trip.

[stu]

Excellent thread mobs and outstandin pics!! well done, me and the Missus are gearin up to head off around Australia in about 8 weeks or so im just fittin out a slide on van at the moment so plenty of time to organize that, the run down on it all is here on the our website http://aroundozwithstunshaz.yolasite.com/ look forward to a few more pics, as for the Platypus I come across a good spot up in the Atherton tablelands to observe them as ya know ya don't get to see em everyday so ya lucky ya caught a glimpse.

[mobs00]

Some of these next photos aren’t mine as we were drinking more than sightseeing unfortunately.

Here is the only photo I got of the roads on Fraser.

[mobs00]

Fraser Island is basically a giant sand island. It has some beautiful lakes in the interior and some really long and sandy beaches.




The 4wd we rented came over with us on a car ferry. We signed papers and the group took full responsibility for it. It was a self drive and self guide tour. We had to trust each others driving abilities. This was hard as the rest of our group was from Belfast and had no experience driving on sand. We did have a scare when one of the girls was driving too fast, we started to fish tail and she slammed on the brakes (which makes it worse) and almost went over.


Luckily we didn’t end up like this. Seems vehicles overturning does happen quite often.

[mobs00]

The island is surrounded by dark churning seas and we were warned not to go for a swim as there were lots of sharks that patrol the island.




The lakes in the interior were one of the best parts to the island. Lake McKenzie shown here was so clean and the ph acidic that no fish can survive. I also read that the main pollutants to the lakes are sunscreen and soap.