Friday, February 15, 2008

Noosa, Frasier Island, Whitsundays

Noosa was a great spot. Lovely place to have a look around. Really enjoyed the surf here.

Our next stop was Hervey Bay. There's not much happening here bar people either going to Fraser Island or coming back. The Aboriginal name of this island K'gari means paradise which I think it should really be known as. The name Fraser comes from the widow of Captain Fraser who is meant to have told exaggerated tales of how her husband was killed/died. The island itself is amazing. It's the largest sand island in the world. Lake MacKenzie and Lake Wabby are 2 freshwater lakes which are amazing. The view from Indian Head is fantastic. Champagne Pools is a rock pool that gets filled by the breaking surf of the sea outside. We spent 3 days and 2 nights here with 7 other people who were really sound. Was great to see again. I've been to all the places north of here on the east coast but if they're anything like Fraser it'll be great to see them again.

We arrived in Aerlie beach on Tuesday after a 15 hour journey which should have been 12. The floods here are fairly bad. We just about got through. At some places we had just under the 0.3 metres of water. If it's above this it's not allowed to drive. There are boats washed up on the beach here and one boat Romance was actually wrecked the day before we were due to go out but the weather had calmed considerably by the next morning. It has been rumoured that the crew of this boat were actually drinking so that could have had an effect. We got poxy lucky with the weather and had great weather for 2 of the 3 days. Also the crowd we went with were sound out with 2 from Glasgow, 2 from Nottingham, A Melbourne lad and a Danish girl and 1 German. We got 3 snorkels in over the 3 days and also saw Whitehaven beach in the sunshine which helped. The fish were amazing here but I think there was better on the Ningaloo reef in WA. Is that a bit too much namedropping? The food on board was really good as well. Last night just as we headed for bed it started lashing and it's only really stopped recently. In Mackay which is about 50 km from us they've had 348 mm in the last 24 hours. Also Queensland has had double their usual February rainfall in 15 days. This is worse than normal but having said that we were told on the boat that this is normal for monsoon season which is November till March and they couldn't believe that the tourist operators would hide this from us. We're used to this by now as Eastern Australians either have their heads up their own arses or are just out and out liars. For instance when we visited the shark show in Hervey Bay the guy running this was basically saying that alot of the shark attacks here are covered up by the government unless there's an actual eye witness. There was one in Mission Beach a couple of days ago and it was never reported in the media.

Because of the weather we're going to skip Magnetic Island and head straight for Tully tomorrow assuming the bus is going north. At the moment it's very touch and go.

More photos here:
Auckland, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane, Noosa, Fraser Island

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