Well...It is not exactly like a rapper gone mad kind of edit, this is more like: Now included just for you, need to know information, with pictures!! A re-read of this post might help you make a bit more sense of my title now that I had the TIME to make a proper update ala Airlie Beach!! (pr. "early beach") aussies are weird... Now about 'dem sharks.....
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I left Byron Bay on Monday around 12pm having just enough time in the early morning to get my hair highlighted, toes and fingers manicured and a new shapely styled eyebrow wax! I have been feeling very ragged and ugly while travelling around wearing the same clothes all the time; wearing no make-up and having my hair up constantly in some kind of witch-con-frizz hair style. That is a newly coined MLD term for people who do not make use of a hair brush but who do not choose to go the dreadlocks route (extreme frizz). Welcome to the world of the backpacker.
I had to stop and buy another pair of pants since yet "another" of mine was stolen from the Arts Factory Lodge. Did I mention that I hate young, stupid, immature theivy kids? Oh, I just wanted to make sure that I did not forget to mention this in case any of those types stumble across and read my travel blog. But I have to agree with the sign posted at the reception desk at the Arts Factory which said: All theft will be punished by karma... I believe this wholeheartedly so I will leave my resentment about stupid kids taking my things right here...
I spent most of the day Monday on the Greyhound bus making my way to Hervey Bay (pr Harvey Bay - sounds like Bostonians haahvey). By the time I got to the Koala Beach Resort hostel Monday night it was almost 10pm. So in total I spent around 8-9 hours on the bus minus a few breaky stops. I met a girl named Myrza on the way to Hervey Bay and she is from South Africa. She has been working as a nurse in Sydney for the past 6 months and she decided to take a little holiday up north. She had the lucky fortune of sitting next to me on the bus after I just read an email on my 30 minute in between buses break which had frazzled me a bit, lucky girl that she is... In spite of the annoyance vibe that I was transmitting from my pores while staring blankly out the window seat, Myrza still decided to start a conversation with me and I am glad that she did. Myrza is around the same age as me and I was grateful to have stumbled across someone like me who had similiar travel goals. Most backpackers have a totally different agenda which usually involves heaps of partying and all forms of debauchery. Been there, done that, got the postcards. As luck would have it, Myrza was doing the same tour as me to Fraser Island the "cooldingo". When we parted at the bus terminal in Hervey Bay we knew that we would see each other the next day on the tour. Very cool stuff.
Sleeping in my dorm room at the Koala Resort was like trying to sleep in the back room of a nightclub. I think my bed was actually vibrating from the thumps produced by the mega base sound system at the bar. The music engulfed the whole resort and the bar was conviently located just outside my window. The bus ride was tiring but I couldn't sleep due to all the loud music. I decided to get out of bed and call home because I couldn't get to sleep and that made me even more tense once I hung up that call. I climbed back into bed with my earplugs jammed as far as possible into my ear drums. I did manage to get a little sleep. I woke up early without much problem to pack up a light bag to take with me on my cooldingo tour. The big backpack would stay back at the Koala Resort. My roommate at Koala who I met that Tuesday morning was a nice girl named Deirdre from Ireland. One thing I have found in my travel around the world is that the Irish always know about Boston so that is all I have to say when asked where I am from from that crew. It turned out as we were both rummaging through our backpacks that she and I were doing the same tour. Deirdre, like Myrza and myself, are all around the same age and it worked out perfectly because we became good mates by the time the tour ended when the ferry dropped us back at Hervey Bay .
the cooldingo tour:
I spent 3 days and 2 nights on the most amazing nature-made sub tropical rainforest island in the world! Fraser Island is the most magestic and amazing sandy island that I have ever stepped my red, nicely manicured, toes onto. The whole island is nothing but sand, gorgeous lakes, ocean shores, rainforests, wild birds, snakes, dingos and lest us not forget all the different types of "bugs & spiders"...
cooldingo day 1
On Tuesday morning around 10am we took a ferry over to Fraser Island from the Hervey Bay marina and we docked at the jetti at The Kingfisher Resort. We got a short debreifing from our tour guide Graham who spoke to all of us participating in the cooldingo (group of 26). We all gathered under the wooden canopy located by the shore at the beginning of the dock where we were told to make name tags and stick 'em on.
Since we arrived on Fraser Island around 10am, we had plenty of time to start exploring. Our tour leader Graham challenged us with a name tag contest, the winner would get a free bottle of Australian wine. I tried my best to make my name tag as artistic as possible with the 5 minutes I had available to do so. I drew the RED SOX logo and used lots of cool colors but I didn't win. Graham did tell me 
later that evening that I was a contender out of our group of 26, it was between me and the UK girl with no drawing talent ;-) She won, I am not bitter.
The first day on Fraser Island we went to Basin Lake and had a swim. 
After about a half hour in the sun, we trekked back to Central Station along the rainforest boardwalk for lunch. All the food was included for this tour and it was plentiful (no rationing like in Fiji!) and every bit of it was very tasty. After lunch we looked at some ancient King Ferns which only exist on Fraser Island, apparently they are almost extinct. We saw all kinds of interesting vegetation as we walked along Nanggooba Creek. Everything that grows on the island grows in sand. There is no soil anywhere, just sand. This fact totally amazes me, especially after seeing all the natural beauty with my own eyes.
Graham then took the group of us in the 4x4 and we bounced up and down a very bumpy sand road where we ended up at our destination: Lake MacKenzie. This lake is the prettiest, bluest lake that I have ever seen up close and personal. The sand along the shore is whiter than white and the colors of the lake include 3 colors sta
rting from clear, to a brilliant aqua blue, then a deep blue when you go out past 3m from the shore. We were told that the sand has some special natural qualities that when rubbed all over your body (and face) would make you look 10 years younger!! You know that Deirdre, Myrza and myself were found sitting in the shallow water spludgering white sand all over ourselves while getting a nice natural full body exfoliation. Some of the tour group played some "lake volleyball". Two of the young britty boys who don't like Americans very much, or at least it seemed, said I was showing off. Whatever...
I just don't think they like to lose to a girl, cuz I beat them in pool the night before... Little buggers...
After an exciting day exploring the island, we returned to our dorms which were a bit offsite from the main resort. The main resort was VERY fancy and we were told cost apx $200+ a night. Our rooms were pretty snazzy and probably put us out for about $25/night. We still had access to all the amenities in the main resort including the outdoor {big} pool, jacuzzi etc. It worked out that Deirdre, Myrza and myself got in the same room at lodge number 4. Our fourth roommate was a fellow capadre from the USA, Nicole.
After dinner, we spent the evening at the Dingo Bar where we played a game of trivial pursuit which was run by a Canadian girl who also happened to be the bartender. She was a obviously a little stage shy and ackward running the game. She was filling in for the regular girl, but she did alright. I answered quite a few of the trivia questions correctly and my prize for the correct answers was shots of some horribly foul looking alcohol mixture. These I gave away of course, and it was a good way to make new friends! After trivia we played some pool. I have been playing a lot of pool since I have been travelling and I am getting quite good again, practice makes perfect...
cooldingo day 2
Graham took us on yet another bumpy, rollercoaster ride up the west coast of the island along the sandy highway. It is the only registered highway that actually disappears and reappears according to the tide schedule. 
As we made our way down the sandy highway we got to cruise at a cool 80km an hour as we ripped up the sandy stretch right along the ocean as it was slowly trickling in, teasing the shore. About halfway to our destination, we came across a small dingy plane sitting right there on the sandy highway. Apparently the sandy highway is also a runway. It is a multi-purpose natural roadway! We stopped to check out the plane and the pilot came on board the bus and offered any willing particupants an aerial view of the island for $60pp. I twisted the arms of my two capadres and we all got to take a spin in the little plane that took off and landed right on the beach! 
The views were amazing and definitely worth the extra money! I was hoping to see some sharkeys as we came down along the ocean to land. No dice.
After the plane ride, we got back in the 4x4 and headed to Indian Head which was named my James Cook. I will say here, that after travelling to Australia, Fiji and NZ, I now want to read more about this dude. You cannot go too long or far while travelling around here without the mention of Captain Cook. 
We arrived at the car park for Indian Head and then we trekked up the small volcanic moutain which peeks out over the ocean at about 33m above sea level at its highest point. From the edge of the peak you could see into the clear blue ocean and it was there that I saw some VERY BIG SHARKS! 
Graham estimated one of them to be around 3m which is about 9 feet long!! YIKES! There were around 11 sharks in total prowling around looking for lunch in the area just beneath us. You are told when you go on Fraser Island that you are not supposed to swim in the ocean because of all the dangerous creatures that lurk in the shallow waters. Of course we saw some of the "self-drive tour" idiots swimming past waist deep right around the corner of Indian Head where a group of us counted about 11 sharks. Some of them sharks were rather large and most likely could easily make a light appetizer out of the dumb humans. I noticed that even the fisherman on the island stand in the ocean up to about their knees and no deeper than that. Basically you are just asking for trouble if you decide to take a dip in the ocean on Fraser. Australia has 11 out of the 12 top dangerous ocean species. You would think that information alone would be enough to deter you, but not for some I guess. Some of our group toyed with the idea of warning the dumbasses swimming about 20m away from the area where the sharks were prowling. But, then we thought that they were warned like everyone else and obviously didn't think the rules applied to them. Soooo... We waited with our cameras handy just in case we got to witness a live Jaws scene. :-) hee hee
We watched the swimmers chancing death or serious injury and luckily they all came back to shore safely. It is not like there is anyone who would go in the water and rescue them, their are no lifeguards on Fraser, probably for obvious reasons!! After the dumb show, we made our way up the shore to the Champagne Pools where we had our lunch. 
This area which is located along the shore line is composed of naturally formed shallow pools where you can swim safely because they are sectioned off from the ocean by a natural volcanic rock formation which acts as a little wall sheltering you from the scary ocean creatures. The sharkeys don't know how to rock climb so you can take a nice cool dip in the 25C pools with complete confidence that you will not be eaten by a shark or stung by a very large stingray. I did just that and it was lovely! 
As we made our way back to the resort, we stopped along the beach to check out the Maheno shipwreck located at Cathedral Beach on Fraser Island (part of the Sandy Highway). 
The Maheno, the most famous of the Fraser Island wrecks, was driven ashore just north of Happy Valley during a cyclone in 1935. Once a well-known trans-Tasman liner, the Maheno was bound for a Japanese wrecking yard when she met her stormy end. Today the hull lies slowly deteriorating in the harsh salt environment, about 10 kilometres north of Happy Valley. (that last paragraph is called "cut and paste" magic.)
Day number two was picture perfect, the weather was hot and sunny and the clouds were minimal keeping the sunshine on us for the duration of the day. At this point, we had managed to see some sharks and some rather large spiders, but we had not yet spotted a dingo. Around 4:30pm as we were just about to pull into the Kingfisher resort area, the girl in front of me yelled out DINGO!! And there he was, trotting along beside our bus heading into the resort area. The resort had just added a million dollar fence system a few months prior because of another baby/dingo related story which got loose in the media and had stemmed from the resort where I was staying. The dingo didn't seem to have much problem making his way right through the front gate that was left open! LOL By the time the bus stopped for us to try and sneak a camera shot, the dingo moved far too quickly in front of the bus and then up around a bush filled bend before any of us could snap a photo... bummer
The second night we played team trivia after dinner and my two compadres and I formed a 3-girl team called "Cheeky Chicks". Unfortunately for us, our answers were exhanged between the other teams for correction and we were the unlucky recipients of what we think was an obvious display of immaturity. We knew we had about 20 out of the 30 questions right and only got credit for 9 answers. Plus, the same losers who graded our answers also added to our team name and they were not very nice, I will leave it at that. We did win best team name though, a jug of free beer. Wow, thanks...
After trivia, the girls went to play some more pool. I taught them how to play the elimination game with 3 players. While we were having our competitive fun, a very large obnoxious drunk decided that he would join us without our invitation. Once this idiot found out I was from the States, he (a Kiwi) leaned into me and insulted me quite a bit. I think he thought he was funny, but he was actually a very mean A$$hole. I had gotten a few digs from the young twirpy UK boys earlier so I was at my daily limit for the "lets pick on the Americans" game. No harm done, I just told him flat out once he started talking about Bush to leave me the hell alone. He kinda got the message, but not really cuz he kept going on and on and on... I just walked away and went back to the room.
cooldingo day 3
Our last day on the island was spent exploring the east coast. We trekked to Lake Wabby which is the most amazing contrast of scenery that you could imagine. 
From the lookout you can see these massive sand dunes, and Lake Wabby is located off to the right. The lake was made by the Hammerstone Sand Blows (dunes). Behind the sand dunes off in the distance you can see the ocean and the brilliant blue sky, and to your right and just below you there is sub tropical rainforest growth. We walked down the trek from the lookout and made our way across the dunes to the lake. The lake was small but it contained some baby sharks and turtles. I didn't see any turtles unfortunately but I saw plenty of baby sharks!! 
We hung out in the sun for about an hour and then made our way back to the ocean where we were picked up by our chariot 4x4 where Graham greeted us with a smile! Spoiled rotten, just the way I like it! We headed towards another resort where we had a BBQ lunch. After lunch we drove down to Lake Birrabeen where we played soccer (or futbol!). I was hesitant to play at first, mostly because I have no clue about the rules of soccer. The UK boys were showing off with their fancy footwork so I decided to incorporate some "American Football" into the mix... I pushed (tackled) one of the smarties right out of my way and stole the ball from him and scored!! And yes, I did I scored with my feet and not my hands! I also ran over one of the girl opponents a few times, I guess she apparently didn't learn the first time I rolled right over her. Like my friend Keith (KOO) always taught me at good ole SSRM... If you can't win, CHEAT!! LOL Our team won shorthanded, I might add, so it was all good fun for me!
After futbol, we got back to the resort and one of the blokes wanted a group photo. This suggestion turned into a nightmare for an innocent passerby heading towards the gift shop who was probably going there to buy a coke. One picture turned into 26 pictures taken with 26 cameras by this poor unlucky guy. He was such a good sport about it, he could have kept on walking but he didn't...
After I browsed the shop for a while, the 3 amigas made our way back to the jetti to pick up the 5pm ferry departing Fraser Island. Boo hoo hoo... This trip was definitely the best highlight out of all my travels so far, and I will hesitantly put it right at the top in the number one slot (so far...). Of course I am heading out on the New Horizon Sail Ship to explore the Whitsundays Islands tomorrow (sat). Kerry, I so thought of you with this trip! I promise that I will take lots and lots of photos and notes!
I am currently at an internet cafe in Airlie Beach where I have just spent the last 4 hours uploading pics and providing you with a proper update of Fraser Island. I hope that you will at least get a portion of my experience from the pictures.
I know I still owe you a Fiji Update, I am a total slacker on that. Maybe after I get some dinner I will finish up my evening with some more story telling from Fiji back at the Koala Beach Resort here in Airlie Beach. Today I needed a day to regroup and relax and I was able to do just that by sharing my travels with you. I hope you enjoy my astute effort today!
signing off for now...
p.s. If anyone can find a wav file for a song called "Australiana" written by a group called "Strange, Weird Little Guys"... please drop me an email. I want to put that 54 second song on my site! It is hilarious!
tks MLD
