Fraser Island day

So, let's see. A lot to catch up on here.

No blog post yesterday, but I guess I can be forgiven for that as Cathy and I celebrated our fourth anniversary. And I think on those days, it's best not to spend too much time in internet cafes updating the world on how you vacation is going. This is the kind of wisdom you obtain with four years of marriage.

So on the big day we decided to do a Fraser Island tour. Because while Hervey Bay is turning into quite a little tourism town, the main reason to be there is to go elsewhere. We were weighing several different tours and then consulted with the guy who runs the hotel we were staying at. We had been looking at one tour, but he said that there would be 48 other people on the bus and that most of our time on the island would be spent herding us on and off it, and you wouldn't get to actually see much of the island. We'd been then looking at a tour that had 16 people on it. However, he pointed us towards a tour of the island from a Hummer. It was about $30 more each per person than the one we had been looking at. The tour was for four people. However, if you were lucky and no one else booked, you could end up getting the Hummer all to yourself for the day. So we took a chance, spent a few extra dollars (anniversary and all) and went with the Hummer tour.

Bingo. No one else showed up. So we had the Hummer all to ourselves for the day. Picked up at 7:45 am, deposited back at our hotel at 6 pm. Now, Fraser Island is bloody huge so we were only going to see a small portion of it. But what we did see was spectacular. Fraser Island is deeply weird in that it's a series of huge sand dunes that managed to grow four different kinds of forest on it. It absolutely looks like a place that shouldn't exist, but does. So we went and saw trees that they estimate are 50o-1,000 years old and passed through tropical rain forests. Then, after bouncing across the island (literally. We were travelling on old forest roads literally made of beach sand) we hit the beach on the east coast. A beach that posts speed limits. As it turns out, we were doing about 80 km/h at various points, which again was a touch surreal. We then hit a few fresh water creeks that were so clear it was startling (sand filters out the impurities), had lunch on the beach, then headed back inland to massive lake in the centre of the island. No rivers flow into it. It's essentially a big puddle of clear water.

And after all of that, a drive back across the island, where we had champagne and strawberries. In full view of the other tourists. Just to rub things in a bit, I think.

We then had supper at an Irish pub in town - Houlihans. I had the chicken with sun dried tomatoes in filo pastry....and a side of mashed potato. The mashed potato is the only think Irish about that meal, I think. But it was a good meal and a good day. It's only the second time we've celebrated our anniversary together and it was a good day.

Anyway, we're in Brisbane now. I'll talk a bit more about the town and how we got here tomorrow. Time for some supper shortly, I think.