Fraser, Kroombit and Whitsunday Islands

Hervey Bay was the next stop; its the main place where you can access Fraser Island, which is the worlds largest sand island. I did a 3 day/2 night 4WD camping trip thing with several other random people from this hostel. Hervey Bay itself is a bit of a shit place, although its nowhere near as bad as Alice Springs I guess. There is a huge stretch of beach here and to be fair to it, it probably looks better around here when its not so windy and with less cloudage in the sky.

So anyway, Fraser Island was amazing. I've uploaded all my pics, they are featured on the main page of my photo gallery, the link of which is on the right, so go and look in awe.

After returning from Fraser Island, I spent a night in Hervey Bay before catching the Oz bus up to Kroombit, a cattle station near Rockhampton. Rockhampton is the beef capital of Australia (I think) and we learnt how to crack a whip properly, catch, brand (thou not with a real hot poker of course it was just a cold one!) and milk goats in the rodeo! It was a bit strange but hey it was interesting to 'get involved'..... Also rode the mechanical bull and I didn't come off straight away. Go me.... I have a couple of videos of me on it and they are quite funny, when I upload them I shall post them here.

After Kroombit, erm, we went and played some lawn bowls in the afternoon on our way to Airlie Beach. Can't say I was keen on playing lawn bowls but it was actually quite good. Pretty skillful game I think.... Well after a mediocre performance from all us newbies, we headed up to Airlie Beach which is the town next to the Whitsunday Islands. Tai came down from Port Douglas and we were booked onto a 'Maxi Sailing' boat called the "Condor"

This boat was built in 1981 and has won every major racing competition in the world twice, thou she retired in the 90's I think she is still pretty quick I'm told! From the pics (again on the main page of my SmugMug front page) you can see how far the boat tilts when we are sailing... We did a 2 day 2 night trip although it was more like 1 full day and 2 nights, and did a bit of snorkelling and went to Whitehaven Beach (one of the top ten beaches in the world) Didn't do much else which was a bit disappointing, no hiking or bushwalking on the islands but the food was good and it was nice to get involved with the sailing side of things.

When we got back from the Whitsunday Islands, it was then off to Townsville which is the port for Magnetic Island. Magnetic has some lush beaches and you can do some diving from here amongst other stuff, but I threw a wobbley when we got to Magnetic and the next day the weather was awful so I didn't do anything on Magnetic at all!!! Oh well....

Next day we headed north from Townsville up to Mission Beach, which really is just a little beach with a few places to stay and a tiny town. Although I had a lovely serve of Kangaroo steaks at Scotty's hostel. Again the weather was rubbish so I didn't even go to see the beach properly!

Next up; our BBQ at a lake in the Atherton Tablelands and Millaa Millaa Falls, followed by a return to Cairns after our sad last day of the Oz bus! But this can all come another time!