Part III: the End of our Midsemester Trip

The end of our 17 day trip consisted of 3 days and 2 nights exploring and camping on Fraser Island and 2 days in Brisbane. Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, was probably my favorite place of the trip. It was BEAUTIFUL - as if the other parts of the coast hadnt been already, this was again, breathtaking. Who knows if I'll ever get to the see the sunset and sunrise on the beach of another island again!

To start off our 3 days traveling in a 4-wheel-drive, we had to be transported by a huge barge from the main land to the island. As soon as we transfered over we began our trek through the sand. We had a caravan going of 5 vehicles, and a mapped out route of the most popular sites to visit. My favorite places on the island were the Maheno Shipwreck , Lake Wabby, and Lake McKenzie. (I have more pictures in the album, "Don't feed the Dingoes", just click on the title of this post to get to the site.) I loved Lake Wabby, because in order to get to it we had to walk through what felt like never ending sand dunes (if you have seen Star Wars Episode 1, I felt like we were part of Anakan's pod-racing desert-like scene). Finally, when we came to the top of the last hill, we were so hot that we ran down and jumped into the cool freshwater lake! Then seeing Lake McKenzie, you wouldn't believe it was a lake it was so clear! It is one of top cleanest lakes in the world. We spent our whole last day there! I almost forgot to mention we had a few wild dingoes come to our camp site the first night looking for garbage, and we saw a large Goanna lizard when washing our dishes the next morning!

That night we returned our 4WD's and got picked up by a Greyhound to make the last leg of our trip to Brisbane. We arrived at 6AM, showered at the hostel and didnt lose any time. We had a free day, so a group of us went to the Australian Zoo -Home of the Crocodile Hunter! It was unusual not to see the typical American zoo animals like monkeys, zebras, giraffes... but instead we saw heaps of crocs (and a croc show) & koalas, walked around with wallabies & 'roos, fed an elephant, saw lots of lizards just chillin' in the other animals' exhibits, saw emus, and several other unusual creatures. If only I couldve seen Steve's daughter, Bindi; our bus driver said that her & her mom just returned from a trip to the States and were at the zoo - but we never found them.

Our last day, we had sunny skies for kayaking on the Brisbane River and abseiling down a rock wall/cliff at the river's edge. (Check out those pictures in the album "Beautiful Brisbane.) I had some issues being a bit scared of heights my first time down the wall, but after a few times I got the hang of repelling and it became more fun. Kayaking was hard work going up the river, but going back we just got to float and enjoy the scenic city! Overall, this holiday was definitely one I will never forget!