AUGUST 16-18 PREVIOUS | NEXT | HOME | CONTENTS | ABOUT | SEND EMAIL Sightseeing Sand, Mouldy Maheno, Dingoes and Digeridoos Sunday, August 16; Indian Heads - Lake Boomajin, Fraser Island Rain and wind, strong at times, danced around our campsite sporadically throughout the night. I woke a couple of times to hear the tarps outside flapping noisily and the patter of rain drumming on our flysheet. A quick inspection of the groundsheet around me each time revealed no seeping water. I even ventured to explore the bottom corners of my sleeping bag with my toes. The bottom of a sleeping bag - the bit that protrudes over the end of the bedroll, is usually the first indicator that you are about to experience a long, cold and wet night. I regard a sodden sleeping bag as a gross violation by nature of my basic right to comfortable sleep. Sure, I can keep my toes away from the bottom of the bag and try to go back to sleep, but I can't help thinking about the water that might be seeping up through the fabric towards me, and worrying that the bag is thirstily soaking up rainwater from a broadening lake beyond my feet. In my previous experience in a leaky tent, I attempted denial - laying still and keeping my toes away from the bottom, preferring not to know for sure whether I was being flooded. Better to retreat farther onto the shrinking dry island of my bedroll and anxiously wait for morning. With this new knowledge of my fear, perhaps you can now better understand the effort and strength of will I called upon in the darkness to send my feet into the unknown and potentially soggy depths of the bag. The rain was beating down with renewed ferocity. I was sure that our battered tent would leak. Even if there were no apparent holes, water would surely have seeped through the unsealed seams. My toes delved deeper, deeper - how much farther to the zipper? It was colder down there - was that dampness? My left foot hit bottom. Dry. My right foot hit bottom. Dry. My toes searched out the corners. Both dry! Hurrah! Not even a hint of dampness. What a relief! Now I could go back to sleep in peace. Well, almost. All those thoughts of water had brought to mind a leak of a different kind. I knew that I should have turned down that last beer. Denise and I made it through until morning without having to abandon tent. It was raining again when I clambered outside at 8am. The others were stirring from their tents too. The dirty plates, pots and bowls from the previous night were still scattered in the back of the jeep where they had been securely stashed to avoid tempting dingos into our camp. We gave them a quick rinse. The girls were eager to break camp as soon as possible - Fiona and Alex were particularly adamant that we go somewhere with toilet facilities more sophisticated than a half-hidden spot behind a scraggly bush - from their urging Sand sand everywhere proves too much for Dave to take. it was obvious that they needed to go quite badly. The extent of their over-valued modesty was matched only by the strength of their bladder muscles. Not wanting to argue, we postponed breakfast, packed up, and headed back south to Dunduburra, where we had collected our firewood the previous evening. After a collective dash to the toilet blocks, we unloaded breakfast onto a picnic table and dug in. As I slurped the last of the chocolaty milk from my Coco-Pops, the rain stopped. Just a few minutes later, while I was munching on a peanut-butter sandwich, the sun came out. Our collective mood improved just as quickly. Our spirits lifted, our smiles reappeared; even Fiona looked like she might enjoy herself. The Pinnacles. We spent the morning cruising southward. Our suggested itinerary had recommended that we go farther north to visit some bubbling "Champagne" saltwater pools beyond Indian Heads, but we had had enough of the far north. We stopped to look at all of the things we had missed the previous evening - The Pinnacles (colourful and intricate sand formations), The Cathedrals (colourful sand cliffs), Rainbow Gorge (a landscape of enormous dunes bordered by winding sand canyons) and the shipwrecked Maheno. The Maheno has been lying on Corroboree Beach since 1936 when it broke free from a towboat during a storm and washed ashore. The Maheno. Nobody was hurt or drowned in the incident as the vessel had already been decommissioned at the time of the wreck. The intervening years have taken their toll on the structure. Slowly crumbling gangway of the Maheno. Half-buried in the sand and partially broken up, the rusty red skeleton of the Maheno that remains is covered and uncovered by the pounding surf twice a day. Much of the ship has disappeared already, and barnacles encrust the corroding beams that remain. Although it is nothing more than a piece of human Ami discovers one of the Maheno's leaky bits. rubbish on an otherwise untainted beach, the Maheno did not elicit the feelings of disgust or visual offensiveness from me that I had expected. In fact, I thought the wreck looked rather majestic. It looked as if it was a helpless toy for the sea to play with, like the ball of wool of an energetic kitten. More Maheno. We continued driving down the beach, and passed Eurong in the early afternoon before heading inland again. We bumped slowly across 10 kilometres of inland track to reach our destination for the evening - Lake Boomajin. The NPWS campsite was luxurious compared with the previous evening - there were fire rings, logs to sit on, even toilets with running water! The location was idyllic - Lake Boomajin is an unspoiled lake perched in a basin above the island's water table, and maintains the unusual characteristic that it is no deeper than a few feet at any point. It would have been possible for me to walk across the broad lake from Waiting for turtles. shore to shore without the water ascending above my waist. I didn't go all of the way across - I preferred to wade near the shore and peer down onto the lake floor. At one point, a tiny turtle swam past my feet and continued on his merry way. Thrilled, I tried to encourage him back by clapping. Our hostel guide had told us that if we made a clapping noise on the shores of Lake Boomajin, several turtles will come around to see what all of the racket is about. I clapped enthusiastically for several minutes and to several different beats, but neither my visitor nor any of his friends appeared. Sunday must have been their day off. Lake Boomajin - the deep end. As it became dark, Ami started a campfire and we made dinner. Actually Fiona and Alex made dinner, the rest of us just sat around. Denise tried helping them, but was forced to withdraw before long because she feared that she would do grievous bodily harm to Fiona the Irritating. Huge and tasty portions of spaghetti bolognaise were heaped onto our plates, and although I couldn't really see the meal, I was far happier with its contents than I had been the previous evening. When she stopped whining and fussing, it appeared that Fiona could actually cook. It was a pity that she squandered her culinary talents by becoming an high-profile accountant. After dinner, as we all sat around the campfire, John took out his digeridoo and began to play. Although he had only been practising for a few weeks, he was extremely good. Aboriginals use the sounds of the digeridoo to tell traditional stories, most of which seem to centre around animals and hunting. Each animal, John explained to me, has a different characteristic sound on the digeridoo, and the manner in which the sound is played indicates what the animal is doing - running, hunting, fighting etc. He gave me a few chances to blow a tune myself. After producing some unusual sounds, not unlike those I would expect to come from an asthmatic donkey, I managed to generate some authentic digeridoo notes. After a short "tune," however, I would have to stop and catch a breath. Accomplished players, including John, can play the digeridoo indefinitely using a technique called circular breathing. This technique, once mastered, allows the musician to inhale while blowing into the instrument. Circular breathing is a notoriously difficult skill to master, as its execution goes contrary to the normal interaction of the brain and lungs. Even with John's guidance, I couldn't even make a first attempt at the technique. As the evening wore on, I caught glimpses of a single dingo lurking in the darkness of the trees beyond the range of our firelight. Shining a torch on the animal would cause it to trot away, but I got the feeling that it didn't go very far, and that it wasn't alone. We had been told about past attacks on campers by bold dingos looking for food. Their sharp teeth and pack mentality pose a serious threat to the unwary. Most of the girls in our camp went up the trail to the unlit toilet block in groups, and I admit to taking our heavy frying pan with me on my solo trips. In my half-drunken state, I was actually excited about the prospect of confronting a dingo. Stupid but true. If my co-ordination was as messed up as my judgement obviously was, I was lucky that the dingos chose to stay hidden. We continued drinking and playing the digeridoo well past 9pm, after which the rules of the campground dictated that silence be maintained. As members of our group wandered or stumbled off to their tents, those of us left (John, Ami and I) went to visit the campfire of another group from our hostel. A whole new audience demanded music from John. I think that it was past midnight when some lady yelled out of a tent at us to stop the infernal racket. Oops. Lucid Lakes, Majestic McKenzie Monday, August 17; Lake Boomajin - Hervey Bay Just after dawn, as I returned from a trip to answer nature, I was struck by the immaculate beauty and stillness of the forest. The air was sharp and cool. Low light sliced between the trees, throwing long shadows and capturing galaxies of dust its beams. Only the sound of leaves crackling beneath my feet broke the awesome silence. Although tents of all shapes, sizes and colours were spread out before me, each containing one or more slumbering occupants, it was difficult to imagine that I was not alone. It was far too inspiring a morning to return to bed, so I took a walk down the hillside to the lakeshore. It was quiet and still here too, and the water was undisturbed, but I was not the only one around. What first appeared to be a lump of clothes near the water's edge turned out to be a sleeping couple, tangled in each other on an air mattress. I didn't approach them, but wandered along the shoreline in the opposite direction. I drank in as much of the invigorating scene as I could manage, but eventually fatigue cried at me to return to bed. I did, but not for long. The sound of my companions preparing breakfast reminded me that we were dangerously low on Coco Pops. If I didn't grab a bowl soon, there wouldn't be any left! I clambered out of the tent and managed to claim the stunted pops and the chocolaty dust left at the bottom of the box. I need not have hurried. Only John was still sleeping, and he didn't appear until his tent was being taken down around him by Ami and Asterit an hour later. Lake Birrabeen. We cleared up and packed up. The sun continued to shine and the morning warmed up. We travelled through the forest, stopping at Lake Birrabeen and Lake Jennings to stretch our legs. The waters of Lake Jennings were clear but stained brown, like iced tea. The colour comes from tannins - dyes in the leaves of the trees growing on the banks of the lake. The water is allegedly good for the skin so several of us took a quick dip. I doubt if we came out any healthier, but it certainly felt good to be rinsed clean after two nights of camping. With only a few hours left on the island, our pace quickened as we traversed the island's interior en route to Lake McKenzie, the toted jewel of the island. Ami Art. The 17 kilometres of rough track to the popular lake seemed to go on forever. By this stage, I had been relegated to the crowded rear of the Landcruiser, while Fiona had migrated up front and was exercising her right to drive. In a hurried attempt to gain more time at Lake McKenzie, she leaned on the accelerator. The larger rocks that she bumped over and the thicker roots that she hit caused the rear of the Landcruiser to bounce wildly, throwing those of us near the back door onto one another and shortening our patience. A few sharp words were mouthed off in her direction on one such occasion, but the ride didn't get much gentler. If we had not been eager to visit the lake too, there would almost certainly have been a mutiny. Lake McKenzie. Lake McKenzie is what every lake aspires to be. White sand and gracefully arching trees surround cool water clearer than the Pope's conscience. In keeping with the perfection, even the tourists spread across the beach seemed to be of premium quality, sunbathing and relaxing in a refined and appreciative manner. A perfectly blue sky reflects on the lake's mirrored surface, and the sun shines brightly down onto the utopian setting. The combined effect of sunshine and reflections was dazzling, and without Please don't make us get back into the jeep! sunglasses the lake's environment would have been decidedly uncomfortable on the eyes. We went swimming again. It was rather cold in the lake, but it was incredibly hot on the sand, so I moved between them several times. I could happily have stayed all day, but before an hour had passed Fiona and Alex, having accomplished their sightseeing goals, were badgering us to hurry back into the Landcruiser so that we could catch our ferry. Back at our hostel on the mainland, we emptied the Landcruiser and divided up the remaining food. I shook enough sand from my clothes and other possessions to build a small pyramid. Scattering to our separate rooms (with beds!) we arranged to congregate again that evening for a final meal together. We ate pizza on the rear deck of the hostel and finished the last of the beer. Farewells were taken as Fiona, Colin and Alex left to catch an overnight bus to their next adventure. The rest of us faded pretty quickly, promising not to forget Fraser Island any time soon. A promise easily kept - despite regular showers it took weeks to get all of the sand out of my ears. Calamitous Kayaking, Cursed Cockroaches Tuesday, August 18; Hervey Bay - Noosa Tripping with McCafferty's again. This time we only stayed on board for a couple of hours, just long enough to get us as far south as the town of Noosa. We didn't really know why we were stopping in Noosa. I think the unusual name just caught my attention when we had been planning our trip. We were pleasantly surprised to pull into a relaxed and prosperous-looking seaside town. We learned later that the laid-back mood of the town resulted from the make-up of its population - retirees, surfers and tourists. I suspected that the wealthy feel probably had more to do with the contributions of the retirees and the tourists than that of the surfers. Apparently all of Noosa's tradespeople - electricians, plumbers, carpenters etc., are surfers. When surfing conditions are good, they drop their tools, pick up their boards, and head for the beach, making it practically impossible to get a tradesman to tackle any job until conditions fall off again. Noosa, like Hervey Bay, is geographically schizophrenic. It is made up of three different settlements strung together - Noosa Heads, Noosaville and Sunshine Beach. Once Denise and I had agreed on which of these settlements to get off the bus at, we found our a guy from our hostel and threw our backpacks into his van. That was one of the things I loved about travelling in Australia. The country is completely set up for backpackers. In almost any other country in the world, arriving in a strange town and transferring to accommodation would involve a flurry of maps, taxis, local bus routes, misunderstood addresses, and lots of hopeful meandering under a heavy backpack. Not so in Australia. Where necessary, every hostel since Melbourne had collected us upon our arrival into their town, and dropped us back to our point of departure when we were leaving. No extra charge. No fuss. No waiting about. No missed connections. Since we had left Sydney, I could think of only a single occasion when we had had to shoulder our backpacks for more than one hundred yards - and that was to walk ten minutes from the terminal for the Magnetic Island ferry to our Townsville hostel. I remembered that march because it was late-afternoon and exceedingly hot, and because I was convinced that somebody had put rocks in my backpack. Fate must have decided that I needed to renew my appreciation for courtesy buses. "Koalas," our Noosa hostel, took introductory hospitality to a new level. Once Denise and I and a handful of other arriving guests were settled into the minibus, the young driver proceeded to take us on a quick orientation tour of Noosa. The town has its very own miniature National Park, which lies between Noosa Heads and Sunshine Beach. Our guide whisked us along the seafront to the park, and did a loop of the entrance station, and pointed out several goannas striding about fearlessly in the car park, blissfully ignorant of the NPWS boundaries. Next it was up to Laguna lookout, atop one of the heads of Noosa Heads, where we could survey the busy little town and the shimmering coastline to the north. We only stayed for a couple of minutes, but it provided a chance for us to get our bearings. Had I been arriving into Noosa from an overnight bus trip, I probably would have been rather grumpy at the spontaneous detour, but as it was, I was happier than a hippo in a waterhole. We checked into the hostel and were given a small and rather dingy room. We dumped our gear and hurried back out into the sunshine. The hostel reception area featured lots of suggestions for activities in and around Noosa, so we browsed through them, searching for something to do for the afternoon. I came across an advertisement for sea kayaking that I thought looked like fun. Denise didn't seem ecstatic about the idea, but had no better suggestions, so she agreed to give it a try. The hostel called up and made a booking, and within an hour a minibus came around to collect us. We were surprised to see that there was nobody else on the bus. Jamie, our driver and guide, informed us that we were his only clients for the afternoon. Business was slow because the sea conditions were rather choppy. The same choppy conditions had filled the surfing class that he had led that morning, but kayakers tended to prefer calmer water than that which was currently active off the beach. Nevertheless, Jamie assured us that we would enjoy ourselves, and that the conditions would not prevent us from gaining the full value of the trip. We were provided with colourful and tight-fitting rash vests, which looked seriously cool and professional. Unfortunately we were also given bulky yellow buoyancy jackets that made us look like LEGO people, so our self-image quickly took a turn for the worse. We launched our kayaks from a resort on the Noosa river estuary about a kilometre from the beach. Jamie was in a single kayak, while Denise and I shared a bright red double. The open craft were made of heavy moulded plastic and were self-baling. Any water coming across the kayak drained out through holes in the deck. The buoyancy provided by the air trapped inside the kayak shell kept us afloat. To an untrained eye such as mine, they were little more than surfboards with seats. Denise paddled hesitantly at the front of the kayak as we made our way towards the sea, all but ignoring Jamie's informal commentary on the magnificent riverfront houses that we were passing. She had turned quiet and monosyllabic, a sure indication that she was anxious, or irritated, or both. I asked her if she had changed her mind about wanting to venture out to sea. She retorted rather curtly that she hadn't. It wasn't very convincing. It was obvious that she was not comfortable with the idea now that its execution was imminent, but had silently concluded that it was too late to back out. Denise's trepidation caused me to feel guilty for suggesting the kayaking trip, even though she had willingly agreed to come. I sympathised with her nervousness, but felt annoyed that she had not voiced her strong reluctance earlier, before we had ventured onto the water, or before we had booked the activity at all. With such moods hanging over our kayak, our passage towards the sea became more of a chore than a relaxing excursion. I was quite sure that even Jamie realised there were some issues that needed to be resolved on our kayak. Rather than take the long way around the meandering estuary to the ocean, we paddled to the bank and carried our kayaks across a car park and busy road to the beachfront. Our kayak was uncomfortably heavy, even with the two of us carrying it, so I was impressed to see Jamie hauling his own kayak on his shoulder. Once we reached the sand, we let the kayak drop to the ground and I dragged it towards the water. Jamie directed us towards a spot on the beach where the breaking waves were a little smaller than those crashing inshore nearby. There wasn't a lot of difference though, even the smaller waves looked powerful enough to topple a kayak easily. Denise was positively bad-tempered by this stage, but Jamie pretended not to notice and gave us no time to reconsider. He instructed us to keep the kayak pointed into the waves and to maintain forward momentum by paddling continuously while breaking over or through the surf. We climbed onto our craft in the shallows, with Denise sitting at the front again, and Jamie gave us a push off. We got through the first few rushes of surf, but ran out of luck when we reached the line where the waves were breaking. A set of large waves had appeared and were advancing inshore, growing taller and curling to their peak as they approached us. I heard Jamie shouting from the beach, urging us to pick up our speed. I increased the pace of my paddling, but Denise seemed panic-stricken and was staring numbly up at the looming waves. It was obvious that the first wave of the set was going to crash directly on top of us. There was nothing either of us could do - I felt quite helpless. If I had been swimming or surfing, I could have dived underwater to minimise or avoid the impact, but we were sitting ducks in the kayak. The advancing wall of water lifted our bow as it curled finally to its peak, throwing us off balance, and then crashed down on top of us. Denise was thrown backwards into my lap. Her head almost struck my unforgiving aluminium paddle as I quickly raised it clear of the water. Whitewater was churning everywhere. I tasted saltwater in my mouth. I could still feel the kayak beneath me, although I could no longer see it through the surf. We were pitched backwards, then forwards, and had no control of the kayak whatsoever. Incredibly, through no merit on our part, we remained afloat and aboard and sitting the right way up. The surf rolled off the kayak and the broken wave thundered inshore behind us. Denise, whose tightly bound sunglasses had been torn from her face and were now hanging around her chin, struggled spluttering out of my lap and tried to regain her upright paddling position. We were still in one piece. See, that wasn't so bad... The next wave crashed onto us immediately, before we had a chance to recover. It was even more monstrous than the first, and this time we had no momentum at all. Our bow was no longer pointed directly offshore either, leaving us broadside to the advancing wall of water. Not that I had time to worry about these things. We were picked up, thrown down, and pummelled by the breaking wave before apprehension even got a look in. There was no mercy this time - our kayak was flipped and we were tossed into the water. I saw Denise lose her paddle as she disappeared underwater, and then I was beneath the wave myself. A mouthful of salty water, upside down in a washing machine gone mad. Completely disoriented, I struggled for the surface, but my kicking feet found the sandy bottom instead. Surprised, I stood up to find that the water was only as high as my chest. A bewildered Denise emerged to discover the same thing. The kayak and abandoned paddle bobbed innocently a few feet away. The broken wave rushed guiltily towards the beach, eager to escape the scene of the crime. I almost felt like laughing, for my apprehension had suddenly disappeared and been replaced by giddy relief. After counting her limbs and finding the result satisfactory, Denise's demeanour changed completely too. The waves had washed away her trepidation, leaving an eager and enthusiastic girl beneath. Back on the beach, Jamie offered us the option of going back onto the Noosa river and paddling tamely up and down the estuary, but felt we had seen the worst that the surf could throw at us, and weren't going to back down at this stage. Calm after the storm. We waited for a lull in the waves, and paddled out past the breakers without incident on our second attempt. To our great amusement, Jamie wasn't so lucky and was toppled on his way out to join us. We spent over an hour paddling on the ocean, making our way along the coast almost as far as the tip of Noosa Heads, and taking in the beautiful coastline. On the return journey, a strong reverse current Relaxing in the prune-maker. propelled us back up the estuary to where we had started. To soothe our limbs, Denise and I soaked in a bubbling outdoor jacuzzi while Jamie packed up the gear. We were still lounging in the tub long after my fingers and toes had turned wrinkly in the hot and swirling water. I probably would have turned into an oversized pink prune if Jamie had not eventually summoned us back onto the minibus. A movie at the plush Noosa cinema occupied our evening. We wandered home debating the paranormal (we had seen "The X-Files") but were jerked quickly back to tangible reality when we discovered cockroaches in our hostel bedroom. Horrified, Denise conducted an intensive search and destroy operation over the entire room and through all of its contents, silently freaking out for the second time that day. At least the fear was free this time around. PREVIOUS | NEXT | HOME | CONTENTS | ABOUT | SEND EMAIL