Friday, May 13, 2011

Good Friday .. Saturday, Sunday and even a Monday :)


I just had one of the best Easter ever.. We went camping at Fraser Island for a couple of days and it was just brilliant. Four of us, full camping gear, a turbo charged 4.7 litre Nissan Patrol and plenty of spirits.
After a four hour drive to Rainbow beach we took a ferry to Frasers and then we were in a completely different world all of a sudden. The whole island is a white sand island with natural forests, beaches and freshwater lakes.




After we arrived, we drove along the beach which was a new experience for me and I was told to be careful about washouts which can be quite dangerous and the sand was very wet in certain areas. I had driven a lot in the deserts of Middle East and was very used to the dunes but this was slightly different. Although not as challenging as the desert driving – this was more fun than dune bashing.



We found our way to the camping ground and pitched our tents and set off for the lakes.. This time we had to take the terrain track and this really tested the 4.7 litre engine under the hood. Again a fairly new experience for me... Everyone enjoyed the ride although it was getting dark and we had to get back to our tents soon.


We rolled out the cooking gear and sat around the stove to keep ourselves warm and after a lot of wine and food we changed the focus to ghost stories and J gets the creeps with anything related to the supernatural. And to add to the creepiness we were pitched next to a tree, the kind we find in the scary movies. Since there was not much lighting around there were a lot of stars visible in the sky – had never seen so many even when I had spent countless nights in the desert staring at them. Like they say there is something about the sky down under.


Next day we set off early and drove along the beach to the famous Maheno Wreck and spent time taking pictures and all along the way we stopped at natural bodies of water, dipped in the beach, played a round of cricket ( yes we brought cricket gear too ). It was good full all the way.



Then we went inland through a rough terrain track to get to Lake McKenzie which is the deepest fresh water lake there. The water was amazing and swimming in lakes is much better than in the sea. We spent hours there trying all sorts of fun stuff like synchronised swimming, holding breath competition followed by beers :)



Then after more of terrain driving we got back to the camping grounds for another night under the stars, wine, bbq and a game of monopoly.. This monopoly had Australian cities as properties. We were pretty upset as there was no Brisbane Station ( though there were Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth ). Wonder if there is an Indian edition of Monopoly with Kochi as a station:-P



Next day was all gloomy as it was the trip back home.. So we did a bit of driving around in the morning then packed up our gears and set off for our return journey. All in all it was a great experience would love to do it again sometime may be to a different island or maybe head to the mountains for a change.