Frasier Island 1/16/17-1/18/17

So Frasier Island is apparently a must see on the east coast of Australia.  To be honest I was initially a little bit skeptical.  The state of my hostel room last night really didn't fill me with confidence either.  This is however the trip to say “fuck it why not” because I’ll never get better chances to say that than I am right now.  Each car had 8 people and was a diesel 4x4 that we got to take turns driving.  Did I mention that they were sticks and not all in great condition (oh yeah and I think the last time I drove a stick that wasn’t a bike was on the order of a decade ago).  We made it about 10 feet onto Frasier before the first car got stuck.  This is looking incredibly promising.  I should note that I was not the primary photographer behind the camera on many of these shots.  That honor goes to Bryce, who you will meet in an epic picture later on.

Yup, stuck (this happened a few more times but we got better and better at dealing with sand)

This was the first stop we took, these two pictures are from Lake Mackenzie and yes the water is actually that color.  Also the sand is impossibly nice.

One of my favorite parts about this trip was that it was actually a camping trip (my sleeping pad came in super handy).  The beauty of camping is that we get to cook our own food.  I don’t know how it happened but I ended up nominated as our cars chef.  Apparently the following picture was taken while Bryce was trying to get me to smile for a picture but I was too focused to notice anything around me.  At least 3 people told me after one of our dinners that I had made the best steak they had ever had which is a miracle given the steaks we started with (or an indictment of all the steaks they had had previously)

I don't know if I ever been described as oblivious before.

Some post dinner shenanigans

Had to grab at least one photosphere.  This is taken from the top of Indian Headleands which is the rock that stuck out of the water and created the currents that dropped all the sand to make Fraser island

One more picture from the top.  This was a really cool spot.  From the top we saw a shark, a sea turtle, half a dozen rays, a tuna, a bunch of little fish and a manatee.

I may have picked up a little bit of a tan

The following pictures are a perk of Bryce having an epic camera and the fact that there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky the first night and maybe one on the second night.  Light is very fun to play with  but there is much to say but  just to let these pictures speak for themselves. 

This is me learning just how terrible I am at handstands

This is Bryce

After a couple days of sand getting everywhere we were pretty happy to be getting back to civilization.

This was an epic couple of days and for whatever reason it was a little unexpected.  I wasn’t quite prepared for driving a stick but that was a blast even when I was driving the one 4x4 that was belching out thick black smoke.  I don’t quite have pictures of all the places we stopped because I was afraid of my phone getting near the sand or the water but the other spot worth mentioning was a lake that was a clear dark brown because the lake was surrounded by tea trees.  It was also incredibly warm because it is incredibly shallow (like you could walk 100 yards out and still be standing with your shoulders out of the water). 


PS: thanks to Bryce we also caught the ISS on the first night when we walked down the beach to watch the stars