Our next stop was at the adjoining towns of Agnes Water and Town of 1770 where we walked along yet more spectacular beaches. That night we made it to Hervey Bay, the jumping off point for trips to Fraser Island. It was a pleasant change to leave the car parked the next day, finally staying in one spot for more than one night. We had a meeting in the afternoon with the group we were to travel to Fraser Island with to give us a bit of insight into driving on the sand island as we were going on a self driving trip. It turned out that there were two more Irish couples in our group, a pair of English girls and a pair of German girls. Luckily we all got on ok making our three days together on the island much more enjoyable. 
On Friday morning our group gathered again and we were sent forth in our jeep to get the ferry to the island. Danielle was first to take the wheel and bravely reversed onto the ferry last so we were first onto the island. The first stop on our itinerary was Lake McKenzie which had beautiful clear fresh water with a hint of sunscreen! We went for a swim there and had lunch before heading on across the island to the beach. Driving up the beach we saw the Maheno Shipwreck and The Pinnacles (a sand formation) before arriving at our campsite for the night at Dundubara. That night we had a barbeque dinner and went for a walk on the beach in the dark to celebrate Halloween. Just one dingo went past, making us jump! 
The next morning we raced against the tide to make it along the beach as far as Indian Head. While we waited for the falling tide we watched the sea from the top of the headland and saw a dolphin surfing in the waves. We also went on to the Champagne Pools. Unfortunately we stopped a bit short of our destination at a spot where we saw other people, assuming that was where we were looking for. After an hour or two Seán and one of the girls went wandering and found the actual champagne pools; pools with a wall around them that the waves can crash over, creating a bubble effect in the still pool water. We had a little time to enjoy the bubbles before heading back to the jeep.
We were taking turns to drive the jeep, so I had a go on the way back down the beach on quite a nice surface as the tide had just gone out. We later had quite a scary trip (cut short by a good deal of complaints from the other passengers) when one of the youngest members of our group took the wheel. She clearly had decided that the best way to go was to put her boot down and race along. That would have been fine if it wasn’t for little streams going across the beach at random that we could easily crash the jeep in! 
With a change of driver or two, we arrived at Eli Creek, a little stream that you can walk up and float down, which we did before playing our own version of net-less net ball in the shallow water. That night we stayed in K’Gari Aboriginal Camp and after dinner sat around a campfire with some other groups that were staying there also, listening to a digiridoo being played by our aborigine host. It was passed around among the men to try, but apparently women cannot touch real digiridoos due to legend saying they will get pregnant, among other nasty things!
On our last day on the island we went for a long walk over the Hammerstone Sandblow to get to Lake Wabby. When we were only half way there we were questioning the sense of this trip – it was incredibly hot and we were walking across what really felt like a little part of the desert! A quick swim in the lake was refreshing enough to make us tackle the return trip. We had our last lunch at Lake McKenzie again before catching the ferry back to the mainland again. Seán and I were anxious to get moving south again so that evening we got back in our rental car and went as far as Mooloolaba that night.
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