He built his house on sand...
Things have been moving quite swiftly since leaving Airlie Beach. I was browsing in the Worst Book Exchange In The World, uhming and ahing over a massive but dismal selection of 1970s science fiction paperbacks. Most of the books had exclamations in the title - my personal favourites included 'Sea serpents!', 'What a lovely Sunday!' and the underrated classic 'Caution! Flammable!'. After trawling the entire shop I eventually happened upon a tattered copy of 'The Grapes Of Wrath' - which will keep me busy, although it broke my heart to part with 'The Kandy-Koloured Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby'. A poor exchange, but I haven't the space to hump these books around. Baker - the HST letters will soon be slowly enroute to you.
The bookshop notice board had a typically flung-together shower of adverts and memos - always worth a nose - one caught my eye. "Wanted," it said, "volunteers for a square-rigger sailing cruise company." I chased this advert up - starting Saturday, I'll be spending six days at a time for the next six weeks learning 'marlin spike' sailing in the Whitsundays. It's a tough break, I realise, all that sailing and snorkelling in exchange for cooking and muscle - but I think I'll be able to handle it. Funnily enough, the company is one that we filmed for the DVD - Barefoot Cruises - a fact that certainly aided my supplication. The boats are beautiful - I have already filmed on two of the three in their fleet - grand old sailing ships, with a maximum of a dozen punters per trip. The cruises are priced well out of the range of most backpackers, so I'll also get a well-earned break from the gap year/college dropout/sabbatical East Coast 18-30 flip-flop new tattoo cheaper-by-the-pitcher Sydney-or-bust bullshit... of which I've had more than my fair share in the last few days.
I left Airlie Beach on the overnight Greyhound to Hervey Bay - arriving at 9am or so, I checked in and signed up for a three-day-two-night wham-bam tour of Fraser Island. Fraser Island is one of Australia's most popular tourist attractions, but I tried to keep an open mind nonetheless. I was thrown together with a further six backpackers from my hostel and we embarked on our mission the next day... I was 'Grandfather Simon' by lunchtime. Four Swedes, two Swiss and me - the oldest by a good six years, and therefore the only one legally allowed to drive the car - the island can be travelled only by 4-wheel drive. Fraser Island is made entirely of sand, on which evolution has somehow seen fit to develop mangrove swamps, dense rainforest, perched lakes and a multitude of fresh water springs. On sand. I want to be entirely clear on this point. Not mud, or rock, but sand. So much sand that for its 125km length multiplied by 25km width multiplied by however deep the damn' thing is, there is supposedly more sand in this island than the Sahara. Sand, I tells you, and sand again: the main road is the beach, with a speed limit of 80kmph. Craziness abounds - the landrovers and landcruisers roar along Seventy Five Mile Beach at top speeds, fishtailing wildly in previous wheel ruts and turning suddenly between the dunes to access the inside of the island.
Seventy Five Mile Beach - the main road on
Fraser Island. Jordan - your suggestions
on a postcard.
Offshore, the surf is constant and looks incredible - it's a shame that the sea is lethal, shot through with undertows and rife with Tiger Sharks. All the good swimming is to be had inland. Lake Wabby is the most incredible place I have ever seen. The geography of the place is baffling. A half-hour walk through the bush from the beach brings the keen traveller to the lakeside, surrounded on three sides by dense forest and on the fourth by a towering sand dune. If you climb to the top of this dune the contrast is even more spectacular - desert runs five miles inland and bang into the lake. We got lucky - there was an Australian family who lent us their sand boards to surf the dune. Marine ply, curved to fit and plastered in surf wax, 30 metres down and straight into the warm waters. Incredible.
Dune surfing...
Nice Australian girl who lent us the boards...
Yours truly with a perfect splash down that
nearly lost me both my sunglasses and all
sensation below the neck.
We camped on the beach - BBQ on the gas stove, rubbish locked away for fear of dingos. There is much worry about these dingos. Though they number only 200, they are the purest of the species left in the wild, and in recent years their natural hunting techniques have been eroded by a dependence on the detritus from campsites. Chalk another one up to humanity. I think we've 'won', by now. I emailed the editor of the Australian climbing magazine 'Rock' with my worries about the prevalence of spiders while bouldering - she replied that most climbers simply scrubbed them away, which seems a bit queer to me. She wants to print my letter and open a debate - I hope I'm around to see the results. I realise that spiders are hardly endangered - especially in Australia - but it's almost a matter of principle.
Sand makes the camping difficult. You're not supposed to camp on any vegetation - it's all that holds the dunes away from the road. The weather whipped up on the second morning, and there was no shelter in which to cook. I had to throw away formative scrambled eggs because the gas stove wouldn't stay alight. Sam Hesling is probably shaking his head in despair at this, but Sam, you don't understand. There is no shelter, Sam, none at all. I couldn't cook under the car - the tents were no good - coolers are bad windbreaks. It's sand, Sam, sand, and there's nothing you can do about it. Sand.
Anyway... back to Hervey Bay... we kept the deposit on the car, which is good - the two Swiss kids took it for a joyride on the beach last night. Underage, drunk, uninsured, high tide, in the dark: coming to a cinema near you soon. Here tonight and off to Noosa tomorrow before returning north to Airlie Beach and Barefoot Cruises. I think I'll go for a another look at the shop selling trinkets. In the window they have an impressive display of novelty pencil sharpeners, including the Sydney Opera House, which is to be expected, and London Bridge, which is not. Other examples included tractors, skulls, double-decker buses, spinning wheels, the World Trade Centre (1966-200, apparently), a stove, a telephone, a barn, a toilet, a tank, a howitzer, a Stealth Bomber, a lunar landing module, the Pantheon, the Scales of Justice, and - my personal favourite - a golfer, nursing an erection.
The bookshop notice board had a typically flung-together shower of adverts and memos - always worth a nose - one caught my eye. "Wanted," it said, "volunteers for a square-rigger sailing cruise company." I chased this advert up - starting Saturday, I'll be spending six days at a time for the next six weeks learning 'marlin spike' sailing in the Whitsundays. It's a tough break, I realise, all that sailing and snorkelling in exchange for cooking and muscle - but I think I'll be able to handle it. Funnily enough, the company is one that we filmed for the DVD - Barefoot Cruises - a fact that certainly aided my supplication. The boats are beautiful - I have already filmed on two of the three in their fleet - grand old sailing ships, with a maximum of a dozen punters per trip. The cruises are priced well out of the range of most backpackers, so I'll also get a well-earned break from the gap year/college dropout/sabbatical East Coast 18-30 flip-flop new tattoo cheaper-by-the-pitcher Sydney-or-bust bullshit... of which I've had more than my fair share in the last few days.
I left Airlie Beach on the overnight Greyhound to Hervey Bay - arriving at 9am or so, I checked in and signed up for a three-day-two-night wham-bam tour of Fraser Island. Fraser Island is one of Australia's most popular tourist attractions, but I tried to keep an open mind nonetheless. I was thrown together with a further six backpackers from my hostel and we embarked on our mission the next day... I was 'Grandfather Simon' by lunchtime. Four Swedes, two Swiss and me - the oldest by a good six years, and therefore the only one legally allowed to drive the car - the island can be travelled only by 4-wheel drive. Fraser Island is made entirely of sand, on which evolution has somehow seen fit to develop mangrove swamps, dense rainforest, perched lakes and a multitude of fresh water springs. On sand. I want to be entirely clear on this point. Not mud, or rock, but sand. So much sand that for its 125km length multiplied by 25km width multiplied by however deep the damn' thing is, there is supposedly more sand in this island than the Sahara. Sand, I tells you, and sand again: the main road is the beach, with a speed limit of 80kmph. Craziness abounds - the landrovers and landcruisers roar along Seventy Five Mile Beach at top speeds, fishtailing wildly in previous wheel ruts and turning suddenly between the dunes to access the inside of the island.
Seventy Five Mile Beach - the main road on
Fraser Island. Jordan - your suggestions
on a postcard.
Offshore, the surf is constant and looks incredible - it's a shame that the sea is lethal, shot through with undertows and rife with Tiger Sharks. All the good swimming is to be had inland. Lake Wabby is the most incredible place I have ever seen. The geography of the place is baffling. A half-hour walk through the bush from the beach brings the keen traveller to the lakeside, surrounded on three sides by dense forest and on the fourth by a towering sand dune. If you climb to the top of this dune the contrast is even more spectacular - desert runs five miles inland and bang into the lake. We got lucky - there was an Australian family who lent us their sand boards to surf the dune. Marine ply, curved to fit and plastered in surf wax, 30 metres down and straight into the warm waters. Incredible.
Dune surfing...
Nice Australian girl who lent us the boards...
Yours truly with a perfect splash down that
nearly lost me both my sunglasses and all
sensation below the neck.
We camped on the beach - BBQ on the gas stove, rubbish locked away for fear of dingos. There is much worry about these dingos. Though they number only 200, they are the purest of the species left in the wild, and in recent years their natural hunting techniques have been eroded by a dependence on the detritus from campsites. Chalk another one up to humanity. I think we've 'won', by now. I emailed the editor of the Australian climbing magazine 'Rock' with my worries about the prevalence of spiders while bouldering - she replied that most climbers simply scrubbed them away, which seems a bit queer to me. She wants to print my letter and open a debate - I hope I'm around to see the results. I realise that spiders are hardly endangered - especially in Australia - but it's almost a matter of principle.
Sand makes the camping difficult. You're not supposed to camp on any vegetation - it's all that holds the dunes away from the road. The weather whipped up on the second morning, and there was no shelter in which to cook. I had to throw away formative scrambled eggs because the gas stove wouldn't stay alight. Sam Hesling is probably shaking his head in despair at this, but Sam, you don't understand. There is no shelter, Sam, none at all. I couldn't cook under the car - the tents were no good - coolers are bad windbreaks. It's sand, Sam, sand, and there's nothing you can do about it. Sand.
Anyway... back to Hervey Bay... we kept the deposit on the car, which is good - the two Swiss kids took it for a joyride on the beach last night. Underage, drunk, uninsured, high tide, in the dark: coming to a cinema near you soon. Here tonight and off to Noosa tomorrow before returning north to Airlie Beach and Barefoot Cruises. I think I'll go for a another look at the shop selling trinkets. In the window they have an impressive display of novelty pencil sharpeners, including the Sydney Opera House, which is to be expected, and London Bridge, which is not. Other examples included tractors, skulls, double-decker buses, spinning wheels, the World Trade Centre (1966-200, apparently), a stove, a telephone, a barn, a toilet, a tank, a howitzer, a Stealth Bomber, a lunar landing module, the Pantheon, the Scales of Justice, and - my personal favourite - a golfer, nursing an erection.
posted by real sly shady at
12:06 AM
8 Comments:
wow Simon, you lucky dog! Just don't get eaten by a shark!!
Yo Sly,
At the expense of relieving you of some of your cherished loathing of humanity, i should point out that Dingoes are just extremely feral wild dogs. When the aborigines brought them over 5000+ years ago as pets and portable food source they ran wild and reverted to semi-wild type. There are no native placental mammals (except bats and rodents) in Australia. Therefore, whether the Fraser island Dingoes eat trash or not is pretty irrelevant as theyre just pets gone wild. Sounds like youre having a great time- its good to hear all your adventures on the other side of the world. Ross
Ross - oh yeah?
I'd like to see you try that one on the Queensland Parks Ranger Service. They carry guns, Ross. Guns. And they do NOT think it's funny. They get uptight about the dingos because there are enough of them on Fraser Island to prevent inbreeding but it's isolated enough to prevent cross breeding.
RE: the Aborigines - are you sure? Current estimates puts their arrival in Australia at more than 50,000 years ago. And while "5000+" does meet that in a truly semantic sense, it seems a little hazy to me.
Yours pedontically,
simon
what about some more photos?
Indeed - more photos! I want to see your by now leather-skinned cheeky mug glaring at me across continants. wish i workied on a boat. then i'd have an excuse for my scurvy.
I just want to see more pictures of the girl on the surfboard. She looked awesome.
Hi - you may end up as a pirate, had a programme on Black beard the other day, he had a very exciting life and lots of wives.
Love Mose
Mate- youre right about the aborigines. They arrived 50,000 years plus in oz. However, domestic dogs were only domesticated about 11,000 years ago in the middle east, and they made it to Australia via south-east asia in a later wave of immigrants only about 5,000 years ago (after the flooding of the bass strait at the end of the ice age). This explains why Thylacines (Tasmanian tigers) were only found in Tasmania (where there were no Dingoes) and why they went extinct on mainland oz (they were outcompeted by Dingoes). Tell that to any park ranger you want.
All pedants together
Ross
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