Touring Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island, by 4x4 is a VERY popular activity in Australia. The gist of it is to either hire your own 4-wheel drive vehicle and camp out in tents on the island for a few nights, or take a guided tour and let someone else do the driving. I opted to go with The Fraser Experience which was mentioned in The Lonely Planet. The groups are small - 14 people - and you cruise around in a gigantic truck, spending the night in an island resort.
As our guide, Neil, gassed up our truck, I saw a caravan of SUV's pass by on their way to the island. Self-drive tours are cheaper, and thus the most common approach for young backpackers. I felt a twinge of envy. They would have a sense of fulfillment I might be missing out on by paying a bit extra for a guide and such. And then I saw our guide plow past a traffic jam of these SUV's a few minutes after we landed on the island. And then I was thankful we'd have a roof over our heads when it started to pour rain (which lasted both days of the trip).
We spent the first morning driving up the beach, which despite the rain, was quite brilliant. Our big truck was faster than the little ones, though there wasn't much traffic on the island. The views were rather drab given the rain. We stopped at the resort for lunch, where I saw my first goana (lounging outside the ladies room).
After lunch, we headed farther up the beach to Indian Head Point, which required a bit of a climb. We passed a section of trees which were filled with heaps of Golden Orb spiders. Welcome to my nightmare! It was fascinating and disturbing. They were everywhere, yet I understood them to be fairly harmless.
At the end of the day, we had a buffet dinner at the resort, and a few drinks at the beach bar. Our guide played a game with us by roping me with the tall blonde English nanny in our group. We tried our best to figure out the solution to untangling ourselves with no luck. I wasn't complaining though!
I entered a casual pool tournament, beating one of the organizers (who had his own cue stick) in the first round, though losing my second game by a good bit. A few of my tour mates had stayed out extra late to cheer me on.
When the heat got to me, I walked around the air-conditioned mall nearby. Surfer's Paradise is akin to Miami in the USA. Tall residential buildings buttress up against beautiful beaches. Several backpackers would later tell me they felt it had no soul. I accepted it for what it was, and enjoyed it. As the day drew on, I checked with two of the hostels in the area regarding available rooms. There were none. Zilch.
Ben is a Couchsurfing city ambassador for Brisbane, which means he tends to host a lot of people and take an active role in fostering a bigger couchsurfing community in his city (and as I learned, all of Queensland). He was a great host - very connected to the local Brisbane music scene having been in many bands. He introduced me to the local community radio station 4zzz (pronounced 4-triple-zed), 102.1 FM. I was immediately blown away by what I was hearing - rap songs with f-bombs everywhere and the n-word (obviously not radio edits). It turns out the station had a 30-year history of shaking things up and they were still going strong. I listened to the station as much as I could during my 2-day stay - soaking up it's free-wheeling style, and great (really great) music selections. The DJ's were silly and fun too.
Aside from listening to lots of local music (and talking about it too), I did a ½ day walk around Brisbane, though the rain put a damper on it. Chris (another couchsurfer staying with Ben) joined me, though he'd already been to the city. We explored the Town Hall, including the free ride to the clock tower, took a ferry across the river, and spent an hour wandering around the (free) Queensland/Brisbane Museum.
Discoveries -
I started the day with a Jetboating ride on the Shotover River which winds through the canyon by the same name. It was fun, though it didn't instill the fear of death in me. The boats are $250,000 each, and can go in water only a few inches deep. It's about as tame an experience as you'll find in Queenstown, though zipping by canyon walls and doing 360's was good fun. Between the in-your-face advertising, and countless stories from other travelers doing crazy activities, I signed up for one I knew would scare me (I hoped). It's like a rite of passage if you come to New Zealand.
Our second stop was an old gold mining town, Barrytown, which is more of a rest stop when driving down the west coast. We stay at the main hotel/bar (which is literally the town), and usually everyone just drinks and cross-dresses (the photos on the wall bear evidence to this) because there's nothing to do. My bus only had 5 people, myself included, so we kept it to a walk down to the beach for the sunset.
Exploring Georgetown