Frasering

Because it's still wintry in Melbourne September is the time to go up to Queensland and enjoy some of their year round sun. So we got on a plane and joined the annual Victorian migration to the warmth. We headed to Hervey Bay and swapped our soft roader car and the comfort of our little house for an enormous V8 land cruiser with a tent in the back. The thing to do at Hervey Bay is to ferry across to explore Fraser Island, an enormous sand island and national park famous for sand, dingoes, lakes and having the world's only beach highway. Thankfully the girls found the roar of a meaty V8 quite soothing and combined with gently bouncing over the island tracks were blissfully asleep for much of the driving. Which was more than could be said for us when we settled down for our first night's sleep in the painfully thin thermarests and frankly useless sleeping bags. But saved by some very kind people who lent us spare bags and after we'd made a shop keeper very happy by buying Vics one of his outrageously expensive air beds, things looked up and we were regularly sleeping in till 6:30 am - when the family alarm clock woke up and clambered over us going, 'Da da wha's dis'. Despite certain discomforts, Fraser Island won us over with spectacular blue lakes, crystal clear streams, amazing sand formations (sand blows), the stunning scale of 75 mile beach, more hump back whales than you could shake a stick at and pleasing lack of dingoes wanting to eat our children. We soon settled into a comfortable evening routine of boiling the billy for some tea, cooking up some pasta, cracking open the wine box and turning in to bed incredibly early. Thea's major disappointment was that we had forgotten to buy tomato ketchup so she started tripping round to the neighboring campsites for sauce. She was very effective and neither the young nor old could resist her charms - so the little lady got her sauce every night. Buoyed by a singular lack of dingoes we even camped at the back of the beach on our last night on the island and went to sleep to the stars and crashing waves. Fantastic. Then for good measure we returned home via Tin Can Bay where a pod of wild dolphins come in to feed every morning - which nicely capped off a great holiday in a very special place.