Fraser Island - 17th and 18th May 2008

Hi to anyone that reads this blog. This weekend we went up to Fraser Island for a couple of days. We went with Andy and Jayne and their friends who are visiting from the UK. We followed good old TomTom on the way up which took us up a dirt track for about 50km's :-( the track is called the Cooloola way which TomTom thinks is a road, take it from me it isn't and we were lucky to be doing 20km/h most of the way. Anyway, eventually we got to Rainbow Beach and stopped for a big old brekkie meal and also picked up some firewood and bait for the trip. We then headed for Inskip Point where the barge leaves for Fraser Island. The barge cost $85 return which seems a bit steep to me as you're only on it 10 minutes each way.

When we got to Fraser we began the drive up to our campsite which was nearer the top of the island. The tide was fairly high so we had to use the inland road which was rough as hell and a bit like the Coooloola way. After about 15 minutes of bone shaking Andy noticed one of my spot lights had fallen off so I had to turn around and go back to find it :-( after about 10 minutes we found it but alas someone (or maybe me) had ran over it and it was smashed to bits. I'd had these Cibie lights since I was 18 so they had some sentimental value, they also cost $160 to replace each one so that hurts as well.

Anyway, we headed back to where Andy had waited to find he had gone exploring and was stuck up to the axles in soft sand :-) We soon yanked him out though with the snatch strap and continued on. Our camp site (Dundubura) was a fair bit up the island and on the way we stopped at this shipwreck

After doing the touristy thing of wondering around we jumped back in the cars and continued towards our campsite. Eventually we got there and setup our tents and our kitchen area (with the tarp and poles). We couldn't have a camp fire next to the tents but there was a fire ring just a few metres away. A bit later Sam, Jayne, Andy and myself went down to the beach to do a bit of fishing, Sam and Jayne chilled out with a bottle of wine whilst we fished. Andy caught a decent sized Dart straight away but nothing else was caught by either of us. We then went back to the tents and started the fire, cooked our steaks and consumed a few beers and generally had a relaxing evening. I'm beginning to forget what it's like to be stressed nowadays, life is so relaxing for us and I wished we'd been doing this kind of stuff years ago. I'm sure it must prolong life.

We all went to bed around 9:30ish and had a good nights sleep. We were up fairly early the next day and had eggs, sausages and bacon cooked on the stove (I'm sure the other campers must have smelled the bacon. We then went off firstly to Lake McKenzie

And then we went on to another lake for a picnic. Needless to Say Andy couldn't stay out of the water although it was only about 16 degrees yesterday. The others went in as well but I just sunbathed. The water was so clean at both of these lakes and tasted lovely, a bit like the sea at Felixstowe really or maybe not.

It was then time to head home, Andy and the others were staying for 1 more night but Sam and I headed home. Needless to say we didn't go down the rough track on the way back, we stayed on the main road. It was maybe 50km further but so easy setting the cruise control to 100km and watching the world go by.

We had a brilliant weekend and each weekend we say it can't get any better. We are going up to Fraser again on the queens birthday (7th and 8th June) and we have also decided we are going there for the Xmas break. The idea being that we'll have a traditional Xmas lunch on the beach with hats, crackers etc. Then instead of sleeping in front of the telly all afternoon we'll sunbathe and maybe do a bit of fishing and beach cricket.

The invitation is there to anyone that wants to join us, all you need is a 4WD and a tent and more importantly wants to have fun and chill out.

That's it for now, have a look at the rest of our photos of Fraser if you want http://www.flickr.com/photos/bloomster/sets/72157605136063381/

Bye for now

Visitors, photos, camping, 4WD'ing etc

Hi to all that reads this blog, I've been a real slacker for a while and haven't updated it or uploaded any photos. Anyway, today Sam nagged me a bit and I have a spare moment so here goes. Firstly photos, if you have a look on our Flickr website you'll see some photos I've taken. If you haven't been to Flickr before the address is http://www.flickr.com/photos/bloomster/.

The latest photos are some I took on our first camping trip which was to Teewah Beach which is between Noosa and Rainbow beach. We went with Andy and Jayne, Steve and Judy, Simon and Ange and Dean and Sarah. Dean and Sarah are like modern day crocodile dundee's (in the nicest sense) and they really made our weekend. They made a great campfire (to keep us warm and to cook our food) as well as putting up a tarp in record time when we had a bit of rain. They are real aussies unlike the rest of us who are just pretenders! Otherwise we had great fun putting up our new tents that we'd been out the previous Tuesday and bought. Quite funny really because 3 of us had the same tents, of course the aussies took the piss out of us pommies :-) We also went camping again last weekend, only Andy, Jayne, Simon and Ange and us 2 this time and we went to Landcruiser Mountain 4WD park - http://www.landcruisermountainpark.com.au/. This is about a couple of hours from where we live and most of the way it's a dirt road. Bloody cars were filthy before we got there! At the moment Simon and Ange don't have a 4WD but hopefully they'll get one soon. They got to the park in their Honda CRV but from there on they rode in Andy's Hilux. When we got there (and after we'd setup camp) we went for a quick look around the park, the idea was to go on a easy track - didn't quite turn out like that though! We ended up going up the side of a mountain with massive ruts and lots of wheelspin, going down was even worse and Andy still has the scars on the Hilux to prove it :-) I took the easier route down but it was still bloody hard. Later in the evening Andy, Simon and I went out looking for firewood, the track we went up (again a mountain) was littered with massive rocks and big drop offs, the noises from Andy's car whilst scraping and banging along were alarming - Andy seemed happy enough though :-) Anyway then we went back to camp and setup a fire and cooked all our food over it. I wished we'd done stuff like this in the UK but I suppose Australia is much more geared up for it especially the weather. We had another drive round on the Sunday morning which was good (more mountains and tricky uphill and downhill tracks - some near vertical). I'm amazed on what our cars can do especially as both of them are stock (apart from my all terrain tyres). So that was our trip to Landcruiser park. We are now planning our next outing which is Fraser Island (largest sand island in the world), we are going on the 17th and 18th May and we are all looking forward to it. Heres some photos of our 1st camping trip.

Dean, Sarah, Judy, Steve, Ange, Simon, Jayne, Sam and Andy

Our food cooking over the fire

And some pictures from Landcruiser Park

Andy getting the fire going

Our campsite - notice the flash cooking area with the tarp over the top

There's a load more photos on Flickr and if you want you can see more on Andy and Jayne's website - http://picasaweb.google.com/devilishdeans

We've also been up to loads of other stuff. Of course we had several visitors over to see us including my mum of course, Sam's dad and his partner Trudi and more recently Sam's auntie Sylvia and her uncle Mick. We were really pleased to see them all and it was very sad to see them go. I'm hoping mum will come and see us again, maybe in a year or 2 and of course we'd love to see the others as well. It's been a while since they've gone now and to be honest I can't really remember the details of what we did when they were here! the weather was really crappy over Xmas though so we couldn't do too much. The weather was much nicer when Sylv and Mick were here and we went out a fair bit, they also hired a car and went out sight seeing.

Otherwise life carries on in the 'lucky country' and we can't imagine wanting to live anywhere else. We just think the rest of you are mad for not living here :-) What with fishing, camping, going to the beach, 4WD'ing, enjoying the lovely weather we are having (25 - 28 during the day) we are having a great time. We are also fitting in a bit of work of course, but only just enough to get by!

If I think of anything else I should have added I'll do it as and when the thoughts come into my head. Best wishes to you all, we'd love to hear from you (sam@isolveit.com.au and kevin@isolveit.com.au) or you can get me on MSN (kevin@fornham.net) and Skype (kevinbloomfield)

That's it for now, my tea is nearly cooked and I have a load of stuff to do in the morning for work.

Bye from sunny Queensland - Kev, Sam and David xxx