HERVEY BAY, AUSTRALIA
What better way to celebrate Easter Sunday than waking up on the beach, eating a hot cross bun (an Australian Easter tradition, according to Sven), and going for a 7 am swim in the ocean? Well, sure, we weren't supposed to go swimming on account of the maneating sharks and all, but what the hell--Sven, Chris and I were feeling pretty lucky today, so we went for it. And lived to tell the tale.
We also discovered that during the night, a dingo had come into our campsite, got hold of one of our milk jugs, and bit holes in it. (Of course, "the dingo drank my milk!" doesn't have the same ring as "the dingo ate my baby!" but whatever.)
After breakfast, we loaded up the Land Cruiser and drove inland to the island's second-most-famous lake, Lake Wabby. In contrast to crystal-clear Lake McKenzie, Lake Wabby is pea-soup green, and filled with catfish and turtles. The thing that makes it interesting is that it's in the process of being swallowed by a massive desert-like sandblow, so there are steep sand dunes running down into it. It's impossible to resist the urge to run like mad down the dunes and dive into the water, so that's just what we did. Some guys there were crazy enough to somersault backwards down the dunes into the lake, but we'd been warned that people have broken their necks here, and that seemed like a pretty good way to accomplish that, so I didn't try it.
Before leaving Fraser, we had time to drive by Lake McKenzie again, and unlike the last time, it was sunny, so it was a little nicer swimming there. We then hurried to catch the ferry back to the mainland, because we'd been warned that the ferry captain wouldn't wait for stragglers. Later at the hostel we hung out with some our fellow campers, reflected on the fun we had, and drank some more of the beers we didn't get around to finishing on the island.
What better way to celebrate Easter Sunday than waking up on the beach, eating a hot cross bun (an Australian Easter tradition, according to Sven), and going for a 7 am swim in the ocean? Well, sure, we weren't supposed to go swimming on account of the maneating sharks and all, but what the hell--Sven, Chris and I were feeling pretty lucky today, so we went for it. And lived to tell the tale.
We also discovered that during the night, a dingo had come into our campsite, got hold of one of our milk jugs, and bit holes in it. (Of course, "the dingo drank my milk!" doesn't have the same ring as "the dingo ate my baby!" but whatever.)
After breakfast, we loaded up the Land Cruiser and drove inland to the island's second-most-famous lake, Lake Wabby. In contrast to crystal-clear Lake McKenzie, Lake Wabby is pea-soup green, and filled with catfish and turtles. The thing that makes it interesting is that it's in the process of being swallowed by a massive desert-like sandblow, so there are steep sand dunes running down into it. It's impossible to resist the urge to run like mad down the dunes and dive into the water, so that's just what we did. Some guys there were crazy enough to somersault backwards down the dunes into the lake, but we'd been warned that people have broken their necks here, and that seemed like a pretty good way to accomplish that, so I didn't try it.
Before leaving Fraser, we had time to drive by Lake McKenzie again, and unlike the last time, it was sunny, so it was a little nicer swimming there. We then hurried to catch the ferry back to the mainland, because we'd been warned that the ferry captain wouldn't wait for stragglers. Later at the hostel we hung out with some our fellow campers, reflected on the fun we had, and drank some more of the beers we didn't get around to finishing on the island.
posted by John Kuge at 11:47 PM
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