We had a much more relaxed third day. We stopped in Eurong to buy some breakfast ice cream and then headed down a bumpy track for more lakes.

First lake was Lake Birrabeen, which has very nice clear water and doesn’t get crowded. Unfortunately it was very windy when we were there so it wasn’t that great conditions for us. 5/10, probably a lot better on a calm day.

Next was Lake Boomanjin. The largest perched lake in the world, stained with tea tree. Now this was neat! So colourful!! Apparently it is good for your skin and hair. 7/10, bring your polarised sunglasses for maximum rainbow.

We drove back to Central Station to camp that night. Rosemarie cooked us steak. We had showers. It was still pretty uncomfortable but at least this time we had bug spray.

The final day. Another lake. We hiked into Basin Lake, a teeny tiny lake that doesn’t get very busy. Scott walked all the way around and saw a snake. 6/10, nothing too special, by comparison.

We noticed on the hike to Basin Lake that there was a turnoff to hike to Lake McKenzie, our next stop, but only Scott was interested in extra walking so he went off on a solo hike and Rosemarie and I went back to the car and drove to meet him at Lake McKenzie. He still beat us there by like 30 minutes because the driving tracks around the inside of the island are bumpy AF!

One last dip in Lake McKenzie before heading back to the ferry. I did some broad jumps in the water to keep the legs alive. This time we got to the ferry way too early, due to past trauma, haha.

We had a hotel in Hervey Bay that night, where we attempted to clean ourselves up. But no matter how many times you shake out your shoes, more sand comes out. We got way too much fish and chips for dinner that night and then stayed up late to watch the final heats of the ladies skeleton in the Olympics. The whole country was HYPED because Jaclyn Naracott was sitting in first place after the first two heats. Amazing. She ended up finishing silver, still an incredible result.

The final morning we woke up to emails from Jetstar saying that our flight from Sydney to Melbourne had been cancelled. Rosemarie tried to do an online chat and the dude told her that there were no possible other flights but we could cancel and get our money back if we wanted. Not very helpful considering Scott and I had work the next day, but also didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars trying to get home on a new flight.

After getting breakfast we decided to just head to the airport early, ready to negotiate either a new flight or a hotel. We check in and the lady didn’t say anything at all so we said “Um, I think the second part of our flight has been cancelled?” and she was like “Oh yeah, nah they put you on a Qantas flight at the same time, here are the details, just walk to the other terminal in Sydney and check in again”. Was anyone planning on telling us???? Anyway despite the sketchiest “boarding pass” in the world, it all worked out and we even got a hot snack (arancini) and wine on the flight!

I was so excited to take Rosemarie and Scott to Fraser Island. We used the same company as when I went with Natasha in 2017, Fraser Dingo 4WD, who prepared us an epic 4 day/3 night itinerary. We had a blast!! Prepare for a lot of pictures!!

The trip did start out a little stressful. It took the guy a bit longer than expected to go over all the safety information and itinerary with us, and then we didn’t follow their advice of going to the close grocery store for supplies, which resulted in a serious race to get to the ferry in time. We made it, but like… barely.

Our first stop was Lake McKenzie. It has got to be one of the most pleasant places for a swim in the whole world. I just love that the sand is so soft, with no rocks, and the water is beautifully clear. 10/10, maybe 9.5/10 when it’s windy.

That night we camped in Central Station, in the forest. I recognized the exact campsite I stayed at in 2008! We set up camp and made dinner while getting laughed at by tons of kookaburras, and getting our ears buzzed off by seriously loud waves of cicadas. None of us had ever experienced that before, it was crazy, borderline painful. There were also tons of mosquitos so we decided we were just going to stay on Melbourne time and went to bed quite early.

The second day was going to be our only possible beach driving day, so we had to get up very early to maximize our chances of making it to the Champagne Pools, something that I didn’t get to do in 2008 OR 2017 and was dying to do.

Despite the 4WD guy making it sound extremely treacherous, we made it up to the Champagne Pools with no issues whatsoever. I actually really enjoyed the bit where I had to keep up speed to make it through the deep soft sand. Exhilarating! Rosemarie did ask if I wanted to the passage again just for fun and in hindsight maybe we should have!

Us dumdums didn’t realise there was a second parking lot so we drove back down and parked on the beach and walked back up!! Doh.

The Pools were awesome. Nice shallow spots protected by rocks, so when the waves crash in it splashes up and bubbles around you. It’s not safe to swim in the ocean anywhere else on Fraser so it’s extra special that this place exists. 10/10. Amazing.

The trail up to Indian Heads was closed for maintenance so we didn’t get to go up there, but it wasn’t whale season anyway so oh well.

We actually stopped at Eli Creek on the way up the beach first thing in the morning as well as on the way back down. I had such fond memories of it we didn’t want to risk missing in it so we did a couple loops first thing in the morning. We were the only ones there and it was REFRESHING. And of course Rosemarie loved it as much as me so we stopped there again in the afternoon and did another few laps. 9/10, needs to be longer.

Then our last activity for the day was Lake Wabby, in the dunes. We had to walk in from our beach campsite for that evening so it involved quite a bit of sand walking, but we all survived and the lake at the end is a pretty unique reward. Scott was very surprised that the lake was literally right at the edge of the dune. There are some huge fish in it as well. We had the whole lake to ourselves for quite a while too, since we were there so late in the day. I did some hill sprints to keep up my fitness. This was Scott’s favourite lake. I give it an 8/10, fish nibbling a bit and hike too long.

To be continued….