Fraser Island

I'm loading the roof for the expedition
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You know you're getting old when you are waking up, still sleepy, in order to catch a cab at 4:30 in the morning and find that the bar crowd is just getting out from their night of partying.  We took the cab to the airport and caught the 6:00am flight out of Cairns, a tourist city to the extreme, bound for Brisbane and the New Years celebration.  Before jumping on the cab, we were privileged to watch two taxi cab drivers argue who gets the fare.  The company that we had called for pickup the night before ended up getting the fare, tacking on an extra charge for the early pickup.  Should of went with the other guy.

Had to ferry the convoy over water to Fraser
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Pipka and I landed in Brisbane to bring in the New Year.  Kind of lame to be honest.  I guess the 7 dollar bottle-of-beer night accompanied by the blaring hip-hop music turned me off.  We quickly made arrangements to bus north up to Rainbow Beach, our launching area for our next expedition.

This would turn out to be another deranged social experiment with us trying to fit in as the "older couple"

We booked a three day and two night tour of Fraser Island which claims to be the largest sand island in the world.  This would turn out to be another deranged social experiment with us trying to fit in as the "older couple" in the midst of the younger backpacker scene.  The night before heading out to the island, we were to be assigned into groups of 10 that we would be traveling with.  In total, 50 travelers and a convoy of 5 safari trucks would be making the journey.  To my extreme fright and childhood Phy-Ed nightmare, they allowed groups to match up prior to the assignment of the leftover participants.  The "please don't pick me last" feeling was starting to regain its' foothold when the tour group coordinator came to the rescue and said the remaining teams would be formed by the coordinator.  Whew!  That was a close one.  Our team consisted of three Irish travelers (I really do enjoy the sense of humor and overall happiness of the Irish, we may have to pay a visit), a young German man and his Korean girlfriend, a couple from England, and to our "oldest person" relief, a 63 year-young German man named Winfried.  A mini United Nations was ready to embark on their journey.

4 of the 5 trucks (one broke down) at Maheno wreck
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Fraser Island is a humongous sand pit and tropical destination for the Mad Max adventurist.  The sand has a baby powder consistency which probably ends up in the ashtrays of fancy hotels and resorts.  In addition to the abundance of sand, the island is infested with man-eating dingos and spiders the size of small dumpsters.  We were warned to bring a companion when going to the bathroom to ward off any wouldbe attacks as the Dingos are real ass snippers.  This brings up an interesting point.  The vast majority of this island does not have toilets, which to my dismay, would leave me in situations where I would have to do my business after digging a hole that is precisely 50 centimeters deep.  I was overwhelmed with joy on our second day when we arrived at Eli Creek to find that this destination actually had flushing toilets.  As you are already are presuming, this experience did not go as well as I had hoped.

Maheno wreck
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I entered the bathroom and took the final unoccupied stall to relieve myself.  How thoughtful of the last person to leave me a present of urine all over the seatcover along with long skidmarks in the porcelain bowl.  I spent the next three minutes using wads of TP so I could sit, but refused to clean up the contents left on the interior of the bowl.  I completed my original task-at-hand and opened the door to the bathroom stall.  The younger German that was in our safari group was waiting for the next available stall to open and exclaimed, "DID YOU HAVE A GOOD SHIT?"  The other stalls bursted in laughter and I immediately conveyed to him that the skidmarks were not mine, which in turn, was followed by additional laughter.

Beginnings of the United Nation happy hour
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Anne and I couldn't have been more lucky with the group that was assigned to us, as we really did get along quite well.  We did have some trouble picking camping sites, but we did settle on the Maheno ship wreck the first night which brought us amazing views of a full moon, rising above the skeleton of the ship that beached itself over 70 years ago.

Happy hour conversation with the other global travelers was good that night, despite the barrage of political jokes told by the older German, Winfried.  His jokes usually revolved around a cheesy pun and were not funny in the least.    I laughed hysterically at each one, affording him the reassurance of his comedic genius.  This only encouraged a further onslaught of bad humor.

Spooooooky
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Winfried:  "Brian, have you heard zee von about George Bush vith his vife and Sadam Hussein?"

Me:  "Oh no Winfried, I have not.  Please do tell."

And so the night went.  It did bring a thought to my wine induced head however.  If this was 60 plus years ago, I would be shooting a gun at both the German comedians and they would be shooting at me.  I guess I prefer the good and bad humor of my newest nomadic friends.

bkh