Avoiding Dingoes on Fraser Island, Australia

My next big adventure led me to yet more beaches, but this time there would be strictly no sunbathing. Just a whole lot of Land Rovers. I was going to Fraser Island! This is a tiny island off the coast of Rainbow Beach (boring place, don’t bother staying more than a night) that is made up of almost entirely sand. The fun thing to do here is to join a self-drive tour group of about 30, get divided into teams of 8 and you’re given your very own 4WD to drive over to the island and see the lakes, creeks and lagoons.

I’d heard that ordinarily on this trip when you got divided into groups you’d always end up with a group of British lads that’ll be fighting to drive the jeep the whole way around the island, this didn’t bother me a bit, I drive a 3 door Ford KA at home (and not very well) so I was looking forward to being chauffeured. This, of course, is not how it turned out.

My lovely group of Fraser Island buddies were an ad-hoc mix of a couple of Italians, a couple of Canadians, a Swedish girl, an Irish and another English girl. We had no arrogant lads demanding to take the wheel, in fact, it turned out to be the opposite – while other groups were pushing each other out the way to write their name on the drivers list we looked at each and sheepishly started saying;

‘I don’t mind driving buuttt I’ve never driven manual before’

‘I don’t mind…but I’ve not driven right-hand side wheel before’ or

‘I’ve not driven in 7 years.’

‘I don’t mind driving but…I’m not very good’, I inserted.

So with reluctance our friend Sophia took one for the team and started our 4WD rolling as we made our way to Fraser Island from Rainbow Beach. We would be Car 2 of 4, following directly behind our Aussie guide’s 4X4. I’m fairly certain our guide had some sort of military background, or at least fancied himself the next Bare Grylls. He took himself very seriously and barked orders at us through the walkie talkies each car was given. The rules were made clear to us: drive 20ft behind the car in front at all times and drive carefully. There was a fair bit of off-roading through sandy jungle expanses but we would be driving primarily on beaches and constantly facing the battle of beating the incoming tide so we had a tight schedule to stick to.

Sophia was understandably anxious and our guide, Crabby Craig, was not helping matters. He was the most aggressive, unsupportive tour guide I’d ever met. And our car, the one full of nervous drivers, received the brunt of the abuse because we were in his direct line of vision (and possibly because we didn’t know what on Earth we were doing)...

*crackle crackle*

‘Car 2 - keep up!’

*crackle*

‘Car 2 - what do you NOT understand about 20 feet at ALL times?’

*crackle crackle crackle*

‘Car 2 – why the hell are you slowing down?!’

I don’t think it helped that for a long time we couldn’t work out how to use the walkie talkie so we couldn’t reply to him. Sophia tried to work out the proportion of the 20 feet distance (seriously, who actually knows this?!) and drive carefully while a lot of arguing was going on about how to work the walkie talkie and the rest of us being swearing incessantly at how unreasonable Cantankerous Craig was being.

‘-he’s just being a complete dick!’

*crackle crackle*

‘Car 2 – what was that?’

Well at least we’d found the talk button.

We swapped drivers regularly, the pressure was clearly on and whoever drove had to withstand Cruel Craig's constant abuse.

Somehow, I ended up in the driver’s seat. I had warned my gang about the fact I wasn’t the best driver (I may have neglected to mention those couple of bumps I’ve had in the past…), driving a beast with 7 innocent passengers on SAND was not something I felt confident about. Barefooted (flip-flops being the worse alternative) I adjusted the seat and applied pressure to the clutch finding the biting point. Interesting…

Before I knew it we were belting out the Spice Girls, ignoring Cranky Craig's tirades and having the best time on our rollercoaster ride off-roading through the jungle outback of Oz. It was so much fun driving once I got the hang of it; we whipped past scenery that made me feel I was in a Jurassic Park movie.

There are so many beautiful sites on the island and while the pristine waters looked inviting 100% of the time, it was Australia’s winter remember, it was soo cold. The bravest of us would dive in and get involved (most people except me).

Our abode was a campsite designed for the 4X4 tour groups, it started to feel like a residential school trip as we unpacked our bags into our 2 man tents, I was sharing with Eimear, the hysterical Irish girl.

‘Under no circumstances must you have any food in your tents at night! Rats will find it and eat it! Do not go outside the camp boundaries by yourself! The dingoes will find you and they will attack you!’ Craig bellowed.

I don’t think any of us believed a word. The dingoes seemed to me to be an urban myth of some large pale dog like creature that was aggressive and ate people who wandered off into the woods alone. So we ignored the mean man, cooked our rations, drank and got merry.

At one point when I was too drunk to make sense of what was going on around me, I remember a few middle-aged aboriginal Australians who owned the campsite came over to the fire and started to have a go at me and a couple of others for not appreciating their giant mural behind the cabins that we had no way of knowing it existed.

‘You tourists come here and you don’t even care about the history of the island and our heritage!’ They showed complete disdain for the drunk backpackers that surrounded them, fair enough to an extent but they were getting a lot of money from us…

After a tour and explanation of the mural in the dark (pointless) we sat down around the campfire once more. He then, from nowhere, brought out a giant 4ft long white plastic drain pipe and genuinely starting playing it like a didgeridoo. He told a wordless children’s story using his spare arm for actions and noises and sounds with the makeshift instrument. It was pretty cool and when he started to say/sing my name down the pipe I decided to forgive him for having a go earlier.

The next morning we woke up to screams from Sophia who’d found out that a rat had gotten into her tent. It had eaten through a previously unopened bar of chocolate. Melted remains covered her clothes and the wrapper was left there torn open and empty as if to mock us. It was then that we realised that those giant rat-sized holes in the bottom of our tents weren’t down to a couple of years wear and tear after all… Another member of the group had found himself cornered by a few mean looking dingoes the night before too. So it was all true!! That night we stuck together and made sure every single grain of food was locked away in our trucks.

Fraser Island was another awesome experience and again, the company was perfect. El and Eimear (above) kept me on the brink of losing it (to hysterics) for the duration of the trip.

My time in Australia came to an end by staying with an old Aussie buddy in Sydney. This final city stop was too short but it was lovely catching up with Kate and the perfect way to say goodbye to the country.

I’d be flying to New Zealand next; where I’d discover black water rafting is not at all what it says on the tin and that I was a closet Lord of the Rings uberfan.

#FraserIsland #australia #eastcoastaustralia #travel #travelling #backpacking #camping #dingoes #4x4 #4WD #jungle #adventure