The lucky country

These are some images from Fraser Island which is off the coast by Hervey Bay and is the largest sand island in the world. This means the internal roads are horrendous, just sand tracks and fairly nauseating for a delicate person like me. But the opposite side of the Island is fully beach, called 75 Mile Beach though it’s only 72 miles long and it’s a registered road so you can drive at 80k on it (pretty fast for Oz when the fastest speed on the road is 110k).  It is really cool and beautiful.

We saw a dingo who looked harmless enough after the guide frightened the shite out of us by going on about how dangerous they are. They do that a lot here, frighten you about how dangerous things are when in reality there aren’t man eating spiders wandering around waiting to kill you. There are nasties in the bush but you would have to provoke them first for them to attack (mostly). However, crocodiles and jelly fish are dangerous – in an awful lot of places in Queensland you can’t swim in the lovely beaches, due to crocs and sharks.  It is a bit of a nanny state in some ways actually – they are really anti-smoking at an official level and it is really hard to smoke in Australia! I asked a barman in Cairns if you could smoke in the outdoor area and he looked at me like I asked if you could murder children on their premises. And the speed limits are slow, but the roads are surprisingly small. The road down the coast is largely single lane with a double white line down the middle!  

But Australia is a beautiful country, no doubt. The lucky country they call themselves and they are right.  It would be nearly perfect if it didn’t have the legacy of the terrible treatment of the indigenous people. But I won’t get started on that. Fraser Island is beautiful – I went up in a little plane that took off and landed from the beach and the view of the coastline was just magnificent. There is a ship wrecked on the beach – the SS Maheno, which  was actually a NZ hospital ship in WW1 and was in Gallipoli. It got stranded here on its way to Japan to be scrapped. It will be covered soon as the sand is constantly moving. I am not very good at the old selfies but this one turned out ok so I am attaching it just to make yiz really jealous. I am the lucky one, no doubt.