The Great Sandy Straits....

So we have made up our mind that we really, really like Moolooba (even the fish and chips were good) and we never wanted to leave. But anyway we begrudgingly departed at midnight (again another example of my parents insight......). We slept soundly, well as soundly as you can when there is a party on the other side of the river belting out "Happy Birthday" at full force (note to everyone: Happy Birthday makes it extremely hard to sleep....).

Rainbow Beach

the sunsets are amazing

 I take back that comment I said earlier about leaving extremely late at night, it actually was a good idea. Because the sea would've been super lumpy and i would've been vomiting all over the place, as gross as that sounds - it is reality. But because we left at night i was too busy snoozing to vomit. When we arrived at Rainbow beach we had breakfast, because it was 7:30 AM. Rainbow beach is amazing, it is like all the colours of the world have been dumped on this one beach (or if you are Stella you would say 'I can't see any purple!').

We left Rainbow beach with a jumble of nerves in our stomach's because  to get to our destination: Fraser Island we had to go over one of the most notorious bars in all of Australia the Wide Bay bar. The thing is, you motor along in this thin stretch of relatively calm (still with 2-3 metres of swell) water. But  on either side of the boat you have giant breaking waves, with only a thin channel to keep you and the waves apart. This is called the Mad Mile. But on the other side of the bar there is completely flat and still water and there was no evidence of the chaos on the other side of the bar. We motored for a short while on and came to an anchorage called Garry's Anchorage, I know you are all asking yourself: who the heck is Garry? So i'll explain. He was an aboriginal tracker who lived there and he helped track down Ned Kelly and his full name is Garry Owens (there's my historical fact of the day).

Garrys anchorage

We finally fly the spinnaker

Pretty clouds

Our "shack"

Garry's anchorage

Dingoes on the beach

Finally we get to swim.

When we arrived Mum slept shortly followed by dad and me and Stella jumped in the water. The water was freezing even if we were in Queensland. We were quick to find out that the anchorage hosted residence to Estuarine Crocodile's (we saw that on a sign after we'd gone for a swim) and because the anchorage was next to Fraser Island, Dingoes. We saw the Dingoes just casually trotting along the beach, then obviously got freaked out about our cameras and scampered into the bush. We also spotted a gigantic, asthmatic Turtle and Mum saw a dugong (they are known to be there). The next day we set out to Big Woody Island (with no dingoes) . On the way we experimented with the spinnaker (the orange sail with the dolphin on it) and basked in the sun. We arrived at Big Woody in time for dinner and that is where we are now and everyone lived happily ever after.

Written by Lucia