The dingo ate my homework

Alright so there had to be something done, we're this far down the coast and the reasons to laugh haven't been legitimate for most of that time. Don't get me wrong I like laughing for the wrong reasons almost more than for the right ones but still, one expects to be having some traditional fun in places like these, on trips like these. So we're in the quiet retirement-esque hamlet of Hervey Bay and what do people come here to see? Fraser Island. Great, let's go and see what it's about... Oh there aren't any roads? Oh right, it's all sand tracks, and you have to rent and learn to drive a Land Cruiser to get around. A lot of people get hurt, sometimes fatally, doing this do they? Oh right, cool. Dingoes? Wild ones? Right so, and what do you.... You just back away with your arms folded maintaining eye contact, is that it? Grand so. Four hundred and fifty dollars? And we have it back to you by six with no scratches? Fine. Hang on what's that about man eating sharks on the north beach? And was there something about pits on the beach that kill and maim a not insignificant number of people each year? Forget it, sign me up!

Seriously that's it, we're really that interested in having some good old standard fun. You wouldn't believe how bumpy the roads got and how intimidated I initially felt as we, the two of us, rented a 9 seater 4 wheel drive to knock around this island. It's one of the only all sand islands in the world and the only one that has a rainforest on it. It also houses more than half the worlds perched lakes. Don't ask me about the ecology but they look beautiful as you can see if you continue reading and scrolling. There are somewhere in the region of 200 wild and potentially dangerous dingoes out there too and lizards you wouldn't dare shake a stick at so the rules are, don't feed the animals. A kid bought the farm out here a couple of years back which confirmed the whole dingoes do eat babies thing. Poor Lindy. I should watch that film. If only I'd had the foresight before I left home I'd have watched The Beach, The Killing Fields, Tomb Raider, Apocalypse Now, Platoon and that one in which a woman claims the eating of her baby was the gastronomic doing of a Ding-diddly-ingo.



Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island, a perched lake of infinite beauty but very clearly finite size.


Me at another perched lake. Lake Wobby. The astute viewer will quip that this perched lake looks parched. And they'd quip like they view, astutely. Note: I love the T-shirt I'm wearing there and have overworn it since it's purchase in Chiang Mai. It's Ronald McDonald looking drunk with two topless ladies. A Banksy image I think which raises it's banality to the level of high art. At least that's my rationale.


A monitor, neither flatscreen nor cathode ray, but lizard. A massive one at that.


This wasn't even a tourist attraction. Seriously I just stopped because I reckoned that knobbly tree there looked like a moose's head. And the braches coming out look like antlers. Seriously. If you can't see it let me know and I'll be happy to provide a higher res image that proves it.


The flippant captaincy of this monstrous vehicle began with more reverence for the terrain than is seen here, I swear.