Fraser Part I

The next morning we woke up ready to meet in the bar at 6:30am when we were finally put in our groups of 11, (ours consisting of 12,) we found out that we were indeed bundled with those said kids from the night before! Although, in the cold hard light of day, they were just a bunch of well brought up kids, who were seemingly quite sensible, especially in the light of the previous week's incident. and a bunch of girls.
So after some faffing by the woman trying to organize the whole thing, one of the two late arrivals to the group of 12, (Called Robb) was assigned to another group, leaving us with "Team Jigga" consisting of;
1) Me! (Mostly nominated driver)
2) Rob
3) Becky
4) Jonathan
5) Chris
6) Mike (aka, Kermit/Chunks)
7) Alex
and Team Canada
8) Tanya
9) The Jen
10) And Jen
11) Angela
and we headed off to get in the Land Cruiser, and old school tropp carrier one, with tyres that seemed altogether too narrow, and with a roof rack, laden with all our goods, and therefore making it very top heavy, it was apparent driving the beast would be quite a daunting effort. Once we arrived on Fraser, we followed Team Ireland (There were now 3 trucks, team Ireland had 3 irish members, one of which as the drivers, and team useless, who were always lagging behind.) we tanked off after team ireland, and detoured to Lake McKenzie, which was stunning, white sand, clear freshwater, sadly, this was on the agenda for day 3, had we checked the itinerary, we woul dhave known this. In the driver briefing we were told all the precautions and methods for driving on sand on Fraser, including not going anywhere near the water, so high tide was out, and they proceeded to tell us that we were safe on the beach until 5pm, when it would then become dangerous. so when we got to the beach at 3, noting the rather high level of the tide, we still dumbly though it would be safe to proceed. I'll be honest I was absolutely cacking it, especially as the second wave came across, and lashed over the windscreen, rendering us blind for a second or two, thinking carefully about what direction to keep the vehicle pointed, and not rolling it like the other group, needless to say, we got off the beach at the next possible gap, where we met Team Ireland again (we'd all split up) sadly, what this did mean, was that we had to travel up the island on roads we didn't know and weren't supposed to go on, it took 6 hours, with the concentration like you wouldn't believe, looking for dips, bumps, camber, soft sand etc, so as not to get bogged down. Eventually we made it back to the beach, and the tide was still in, so we had to turn around and set up camp in a nearby site at a cost of $8 each (what fool, puts a base camp on an island where the only access is via the beach? I mean, really, no back road??? - the beach is a road on fraser btw) which was run by an aborginal man who told us not to whistle as it attracted the ancient spirits, one of which was a 4 year old girl who gave awesome massages, (I didn't see why not to massage, i could've done with one after that drive) this was a massive day, i was totally shattered at dinner, and couldn't interact with anyone, I ate, sat down, hoody over my head, and zoned out the world.