Ever since we arrived in Australia, I've been wanting to go to the beach.  The beaches in Queensland played a big part in the decision to come live here in the first place! 

However, what with work and website maintenance getting in the way, we hardly ever get a chance to get away for a few days.  I guess it's not cheap either and we haven't had the convenience of having a car for that long.  Long story short, we needed a small break.

So, last weekend we went to Fraser Island.  After asking friends-in-the-know, we discovered that Kingfisher Bay Resort is 'the' place to go, so we booked for 3 nights.  We were lucky enough to get a special deal - pay for 2 nights and get 3, so it made the whole thing a bit more affordable.  And it was also Australia Day on Monday which meant a free day off work!  We both had a total of about 1.17 annual leave accrued so took an extra day off on Friday and had a lovely full 4 days off work... yay!

Fraser Island is off the Eastern coast of Australia, about 4 hours drive north of Brisbane.  Apparently it's the biggest island in the world that is made completely of sand... and it's a world heritage site.  We learnt lots more about it too but I'm not going to babble on about that here... or perhaps I simply don't remember it all.  Chris can fill in the details later ;)

We caught the Kingfisher Bay Resort catamaran from Hervey Bay on Friday afternoon and 45 minutes later, we were at Fraser Island.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't really on our side (since WHEN is it cloudy and crappy in Queensland!!!  We haven't had any bad weather for weeks!), it was a bit overcast and kept spitting.  Still, we were in a tropical paradise so it didn't matter!

Since we'd opted for the special package deal, we thought we might end up in the crappy basement room that nobody would ever pay for.  So we were very pleasantly surprised when we discovered that we had a lovely big room with two big beds, a tv, fridge, big bathroom and get this... a balcony with ocean views!  Score!

Kingfisher Bay Resort is... well... a lot nicer than most of the places that Chris and I end up staying at.  Normally we're on a skin-tight-jeans type of budget and end up staying at places that cost $14 per night.  This holiday was a bit different for us.  We thought about doing it the cheap way and camping... but with 30+ degree days AND nights, and many murderous killer insects roaming the bushes... well we chickened out and opted for luxury.

Chris reading his book and relaxing on the balcony of our hotel room

So, Kingfisher Bay Resort has 4 swimming pools, 3 restaurants and a poolside bar, spa pools, a small shop (where we spent a small fortune buying snack food such as cheese and crackers), and other hotel type amenities.  There were lots of people there but it wasn't overly packed.

Our first evening at the resort was spent taking photos from our balcony - Chris took his fancy camera and tripod so we had all the gear.  However, as they always do, the bloody mosquitos found me, ignored all the repellent I'd put on and started to feast on me.  One cheeky bugger even bit me on my bum, right through my jeans!  Oh the nerve...

On Saturday we did the 'resort' thing and lazed around the pool, pretty much all day.  This became quite clear in the evening when Chris turned a light shade of tomato-red.  I somehow managed to avoid the sun... very mysterious.  We sipped cocktails while in the pool and had our lunch while sitting on the loungers.  Very very relaxing.  The sun wasn't quite brave enough to come out from behind the clouds and it did even rain for a small amount of time, but it was still more than hot enough to be in the pool and clearly the UV rays didn't care about the clouds either.

One of the main reasons I'd wanted to visit Fraser Island was to see the famous 'Lake McKenzie' so we organized to go on the 'Kingfisher Bay Beauty Spots Day Tour' on Sunday.  After a somewhat early morning for a Sunday (7:30am!!!) we hopped onto the 4WD bus with a few other resort guests and spent the day visiting several beautiful sights around the island.  One not-so-beautiful site (and sound, and smell) was a Spanish guy throwing up on the 4WD bus we were on - I guess his stomach couldn't handle the bumpy ride.  Luckily it wasn't too bad and nobody really noticed.

Lake McKenzie was AMAZING.  So beautiful - just like we'd seen in the pictures.  So glad to be able to tick that one off!  The water is so crystal clear, the sand is so white.  Our tour guide told us we could polish our teeth with the sand... we opted not to try this.  Other beauty spots included on the tour were central station, a 45 minute walk through the tropical rainforest, the Maheno ship wreck and Eli creek.  Lunch was included in the tour and consisted of a buffet lunch at the Eurong Beach Resort on the Eastern coast of the island.

Chris just chilling in the water

Although it was not included in the tour, there was an option to take a 15 minute flight in a teeny-tiny airplane up over the beach and a little inland as well.  It was $70 per person extra, but we thought - what the hell, when are we gonna be coming back here, right?  So we paid our money and jumped into this wee little 7-seater plane - smallest one Chris has ever been on!  You strap yourself in and without any pomp and ceremony, you're taking off from the beach.  Very VERY cool!  Very loud also.  Took lots and lots of photos from up high, you can see just how extensive the beach on the eastern coast of Fraser Island really is.  We flew over some lakes a little further inland - one of which looked just like a butterfly.  Chris found it very odd that he could feel a breeze on his face from outside, lol.

Now that's a long long beach

The pilot dropped us off at Eli creek where we caught up with the rest of the tour group - and about a million other Australians all out in their 4WDs with their stubbies, beer and beach chairs.  Oh, and Australian flags.  I guess that's excusible as the following day was Australia Day.

A quick nap on the way back to the resort was in order, even if it was 4WD roads the whole way back.  I can sleep just about anywhere, just ask Chris.  I particularly like sleeping during movies, that's just the best.

It was sad to have to leave Fraser Island on Monday morning, we would have liked to have stayed for about a week.  But alas, we had work to return to the following day so we caught the 10:30am ferry back and drove back to our little flat in Brisbane, together with about 3kg of sand in our shoes and bags.