Relaxing on Fraser Coast

(I´m alive :D I´ve been receiving some messages asking if I´m alright. A 24-year-old Finnish girl was killed in a car accident in Sydney a couple of days ago, which naturally makes people concerned.)

So now to my trip to Fraser Coast...

Thursday 19.7. My flight to Hervey Bay (the town where you fly to when you travel to Fraser Coast) was in the early afternoon. I took an airport shuttle bus to Fraser Roving - backbackers, which is located on Esplanade, the main street right along the 15-km-long beach. I had to wait for Tim and Renee to arrive from their Fraser Island tour, so I crossed the road and went to check out the beach. I spent a few hours just sitting on a wharf enjoying the warm weather and beautiful view. When Tim and Renee arrived I walked to Spar with Tim to buy some snacks before dinner. He had to go back to the hostel to call work, so I took a short walk along the beach before going back, as well. They served all-you-can-eat Mexican food at the hostel every night and we were originally planning on eating it. But since all the tables were located at outside areas and it was pretty cold, we ended up going to this Chinese restaurant instead. After coming back I joined this Irish couple to watch a movie in the TV room. I forget the name of it, but it was a good one anyways.

Friday 20.7. Tim flew back to Sydney in the morning. Renee and I woke up pretty early to catch a lift to the bus station, from where we took a bus to Maryborough. It´s a small historical town 30km from Hervey Bay. First we went to the visitor centre, where this friendly lady gave us a map for a self-guided tour around the town harbour. On our walk to the harbour we saw a fountain and some old, nice looking buildings. We spent some time walking around in Queens Park, which is next to Mary River. It´s a nice park with a railway passing right through it. We found this cafe with a sunny terace and had cappuccinos enjoying the sun and view over the river. Our walk continued to Wharf Street, where all the museums are located. We went to an over-priced small war museum to learn about Australia´s involvement in the World Wars and the Iraq War, together with the UK. There were mostly old uniforms, badges and other small stuff there. Our next stop was Heritage Museum, which was nothing special to be honest. We decided not to go to any more museums but to have lunch at this bar instead. Our table was located outside, in the sun and sheltered from wind. I asked for their healthiest food and got fried fish. It tasted pretty good, though. After lunch it was time for some dessert: We walked to this little idyllic candy store. The lady was friendly and gave us lots of fudge and ice cream samples. I bought some really good Dutch licorice :P We bought ice cream and walked back to the harbour to sit on a wharf and enjoy the sunshine. We ended up laying on the wharf for almost an hour and I actually fell asleep. When I closed my eyes I could easily imagine being in Finland: Feeling the warm, but not hot sun on my face, listening to the sounds of the river, birds and a lawn mover... After relaxing we decided to take the bus back to Hervey Bay and started walking towards the bus stop. On our way there we saw our bus and succesfully sprinted to the bus stop to catch it. In Hervey Bay we walked along the beach for a couple of hours and saw a beautiful sunset. We also saw some birds (cannot recall what they´re called but will attach a picture). After our walk we cooked a simple dinner; pasta and vegetable sauce and watched a movie, Oceans 12. Now we´re all ready to go to the movies to see Oceans 13 :)

Queens Park

Birds (pelicanes?) in sunset

Saturday 21.7. Since we had no special plans for the day we slept in. I had a nice breakfast moment sitting outside by the pool before we left to do some sightseeing. The weather was warm and sunny, just like the previous days. First we walked to Botanical Gardens. I don´t think we quite found the right place, though, because the park area was just a pond surrounded by grass and bushes. I´m used to linking the word Botanical Gardens (they seem to have them almost in every town) to planted flowers and other plants. Anyways, we sat by the pond for a while before heading towards the Urangan Harbour. We stopped by at Woolworths to buy some snacks before finding this big circular wharf made of stone, surrounding boats. We walked around it, took some pictures and sat down for a few minutes. Then we began walking along Esplanade to this really long wharf. It was as long as 686m and was used as a trailway for exporting and importing goods until 1985. It actually used to be even longer. There was a shark museum pretty close to the wharf, and we decided to go in, even though it costed $12. The main attraction was a frozen white shark that had been catched in 1983. It was in a freezer with windows. The other stuff included lots of pictures and newspaper articles about sharks, two videos, some teeth etc... By that time I was getting really hungry, so we didn´t stay there for very long. We walked back to our hostel along the beach. I think we ended up walking at least 15km that day. After lunch we checked out a few souvenir shops and bought some postcards. Then we sat by the beach for a while looking at the sunset before going back to the hostel to cook dinner and watch another movie; Traffic.

A long train wharf

Threatened by shark teeth

Sunday 22.7. Renee flew back to Sydney in the morning, and Keiji arrived at around 10am. We headed straight to a beach cafe to have cappucinos, and then found some beach chairs to just relax in the sunshine. Since Keiji hadn´t seen the long train wharf yet we walked there and back along the beach. The weather was really nice and we walked in the water. After coming back we prepared a grill lunch at the hostel. It was just some vegetables and majonese on top of toasted bread. I gotta admit I´m not really good at grilling, but the food tasted pretty good anyways. After lunch we walked at Esplanade and sat at a small cafe, just chatting and hanging around. When it started getting dark we went back to the hostel to pack our stuff for a Fraser Island tour, cook dinner and (what a suprise) watch a movie. We watched Wimbledon, which was really cute indeed.

Enjoying the sunshine