Tales of Fraser Island – Part 3 : Monsoon Camping8 min read

It’s now time for the long awaited conclusion to my most memorable trip here so far, by far. Now where were we? Ah yes, we made the sky cry. We did not know it at this point but everything was about to go “austral, yah”? (Credit to my good friend Tom for coming up with this beauty.  “We’re not worthy!” Austral: relating to the south.)

…And that’s where I’m writing from.

By the time we got to the tents, it started to really pour down. We parked the truck, grabbed everything we needed and went to the biggest tent to spend our evening. Thankfully, we checked all the tents and we had closed them before leaving in the morning so everything was still dry (including Nicol’s guitar, WHICH HE HAD STILL NOT USED). We hung out in the tent for most of the night and eventually it stopped raining. It’s a pretty great thing that Nicol and I were staying in the same tent because eventually, everyone went to bed except us. Absolutely not ready to stop our evening dead in its tracks, we headed to the beach with an ipod and some speakers. 

We spent the evening rekindling with music I had listened to profusely in high school (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and the likes). Let’s just say that chilling right by the ocean, which only hits land again in South America, hours away (or days, depending on your mode of transportation), listening to some sweet tunes, you feel insignificant. Oddly enough, that feeling made me feel very alive. When I stand there, looking out into the ocean, my worries seem as important as a grain of sand on the very beach I am standing on; basically, they disappear. Euphoria.

But it gets better. A kilometer or two down the beach, Nicol and I spotted some lights. They were moving from side to side on the beach at a fairly good speed, creating lines of light… Curious, we decided to walk over and possibly:

• Make some new friends.
• Make some new enemies.
• Discover a new creature of the light emitting variety.
• Walk onto the set of a crazy light show setup for the filming of a music video to be aired on MTV.

As we approached, we discovered the source of the light. Battery powered, rainbow lit, glow in the dark FRISBEES! I swear, I was like a kid in a… battery powered, rainbow lit, glow in the dark Frisbee store. What’s the bonus I hear you asking? The people throwing around the Frisbee were all Canadian. WHAT! UP! Unfortunately, they were heading to bed, but they let us play with their Frisbee for a while. After a short burst of total contentment, we also got sleepy, headed for the tent and went to bed.

I got up at a certain point to go get something in the truck. So to my own surprise, when I got to the truck, I could not remember for the life of me what I had come to get. Since the tent was pretty far away, I decided to simply sleep in the truck. ZZzzzz!

A couple hours later, I awoke to the sound of frantic exchange students all trying to get into the truck as fast as possible. To their surprise, I had already won the race! Hehe… “What are you guys doing?”, I asked. “Can’t you hear the rain?” I then turned my attention to outside. I kid you not, I have never seen rain like this. It seemed like a solid curtain waterfall. The only words to describe it are Monsoon type rains!

Joël: Why are you all coming in here?

Kat: The rain collapsed our tents!

Claire: Hold on, where is Nicol?

Joël: I’m on it!

I tore my shirt off to reveal I was already wearing my bathing suit and dashed off into the distance to go check on our Scottish friend. As I arrived to the tent, the zipper was… How do I put this? Open. It seems I had forgotten to close it when going to the truck… Oops. Who knows how long it has been “waterfalling” into our tent. 

Nicol was sound asleep, and surprisingly dry. We had set the tent up on a small slope and all the water had collected on my side of the tent. I now had extra specs to add to my sleeping bag: “It soaks up water GREAT!” I considered waking Nicol up but my attention drifted to his guitar. It was in the tent and minutes away from coming into contact with water. So I grabbed it and ran it back to the truck as fast as I could. STUPID GUITAR! 

When I got to the truck, they had made me some room to sleep.  I, being the stubborn person that I am, told them I had to uphold the Canadian in me by going to sleep in the tent… Even though, I was already passed out in the truck earlier… Nobody caught onto that. Don’t worry my Canadian friends, I’m representing us as rugged, unphasable outdoorsmen.

However, before heading to the tent to attempt to sleep, I took the time to crack open a beer and bask in this rare rainy paradise. Since the temperature was still fairly hot, I didn’t get cold standing in the rain. It was probably the highlight of my trip.

Afterwards, I spend the rest of the night basically holding our tent up from the inside as it got wet and threatened to collapse while Nicol slept. You just can’t wake somebody who’s having a good snooze. When he finally awoke at around 6 am, we victoriously climbed out of our crappy tent, strutted over to the truck and claimed that our 20$, very basic tent outlived all the other fancy, expensive tents (with a little work, but still).

Admittedly defeated, what they didn’t know was that we had about 5-6 liters on water inside of our tent and that the only sleep I had gotten was curled up in a ball in a corner for about 30 minutes.

Visibly tired, we spent our last day on the island visiting a few lakes and creeks while baking in the sun. My favorite part of the day was on a 5 km walk to a lake Mackenzie, we had to cross these hug dunes and while standing in a dip in the middle of the dunes, all I could see around me was sand and blue sky; amazing that this island contains so many different climates.

On the drive back to the ferry, I decided to try driving the big 4×4. It’s INSANE to drive on sand and is definitely not for low confidence drivers… I felt like I was driving a boat. The long trek home was only interrupted by the fact that we missed the last train back to Brisbane in a town about 2 hours drive away. Next train, 4:30 am the next morning. We sat at the McDonalds, eating away our pains with crappy food and pondering our next move.

Thankfully, when I called my roommate Renn to explain our predicament, he offered to come pick us up; super Renn and super Kim to the rescue! They really saved the mood of the end of the trip. I am eternally grateful and in debt!

Lesson learned – NICOL NEVER PLAYED HIS GUITAR! That’s not so much a lesson as it is an outburst of anger, but I’m sure you understand…

Did I not promise epicness? Just in case you’re not satisfied, I got this epic shot of me failing to hold a handstand and falling off a post:

Australianly yours,

Joël

Last Updated on December 22, 2020 by Joël Collin-Demers