It seemed like the flying spaghetti monster was intervening while the Crazy Canadian and I were departing from the Gold Coast.
At first it was the best weather we’d come across while we were staying there. And then, some 30 minutes after leaving, came the rain.
When I say ‘rain’, I mean the closest thing I’ve encountered to torrential rain. And then, you know, as any logical person would, I drove in this torrential rain for 3.5 hours.
I did this because I was determined to arrive at Fraser Island on that specific day. Arriving at Rainbow Beach, we picked up our barge tickets, maps of the island and our camping permit.
The attendant at Manta Ray Barges had said they were just about to close for the day before I arrived. I had asked her whether it was due to the terrible weather and also if she had heard of anyone having problems on the island due to the weather. She responded no.
We soldiered on to Inskip Point and awaited the arrival of the barge. Sitting on the beach in the car with the rain still coming down, the barge approached, docked and we drove on. Later, upon reflection, the barge ride reminded me of the start of ‘Shutter Island’.
It was also just a really awesome experience. I’d never driven onto a barge before, let alone be transported via one to a remote island.
Then it got a whole lot more awesome when we were driving (still in bad weather) along the 75-mile beach. After driving for a couple of minutes, we had to take the inland road because the tide was already too far in along a certain stretch of the beach.
The terrible conditions continued, but imagine now that you’re driving on an unsealed road with more potholes, crevasses, soft edges and deep puddles than you can shake your fists wildly at.
Driving along that road resembled playing a driving videogame that had force-feedback cranked up to max settings. Trying to talk while driving along there MaDe Me SoUNd LiKE tHIS. At least the surroundings were nice to look at.
After the bumpy portion of the drive was over, we were back on the beach and the car wasn’t running so great. I decided to carry on until we reached Eurong, the main living area along the east coast of Fraser Island. We passed Dilli Village en route to Eurong, but I decided to venture forth rather than stop. This is important, I’ll get to why in a moment.
While driving along the 75-mile beach, as beautiful as it was, with waves crashing right beside our car, the rain never subsided. To add to the brewing shitstorm, the tide was rapidly coming in and the further forward we ventured along the beach, the narrower our route became.
After driving through two somewhat large saltwater puddles, something happened.
White smoke started to seep out from underneath the engine bay. Stress = rising.
I pull over where the tidal line is. I call my Dad and discuss what’s happened. He assures me that if we went through water and it hit the underside of the engine that it’s merely turning the water into steam and that the engine is fine.
Stress = simmering.
Cautiously driving along the beach now, we reached a sand barge that had a much larger stream than any we’d come across up to this point. We decided to double back and see how far we were from Dilli Village. We stopped on the sand barge for all of one minute.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I can impart one piece of knowledge to you about driving off-road and on beachfronts, it would be this…
Never.
Stop.
On.
A.
Sand.
Barge.
When.
The.
Tide.
Is.
Coming.
In.
..because your car will get bogged in less than a minute. And this doesn’t bode well for your stress levels, or the stress levels of your companion/s.
I was panicking, but damned if I didn’t try my hardest not to show it.
The Crazy Canadian jumped to action, moving all our luggage to the tidal line, while I sat in the car trying to manoeuvre it out of the predicament I’d gotten it into.
I called ‘000’ who gave me the number for a tow-truck service on Fraser Island. Couldn’t get a hold of the guy, so I looked at what other options we had.
There was another contact number on one of the brochures, I called it and spoke to a young woman named Hanna. I explained our situation, saying that we were stuck on the beach somewhere between Dilli and Eurong while the tide was coming in. She informed me that help would be on its way shortly.
While we were waiting, two guys in a 4WD ute came along and the Crazy Canadian waved them down. We let some air out of the tyres, attached a rope and they tried to pull us out. The rope snapped. We thanked them for helping us out, and apologised for snapping their rope.
While this was happening, our rescue team arrived. They had a snatch strap, which is quite a handy little tool to have in situations like these.
Did I mention it was still raining like crazy during all this? The inside of the car was getting quite wet on account of the fact I was trying to figure out exactly what was going on at so many different points in this situation I’d found myself in.
Anyhow, Hanna affixed the snatch strap to the front of my car and Mark talked me through what I needed to do – when I saw the strap contract, hit the accelerator.
With the Tribute engine idling, the tide coming in around my tyres, I see Mark’s rear lights flicker on as he starts his landcruiser.
He eases off and picks up speed quickly, the strap contracts, I hit the gas and…
<INSERT PAUSE FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT, EVEN IF IT’S JUST A NUMBER OF WORDS TO DELAY THE INEVITABLE REVEAL LOCATED SOMEWHERE BELOW THIS REALLY DRAWN-OUT PAUSE, YET EMPLOYING THE USE OF A FURTHER ELLIPSIS FOR GOOD MEASURE>
…
Success!
So at the very least, we didn’t wind up with the car being ruined thanks to being stuck in the sand while the tide was coming in. Unfortunately, I ran over the snatch strap when we were up on the tidal line and snapped it.
Following Mark, we drove the car to Eurong, which was a grand total of 10 minutes away. As if I already hadn’t tasted enough defeat on this day, the fact we were so close to our destination that so much as an hour earlier we almost definitely would have made it just seemed like another cruel lump of coal to digest.
Drenched, stressed out and weary-eyed, we decided to stay at the hostel that Mark and Hanna volunteer at. Yep, turns out they weren’t actually being paid for any of their time and they still helped us out of that mercurial pickle.
After showering, the Crazy Canadian and I decided to head to Eurong Beach Resort for dinner. It was about a 10 minute walk along the beach. The night sky was dark and cloudy, the rain was still coming down, but we needed to eat.
You would think that something would fall our way after what we’d been through. But no, the shitty weather continued, our ponchos pretty much fell apart and our umbrellas weren’t doing us much good either. On top of that we had to navigate along a beachfront towards an area we didn’t really know, but had been told it was easy to access.
After some 15 minutes of trying to find the place, we were about to give up. And then some 4WDs came along the beach and parked right near the entrance for Eurong Beach Resort. At least we were given that one granule of luck.
After eating, we headed back to the hostel where the Crazy Canadian tried to cheer me up. It had been such a long time since I’d felt any measure of complete and utter failure at life that I was all too accustomed to not dealing with feeling defeated.
Facing one’s shortcomings as an individual is often left aside for later, or ignored completely. The one plus to taking all these kinds of emotions in and trying to process them within the scope of a day? You fucking sleep harder than you ever have.
Next time – Closing out Fraser Island, mechanics and Rainbow Beach.