Girls just wanna have sun - Fraser Island, Indian Head, Champaign Pools, Maheno Shipwreck, Eli Creek Day 2 / 20.11.2018

This morning after surprisingly good sleep in the tents, we had breakfast relatively early as we were supposed to leave with the cars at 8 o'clock. We drove along the beach for a while to Indian Head, the eastern tip of Fraser Island's coast. There, you could climb up a steep viewpoint over the beach on both sides of the mountain, from where we also spotted a shark below us. However, it was also quite steep down to the rocks and the sea, which leads to a crazy story about this place: After Captain Cook had discovered Fraser Island, the indigenous people had to go up to Indian Head and decide whether they wanted to jump or be shot.

It was a very impressive place and after taking a few photos - including a group picture - we continued along the beach to our next destination: the Champagne Pools. These are natural rock pools where the saltwater waves break and cause the water inside to bubble, which also led to the naming of this place. We also went swimming there and were surprised a few times by pretty big waves that splashed on the rock walls and onto us. It was fun to feel the many bubbles and to support ourselves in the shallow water on the sand. Right next to it, the open sea started where the waves were also quite big. We joined a few other people who were already enjoying the wave pool and having a lot of fun. The waves reminded me of the ones in Algajola, except that the water here was much much saltier - here you can float everywhere on the water surface when the waves are calm.

In the end, Iris, Linni and I stayed at the beach for a while and watched Daniel as he crouched between the rocks and took some cool shots with his camera, which made me miss the big camera from home again. Then we walked back along the boardwalk to the parking lot, where we got back into our mustard yellow Nomads Tour 4x4s and led the others to our lunch break spot. I played the DJ the whole time and Tony said that German girls always had the best music downloaded, which I thought was a pretty cool compliment.

After we got wraps for lunch, we were all full and the rest of the ham was already attracting ants, we continued to the Maheno Shipwreck, which we had passed on the way there. The large iron ship used to be a hospital ship of New Zealand, but after the end of the war, it was washed ashore on Fraser Island's coast by a cyclone and stranded there. It was then used as a test object for bombs because it was considered one of the strongest existing things at the time and it was thought that if this ship could be destroyed with a weapon, everything could be destroyed.

That's why a part of the ship is a bit further away. The SS Maheno itself was surprisingly well-preserved today - even the wooden planks are still visible! - considering that it has been exposed to the seawater and the soft sand beneath it since 1935. But only a small part is still on the surface - 8 meters of the ship are already said to have sunk into the sand and it is expected to completely disappear in the next 2 years. It was very impressive to watch the waves carving their way through the rusty iron parts and it was funny to see how the sneakers of some people got wet because they were fixed to the structure in front of them - luckily I was wearing flip flops.

After a small rescue operation because another car got stuck in the sand, we continued to Eli Creek - a freshwater stream that meandered through the jungle. There we were offered a crazy and spontaneous opportunity to experience a scenic flight in a small propeller plane for $60, which 12 people in our group, including Linni, Daniel, Karim, and me, decided to do. The pilot looked quite funny with his white knee-high socks and uniform and he was also very nice. After we excitedly boarded the small aircraft, I first admired the many buttons in front and felt really cool when we put on the big headphones and took a selfie together with the pilot. We took off directly from the beach and it was such an amazing sight to see the beach and the island from above. It was a really great feeling to be up there and we even flew up and down a few times, feeling weightless. We saw a huge sand dune inside the island, as well as a lake shaped like a butterfly, and then the shipwreck from above. What was really funny was that while taking photos, I suddenly received all the messages from the past few hours. Great that I had network up there, but not down below where I could have replied.

The flight only lasted about 10 minutes but it was one of the major highlights of this trip.

Afterwards, we spent the afternoon at Eli Creek in the sun and in the evening we returned to Eurong where we were served sausages and potatoes for dinner, got to know a few new people from the Fraser Tour who had started today, and played another game of pool, in which I was actually quite good.

We also signed up for beer pong, but it was a real disappointment here: in Australia, you're not really allowed to play with beer in the cups in hostels and bars because they don't want too much alcohol to be consumed at once. It was actually water pong and the water wasn't even drinkable. Although you were allowed to have your own alcohol next to it - we got a jug of pineapple coconut cocktail with only a few milliliters of alcohol - it just wasn't the same somehow.

Nevertheless, it was quite fun because our first game was against Daniel and Jermaine, whom we beat easily. But before the next round, we learned that the losers of the two rounds had to jump into the pool, which we didn't really feel like doing, so when there were only 2 cups left on the table in the next game, we didn't make much effort anymore and the other team won.

When it was already getting later, we chilled with a few others down on the beach and looked at the stars. Tony parked one of the cars next to us and lit a few torches, which gave the moment a cool campfire feeling. With my star app, I could even make out the stars Pollux and Castor, which I had to admire for quite a while because you can only see them at the Baltic Sea in October. Unfortunately, I didn't find Canis Majoris.

Jermaine's cigarette mix spread the light smell of grass and somehow that made the situation even more real and chill. But soon Linni and I went back to the tent because we had planned to get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise on the beach.

Song of the day: Drops of Jupiter by Train, because Daniel played it in the evening and firstly, I didn't expect him to listen to that kind of music, and secondly, because the song reminds me of Janna, because she put it in our playlist back then. Ily.