On the loose

From Airlie Beach we headed to Rainbow Beach, via Rockhampton to break up the journey a bit.

We arrived in Rockhampton about 11:30pm, to find that the Criterion Hotel was closed, despite the fact that I'd said we'd be arriving at 11:30pm when I booked it (hope Google picks up this page - that's the Criterion Hotel, Rockhampton, OK?). We eventually got the manager of another hotel to let us into his place, even though it too was closed. The city seemed a bit dead, though granted it was midnight on a Wednesday night.

The next day we looked around and visited an Aboriginal cultural centre, where we were treated to a didgeridoo recital and got to chuck a few boomerangs.

The modern art gallery was good, but generally the city was pretty thin on things to do and on atmosphere. Later the Criterion partially redeemed itself by serving an awesome steak (we were loathe to go back, but nowhere else seemed very appealing). Steak was followed by our first overnight bus trip in Oz, as we headed to Rainbow Beach - gateway to Fraser Island.

At Rainbow we took a walk up to the Carlo Sandblow, which was a pretty awesome spectacle. Prevailing winds have blown sand up from the beach onto the forest above, creating a huge expanse of sand that's gradually engulfing everything in its path.

We stayed at Frasers on Rainbow Beach, which was probably one of my favourite places so far, although it only had dorm-style accomodation, which was fine unless like us you had the bunk next to the light switch, and were therefore in charge of 'lights-out time'.

We signed ourselves up for a tour of Fraser Island, leaving the next day...