Cyclone chasers - Balina to Bungerberg

First stop Rainbow Beach where we were picked up in a 4WD truck ready for a day tour of Fraser Island. This island is World Heritage listed as being the largest sand island on the planet where dozens of lakes, rainforests and sand blows cover vast parts of the island. It is home to 230 species of birds, Australia's purest dingo and many other species. We found ourselves having a very close encounter with large goanna lizards (1 meter in length) and had to chase them as they tried to ambush camp lunch. Pictured are a couple of the stops we had on the tour: the rainforest on the way up to Lake Mackenzie and the wreck of the Maheno to which we raced along the beach at high speed to reach.

Next day a short stop at Tin Can Bay, one of the few places you can feed wild dolphins : it all started in 2006 when a local found a dolphin in the bay unable to feed itself due to a shark attack. The locals started feeding the dolphin fish and it's been coming back ever since.

We headed on to Hervey Bay staying a few nights intending to do some diving only to be informed Cyclone Ului was due to hit Queensland in the coming days and waves between 4-7 meters and strong winds were predicted.......that was the diving out.

We continued on to Bundaberg visiting the rum distillery where we were forced to sample several different products. We stayed near Mon Repos beach which is the largest turtle nesting area in Australia. In March the last nests are hatching and we headed down hopeful to see the baby turtles heading to the sea. The night before we arrived five nests had hatched, but of course we weren't so lucky and despite waiting several hours no nests opened when we were there. Still the rangers did dig into one of the previously departed nests to count and classify the broken eggs which they do for research and in doing this we did come across one lonely hatchling who hadn't made it passed a grass root and had been struggling to escape all day. This one was released and we watched him struggle a further 20 metres down the beach to be swept away by the growing waves.

The lucky turtle :)
We were in Bundaberg when the cyclone hit Makay and The Whitsundays causing a lot of property and boat damage. In the end we were lucky not to be able to leave Ballina in the boat as we would of been very close to the cyclone action.

Due to the sea condition water activities are out so we have decided to venture inland heading to the Queensland outback and more adventure.