Oct 3 - Riders and Sand

Got up at 4:45 AM today and set up the laptop for the Rider game. That is commitment to a team. Watched the green and white defeat the Argos, then had some victory Subway breakfast before checking out. There was a while to kill before our bus to Rainbow, so we chilled at the beach and napped on the grass for a while. Then came the always exciting staring out the window of the bus for a few hours until we reached the bubbling metropolis of Rainbow Beach. The town has 2 gas stations and maybe 10 shops, all located on one street. We checked in at Dingo's Hostel (this was part of our Fraser Island package) and were told we should take the shuttle to the sand dunes that was leaving shortly. Might as well, not much else to do in Rainbow, so we hopped in the sketchy van with some other people and they drove us up a couple big hills to the national park. From here we trekked up a trail a ways through a forest which opened up into the Carlo sandblow. Very impressive sight. It was a huge sweeping valley shaped something like the bottom half of a tube, framed by a forest on one end and the ocean on the other, with high cliff-like hills on each side. We kicked off the sandals and ran around, snapping photos and running up and down the steep hills. Somewhere along the line I went to take another picture and my camera screen just said "Lens Error." The lens would extend and then go back in and it'd say the error again, everytime I tried to turn it on. I was not impressed. Somehow some sand must have gotten into the lens mechanism, preventing it from extending fully, but I have no idea how, as I was extra careful and kept it away from the sand. Alas, it didn't work now, so not much I could do. I found a piece of plastic-cardboard stuff laying around and tried to toboggan down a steep sand hill, but failed and faceplanted. I did succeed at sand-dune jumping though. On one end of the dunes, by the forest, they dropped off sharply, so I would run, jump as high and far as I could, drop like 10-15 feet and land in deep sand up past my knees. Amazingly fun, and I did this for quite a while, until I was exhausted from climbing back up the hill.

For dinner, we had the $5 meal from the hostel, which was fresh, hot and included salad as well, so a decent meal for a cheap price. Back at the room we chatted with new German roommates for a while then turned in early, tired from the travel and walking/jumping at the dunes.