The Day A Dingo Stole My What?

                                                    

It was Feb 6, 1991.  I was well into my around the world backpacking trip.  I had just come from a long stop in Byron Bay, one of the highlights of my whole trip (they are all highlights). Having seen most of Australia by this point, it was time to check out the world’s largest sand island, Fraser Island.

courtesy Answers.com/Frommer's

courtesy Google Images/Wikipedia

I arrived in Hervey Bay at 6pm and immediately made new friends about to embark on an adventure to Fraser Island the next day.

Our international group was made up of Alison (UK), Debbie (Can), Mark and Wayne (UK) and 2 Swedish girls named Maria and Urika.  We just called them Ingrid and Helga or “The Hurdy Gurdy Girls”. (as in The Swedish Chef and not Donovan).

 We provisioned with steak, veggies, spaghetti and 5 crates of beer for two nights.  Just the essentials really.

We picked up our Toyota 4x4  outfitted with all the camping gear and food we would need for a couple of days along with tide charts.
More on the charts in a minute.  We took a ferry from Hervey Bay across to Fraser Island.  

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Among the many interesting things about Fraser Island is that there are no real roads.  The beach is your highway and is only open when the tide is out.  So you have to plan your trip carefully if you want to make it back to the single ferry ride of the day to get the truck back etc. Other than that you drive on sand pathways. Occasionally you get stuck. Quick tip: Let some air out of the tires to get out of sand.  It can be worse than getting stuck in snow.

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Fraser Island is beautiful and has a variety of flora and fauna. From brush along the shore to dense rich rain forests and an inland fresh-water pond/lake.

Photo courtesy www.abovephotography.com.au

                                            

Like the rest of Australia, Fraser Island also has interesting wildlife.  On our trip up the beach highway we encountered dozens of wild horses or Brumbies.  To see them running wild and free is a special moment of beauty.

courtesy Trekearth.com

I call it a beach highway because our fearless, (read- irresponsible, thrill seeking, 20 something-driver)  got up to speeds of 100 km/hr.  The only problem with that is that every few hundred metres, we would hit a hidden ditch created by narrow creeks formed by runoff water.  The Toyota 4x4 was not the comfy soccer mom version but rather more like a military vehicle with a metal bench to sit on surrounded by all of our metal cooking gear, shovels, backpacks and the odd case of beer. 

Every time we hit one of these ditches, it was like being in an accident every couple of minutes.  And the hits just kept on coming with gear and beer flying everywhere.

Once we had successfully traversed a full day on the beach highway at low tide, we got to our destination, Indian Head and set up camp.

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It was shortly after we pitched our tents, got a fire going and broke out the late day snacks, wine etc that we noticed who/what  we were going to spend the night with.  Dingoes! Everywhere!  Of course we had all heard the famous Dingo stole my baby story.  We weren't sure if we should be wary of them or not.  Seeing as we were all young backpackers with no babies present, we thought we were safe.  But were we?

Fast forward, we had a few drinks, our campfire dinner was finished and plates were left aside for the moment.  We spent the night telling jokes, stories and singing any songs we all knew. Once again I was happy I had brought my harmonica. It wasn't five minutes before we sensed, heard and then saw very bold dingoes come right up to us to steal some leftover food.  We couldn't believe it.  Then some yobbo in our group thought it would be fun to feed them.  As night became late night into early morning, none of us made it to the tents.  We all just crashed under the stars, dingoes be damned.

Awakened by the sun, we slowly and groggily got up.  Then someone said “hey someone’s stolen my backpack!  It has my money and passport in it.”  Then another person noticed their bag was gone as well.  Shit, I thought.  Here we are on a huge sand island with very few others on the island and certainly no one within a mile or two of us and we've been robbed.  I finally got up and reached for my shoes and that’s when I realised it probably wasn't  a person who took our stuff.

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We looked up to the distant dune and saw a few Dingoes looking down on us as if mocking.  So we spread out and formed a search party.  Minutes later I heard someone shout they had found their backpack way off in the brush.  Quite a while later I found my shoe way up the dune a few hundred yards from camp.

And that was the day a dingo stole my shoe.

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