A rubber-faced true Aussie bloke who prides himself on being an outdoorsman, a lover of barbeques and a connoisseur of fine any alcoholic beverage, Neil spots that I’m Irish and asks if I’ve brought the beer.

Ah, cultural stereotypes, where would we be without them? I catch my tongue before insinuating he’s a rampant criminal/koala fucker.

It’s not the last time Neil mentions beer, as while we scamper around Hervey and Rainbow Bay picking up unsuspecting tourists, each new recruit to his burgeoning merry band of island hoppers are quickly informed of the inner workings of the alcohol market on Fraser island, our destination for the next two days.

Long (and tedious) story short, there are limited supplies on Fraser so, naturally, the laws of economics pass into almost feral territory (much like the island itself) and what might cost you $3 on the coast will invariably cost you $200 once on the island. I might be embellishing a little but, fair dinkum, Neil spins a stark and cautionary tale and depicts an uber-capitalist market nightmare, sharp fanged yuppies hell-bent on taking your cash on every corner. Or perhaps under every tree considering corners will be in short supply where we’re going.

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and Australia’s fourth largest outright. There are no surprises that Tasmania takes the prize in the biggest area stakes. What makes Fraser so special is the sand part. The product of millions of tonnes of residue coming off the sandstone flats hundreds of miles south in New South Wales, these sand particles have travelled northwards along the east coast over thousands and thousands of years and, somehow, fused and become collected between the island’s two only rock-based formations. Indian Head to the north (actually a volcanic outcropping) and Hook Point in the south.

The island is a veritable shopping list of world phenomenon. Only sand island in the world where rainforest grows for example. All that gorgeous polished wood in the Sydney Opera House? The species of tree is found on Fraser. The Panama canal? Lined with the timber of amazingly straight and branch-less trees only found on, you guessed it, Fraser. Dingos? Packs of them. Tourists trying to drive around the harsh landscape, invariably flipping their jeeps and killing themselves in the process? Check!

The location has a long history and Neil spends the next two days dishing out as much of it as he can over a loud-speaker without crashing the bus (a second time – but I’ll get to that). Originally referred to as (and quite descriptively I might add) “Great Sandy Island”, the isle now has the indignation of being called after an English sea-captain who, being a bit shit with the whole sea-faring part, ended up shipwrecked on the island with his long-suffering wife. It’s a fascinating and apocryphal tale with such juicy highlights as Captain Fraser getting speared by the local natives, followed by his wife then returning to England and making money spinning the yarn up and down the length of the country. Riveting stuff.

Neil is a talented story-teller, but one thing he isn’t so good with is introductions. Hence, we spend the next 48 hours in the company of people we’re resorted to referring to as “the Israeli girl”, “the blonde Norwegian girls, before and after” (exercising that is – one is a little chunkier than the other), “the Germans”, “crazy Dutch girl”, “nice Dutch couple”, “the other Norwegians” and “Mrs and Mrs Canada”, who may or may not be together in more ways than one – not that it matters in the slightest of course. It’s just not something you flat out ask two people whose names you haven’t bothered to enquire about. We could ask them their names of course, but after facing death head-on with a bunch of people it almost seems rude to then sheepishly enquire as to what they are called.

After taking our money via a process VISA would frown upon and letting some air out of the tyres, Neil takes us toward the ferry point for a “Seven or eight minute jaunt over the waters to the island itself.” It’s on this journey that the roads become pure sand, and the company’s new bus/people carrier starts to toss its passengers around like a Waldorf salad. Up ahead, Neil spots a 4×4 truck type vehicle stuck in the sand, or bogged as Neil likes to inform us over the intercom, right bang in the middle of the track leading to the awaiting ferry. We can literally see the ship, a purpose built vehicle transporter, sitting at the inlet just waiting for us to make our rendezvous.

The driver of the offending 4×4 is out and inspecting his predicament. Upon seeing Neil and the rest of us waiting in the sand like an impatient shopper in the twelve items or less queue, he starts to wave us through, indicating how we should mount the sandbank to the 4×4’s left and literally skirt around the obstacle. Just as I’m thinking surely this is not a good fucking idea, Neil has gunned the coach forward and into the sandy bar. We immediately go into a forty-five degree angle, the 4×4’s left side and roof becoming dangerously visible to those of us who are sitting on the right side of the bus. And then, as if Isaac Newton himself was staring down and giggling into his cravat, the coach loses momentum, stalls, and then rapidly descends, sideways, into the awaiting 4×4. There’s a crunch as the two behemoths connect and swearing in five languages (not including Australian up front, its owner appearing to have a complete lexicon of curse words invented just for events such as this) resonates around the inside of the bus.

For what’s just happened, Neil is amazingly calm. “Fair dinkum,” he says, using an expression I was sure was a myth before coming to Australia, “I knew that would happen.” So, you’re purposely crashing buses with fee-paying members of the public on board then, eh Neil?

He gets out and surveys the damage and, truth be told, it’s not as bad as it sounded. Both vehicles sport some visible war-wounds from the encounter, but nothing a brush and some epoxy couldn’t correct. We manage to drive on to the ferry craft, thankfully without crashing into it, and in less than ten minutes later, we’re bounding down the opposite beach at a speed that is too brisk for comfort.

We stop off for morning tea at a pool of rust coloured water near the shore’s edge, and Neil explains how oil from the tea trees inland seep into the land and are slowly brought to the shoreline by fresh-water streams. The lagoon looks like a strange advertisement for hair product, the telltale ruddy stain of the oils separating near the edge where tadpoles skip about the place ambivalent to our prying eyes.

We move on, keeping to the wet sand where possible, dodging strange growths on the land called coffee-sand which look like rock but, considering this is a sand island, we’re informed is actually condensed sand to such a degree that it takes on the texture and appearance of stone.

We spot whales off the coast; giant beasts who tail-slap the froth just under the horizon, making their way south to breed. With Neil keeping a constant check on his food intake, we drive up onto the trails and head for Eurong, a small town hidden just behind the shielding swath of canopy. We stock up on beer and treats and head inland to an old wood-cutters’ camp where we eat a hearty lunch before moving on to check out one of the highlights on the island.

Standing guard and repelling the waves ever backward into the sea, the rusted and half-sunken wreck of the Maheno rises up out of the sand, incongruous to its surroundings. A passenger vessel back in the 1940s, the Maheno was retrofitted to act as a hospital ship when World War II broke out. Dutifully fulfilling this task, it returned to its previous assignment when the conflict ended only to be purchased by a Japanese firm for scrap. While on its way to the shipyards, under tow by yet another ship the Japanese company had purchased to gut, the line snapped and the Maheno drifted aimlessly onto the beach at Fraser Island. After a couple of half-arsed attempts to raise her mammoth girth from the clutches of the bay, they decided to leave it to become a future tourist attraction. Of course, I doubt they were thinking of such at the time. It was likely just tea-time and they wanted to get out of the sun.

Nobly, the Maheno served its country one final time despite having run aground at Fraser. Recognising its perfect shape and size for target practice, the RAAF routinely ran training sorties against the stricken craft as a way for its fledgling pilots to hone their skills. Neil smirks as he regales us of stories concerning wayward bombs missing the sitting duck only to be found a couple of kilometres up the bay. I can’t imagine missing a ship of this size by such a wide margin. Well, maybe if you were firing from a considerable distance perhaps. Like, from Sydney.

We take photos and marvel at the skeletal arms of a broken prow fruitlessly climbing out of a sandy grave. The ever-knowledgeable tour-guide, Neil tells us that five decks are always hidden below the surface, rusty beams occasionally poking their furtive claws out from the ground in the strangest of places. About ten metres to the south, and after a considerable sandy expanse of nothing, what must be the stern of the ship mysteriously surfaces. A dissected tail suggestive of the mass of iron and history somewhere beneath.

We make our way to Indian Head, the northern most point of Fraser and one of only a pair of locations on the island not made from the ubiquitous sand. We climb its steep but relatively low face and look out at spectacular views, a 360 degree vista of sea and sand, the curve of the earth easily recognisable from this height and exposure.

Neil is determined to squeeze as much of the 75 mile long island into the two days we’re here, so we quickly move on (after more tea and biscuits, the man loves his Rich Tea) to McKenzie Lake, a fresh-water body of water near the centre of the isle. It’s an amazing place and populated with a scattered cadre of holiday-makers in search of its legendary healing waters and sand. It’s a strange sensation swimming in what is essentially a large lake of rain water. With no salty sting in our eyes, we splash about and swim out to where the lake-bed drops off considerably. As the water is crystal clear, it literally looks like a white ledge dropping off into complete blackness.

The sand is nearly 100% pure silica, so fine in fact that the numerous people at the lake frantically start rubbing it into their jewellery, skin and even teeth. Considering most exfoliation beauty products in the world contain some amount of silica, it’s like walking on a brilliantly white beach made of expensive scrubbing cream.

Completing the day at Dilly, a camp-site hidden further inland, we partake of a prodigious barbeque cooked up by Neil. We talk to our fellow tourists and get a feel for what everyone else is doing. It seems we’re the only people doing the whole around the world trip thing but others have equally mammoth travel stories of their own. The Dutch girl, for example, took a coach trip from Cairns to Fraser, all 24 hours of it, before jumping on Neil’s merry bandwagon. It’s no wonder that she’s the last to materialise at dinner.

We talk to the Canadian women mostly, learning about their lives back home in Canada and how one, Jackie, was made redundant before deciding to go on this trip of a lifetime. She tells me how invigorated she feels, now free from the office job she was good at but canned from nonetheless, free to go back and throw herself into her actual love – coaching. I can relate, and I wish her the best when she returns, confident she’ll make a success of it.

We turn in and rise early for breakfast that consists of fruit and cereal. A member of the troop appears and tells us that there are dingos nearby so, coffee half-drunk, we spill over to the fenced area to check out a mother and pup staring back at us from behind the security of the railed fence. Dingos are dogs, basically, but there is something we notice while watching them move and watch us that cagily sticks out. They might look like dogs but these animals are completely feral and dangerous. Not sensing a threat, the mother pads her way off into the brush leaving the pup to stare at us in what looks like a mix of wonder and confusion. We leave them to their wild existence and pack up for the second day.

Day two of the trip is considerably more laid-back than the first. We check out Coloured Sands which is exactly what it sounds like; giant sandy cliff-faces of the area, varicoloured by oxides, enzymes and decaying vegetation, staring down at us in a mixture of greens and blues. Ochre and mauve tints also visible in the strata like a natural and multilayered stain all along the cliff-face.

We paddle up another freshwater stream, Ely Creek, marvelling in the cool water that slowly makes its way down to ultimately spill into the sea. Neil tells us of the millions of litres of freshwater lost to the salty depths of the ocean each day while I do my best not to get completely soaked.

With a long journey ahead, we move on. And then disaster strikes – in more ways than one. We’re rattling down the beach at a fair clip when what sounds like a massive tyre deflating can be heard reverberate around the cabin. Neil jams on and takes a perfunctory walk around the bus. “Not a puncture,” he reports, “maybe it’s the bloody air-con gone tits up.” After a thorough inspection, it’s decided that it’s not the air-con so, not sure what the hell the sound was, we take off again. It’s at this point do we realise just what predicament has befallen us. The coach is languid, slow in movement and complaining in earnest at the task of moving on the wet sand. Neil grimaces and takes a second inspection of his stricken vehicle.

“Fair dinkum, we’ve only blown the bloody turbo.”

Required to traverse such a punishing terrain, the now blown turbo is what has been catapulting us up and down the beach for the past two days. Without its punchy assistance, the coach is severely disabled; lacking the necessary power to climb the steep hills and plough through the sticky wet sand. We’re fucked basically.

“Eh … time for lunch folks!” Neil exclaims and we jump off. I devour a couple of chilli wraps despite feeling a little queasy, the early signs of something not right in my system. Neil, when he’s not punching me in the side after a March fly the size of a dollar coin lands on my t-shirt, frantically waves down any passing traffic. He calls someone back at base to inform them than, not only has he crashed the new bus (the “Pride of the Fleet apparently”), he’s now destroyed the engine.

Somehow, he fixes the turbo. I’m pretty sure I hear him tell one of the other passengers that he “just stuck the pipe back on”, but at this rate I don’t really want to know. Also, and this is the second part of today’s disaster, whether from the incessant bouncing or other physical demands, it’s back – my shoulder constricts and the recent pain returns with a vengeance.

As we continue on, my chest feels like someone has inserted a hot knife into it, causally twisting it at a tempo I can’t predict other than knowing for sure that another grind is coming. My back screams, and as the sun bakes us from above, I start to lose my mind. Again. Just like in Brisbane. Only this time it’s exceedingly worse. The other passengers look on in half-concern/half-fear as spasms rack through me, sending my arms flaying about like a hyperactive octopus on meth. I care not a jot as the pain sends me into a limbo where time and space melt.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I made it back without offing myself. We stop off at a petrol station near the end of the voyage and I buy painkillers which I then rapaciously munch through. By the time we’ve gotten back to the Woolshed I’m on the other side of crazy, the analgesic virtues of the painkillers washing through my like a cool wave, diluting the agony with each passing undulation. It’s over but, Christ, I’m ready for the scrap heap at this point.

Our remaining time at Hervey Bay is spent relaxing and going for a nice run on the beach. Soon enough it’s time to pack up and head for our over-night train to Airlie Beach. If I thought the train journey to Hervey Bay was bad, I was in for a rude-awakening when it came to the next leg.