This right here ↑ is the view on Fraser Island. Beautiful. Simply Beautiful. But as you get to know in this story... extremly dangerous.
I just joined Steemit today and decided not to do an introductary post of myself (maybe I will in the future). Instead of that I would like to tell you about the probably most intersting and exciting story I am able to tell in my life so far... (I'm 20 years old) This is a story I will NEVER forget in my life and even though we have lost about $5000, it's my absolute favorite!
And the best part is... I have EVERYTHING on video. Even though the quality is not the best, it is still nice to actually see some real-life footage of what happend.
So let's get right to it:
In 2014 my older brother was traveling a whole year in Australia, seeing the most amazing places. He was working as a gardener and had his own car (it was like a jeep with a 4-wheel drive). Beginning of march, 2014, my mother and I decided to fly all the way from Hamburg, Germany to Australia to travel with him for 14 days. We had made a great plan to meet up in Brisbane, spend three amazing days on Fraser Island (Google it, it is incredible) and then drive along the coast through Sidney, all the way down to Melbourne. All by his own car...
What you have to know: not every car is suitable to get on Fraser Island, because you have to drive in the sand, by the ocean. That's why a lot of people booked a professional tour, or at least a 'professional' jeep. We didn't. We just got some tips and a little thing that turned out to be of HUGE value. To get onto the island, we first had to drive through a 'jungle' of wildlife, sand and small roads. Our goal was to reach the big ferry that was able to transport some cars over to the island. It was quite a long way and the first problem occurred. We got stuck in the sand... not able to move forward. Not that good of a start, right? Luckily we had this little thing... it's purpose was to flatten the tires a little, so the car was able to grip a little more of the sand. Gladly we made it out! And we even reached the fair. We were pretty late and had the fear that we missed the last one that day... It was a quite a race. But we won!
We made it over to the island. It was amazingly beautiful... Wild life everywhere. Animals, Trees and Sand... a loooooot of sand! And of course the beautiful ocean. It felt like paradise in some way. We had freedom. We were able to drive whereever we wished to and put up our camp at the most amazing places. We were camping in our little tent under the stars. It was incredible! But something was not so incredible... Dingos (similar to wild dogs) were roaming the area, looking for food. They also came to visit us in the night... which, to be honest, was not that pleasant. Nothing really happened, they just stole some of our food... They are really pretty though, don't you think?
Anyways... It was night-time and of course you were not able see ANYTHING because there was not a single light out there... We barely had ANY kind of connection to the world. I remember that night where my brother and I were walking on the shore in pitch darkness, trying to find at least the tiniest signal to have a little chat with our girlfriends. We must have looked like two idiots raising their phones in the air, like they did with Simba in 'The Lion King'. We had little success. Most of the time we only had a connection for a couple of seconds, before having to search for another place with a signal... It still was kind of fun!
We made our own food, went hiking, surfed on the sand, went swimming in incredible bays and much much more...
I even took about three hours to make this. Isn't it sweet? It's German and means: "I Love You Melina" (My girlfriend). I've printed it and made it a small gift to her.
As you can see, we had a blast. But how the blast ended was just... well... unfortunate! Let us get to the part which is the most exciting... the lost car in the ocean! On our third day, we packed everything into my brothers car and decided to leave the beautiful island. We have been about 80 miles away from the ferry. Meaning that we had to drive a pretty long time along the shore. Before we started our journey we were warned about the 'Eli Creek'. It was the most amazing creek I have ever seen, but unfortunately it was extremely dangerous... known for its strong current. As I already said, we had to drive along the shore. Sometimes even over little streams of water that flowed into the ocean. Now we were there... Standing in front of the Eli Creek which was pretty long. Apparently it was high tide, because the water was higher than usual... We had to decide: Are we going to wait for 2 hours until the low tide? Or are we going to try our luck? I was sitting in the back seat, thinking that this is not a good idea... but I didn't say anything! We have waited for the seventh wave and my mom said GO.
My brother listened to her and started driving into the water... It all went smooth in the beginning... until that one HUGE wave covered the engine. Suddenly we stopped. The engine stopped. The electronics of the car broke. Nothing worked. We got stuck. In the middle of the ocean. Just imagine that... Sitting in the car. Stuck in the sand. Water all around you. RISING!! What are your thoughts in that kind of moment?
Here is the first video. You can clearly see how the wave hit us and how we got stuck...
So... we were in the middle of the ocean. Not able to move anything, sinking deeper and deeper into the sand. What were we thinking? 'Well... F**k.' - Pretty much nails it. I mean, no one is prepared for that kind of situation, right? My brother got out of the car to get someone to help us. Luckily the next small tavern wasn't that far away! Maybe there was someone able to help us?
In the meanwhile my mother and I were sitting in the car, thinking about what to do. Did I mention that it was high tide? The water was raising with every single wave that hit against our car. It was really calm. Only the water made noise and every couple seconds a louder splash of the waves. Everything valuable was in that car. Our supplies, an expensive camera, phones, documents, money, clothes. Just EVERYTHING.
This is how it looks from inside a car that is sinking deeper into the ocean each minute...
The water began to get into the car and we knew that we have to take action... So we decided to get out of the car and save the most valuable things we had, by bringing them to the shore. (Camera, documents, money etc.) There was nothing else we could have done in that situation... My brother came back running as fast as he could. Behind him about 15-20 backpackers that were ready to help. Eager to push and pull the car out of the water... In the meanwhile, the car was almost half way under water. Many things got soaked. They got at it. As many people as possible tried their best to use the power of the human strength to save the car. Unfortunately, they have lost the battle against the power of mothernature... Now 20 people were standing there... watching how the car slowly but steadily got soaked into the ocean. We thought this is it.. our car is gone. No way we could possibly save it... Or can we?
So we were standing there... watching our car sinking in the freakin ocean. It was a crazy feeling, not being able to do anything...What do you think happened next? Have we lost our car completely? Or did someone came in the last second to save it?
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Let me tell you: BOTH. Luckily, there was a ranger with his much bigger jeep (even a truck already). His job was to drive along the coast all day and check if everything was alright. He had some pretty good timing. As if the truck driver knew that something bad was happening... He saw us and immediately drove over and took action. He had this really robust chain rope, which was mounted on his truck. He rolled it out and tried to reach the car... but it was too short! So he had to get another chain rope from his truck to combine both of them to a huge chain rope. The rope was now able to reach the car. But there was another problem... The rope had to be fixated at the bottom of the car. And the bottom was...? That's right.. under water! My brother had to take the rope and try to fixate it to a special place under the car. He literally had to dive into the water, under the car to blindly put it to the right place. Oh, and there were rocks... a lot of them!! You will be able to see it in the next video. He had to dive a couple of times to get it fixated under the car. But he did it! The truck took his first attempt. Nothing really happened. He was backing up and tried it again with a little bit more speed. He did it a couple times. Everyone watched closely as the car began to move. It slowly worked.. the car was towed out of the ocean. In the video, you can see that my brother is running back into the car because the hand break was still on. To ease the whole thing we decided to let the car loose. It finally worked! The car was out of the ocean and everyone cheered relieved.
Now... there are 'good news' and bad news... Which one would you like to read first?
Let us begin with the bad ones... The car was absolutely done. Nothing worked anymore. Everything was wet. The car was broken... and 3500$ gone... But not only the car was broken, but the camera of my brother aswell... Not a single thing worked anymore.
Well, the 'good news' is, the ranger was able to tow us to the next tavern, where we were able to spend a night. What a day I can tell you... I am glad that my mother just said 'Oh boy, if the car is going down, I might as well just film it!'. This will never be forgotten!
There is actually something more to tell you about what happened the next day. Somehow we had to get on to the other side of the island, right? If you enjoyed my story and would like to hear about the little second part, how we managed to get off the island and how I almost had a meeting with a Dingo, let me know in the comments below and follow me so you get to be one of the first to read it!
-Robert Herdt