Hi everyone, well June has been an interesting month. We had the Annual Fraser Island clean up weekend. We also had a touring weekend out west and we have changed our website.

The Fraser Island trip was another great success with over 985 garbage bags of rubbish collected in 6 hours.  Our club alone collected a few trailer loads. Well done to everyone that went on the trip.

The outback tour organised by Simon was also a highlight of the month gone. The first stop was at a free camp grounds at Texas. Venturing onto Nindigully Pub the following day and from there onto Millmerran for the last leg of the tour. There was also a quick stop at St. George for a winery and a boat ride. There was a couple of dramas on the trip such as a kangaroo incident and a loss of communication but overall everyone had a great time. A good prep for the Simpson Desert trip next year.

Our website was also updated due to our previous supplier being unable to supply our site for free anymore. So we have changed it to a more user friendly site so that it can be looked after any anyone. We wanted to move away from it having to be looked after by an I.T. Guru. So check it out and give us your feed back. We will take any suggestions on board.

The current fund raising with the selling of chocolates is going well. We have sold over half of them already. If anyone wants another box to sell, you only have to ask Angie.

There is also a kids MDORC challenge which would have taken place after my report, so it will be interesting to hear of the things that have happened on that weekend.

Next month we have a Xmas in July at Norths, which we will need numbers for. The annual camp oven cook off will also be on, with a special guess judge. So get your secret recipes ready.

I hope everyone remembered to pay their memberships on time last month.  Until next magazine, stay safe and see you all on the tracks somewhere.

Drew Conoplia            president@mdorc.org.au

Well, what a weekend its hard to know where to start.....

A 5.30am start at the BP Caboolture on a chilly Saturday morning as new members
it’s our first camping trip with the club and our trip leaders are running late leaving us thinking we had the wrong weekend.......6am we are on the road very excited and wondering what's ahead of us, it’s raining and had been most of the night. David and Helen fill us in on what happens for the weekend and that some of the members are already on Fraser and awaiting our arrival. After a petrol and toilet stop at the Gympie roadhouse its full steam ahead we arrive at Inskip Point and air down ready for the sand driving. 

We head out to the barge and wait. After a quick trip across to Fraser (well not quick enough for some....ME) we were on the island and the fun began...It was a first for us and the place was just beautiful as the tide was out we had the run along the beach right the way down around hook point and along main beach...I could really understand why we were there the rubbish was just terrible and could not understand why such a beautiful place was just bombarded with so much rubbish, Helen gave a wonderful talk on the history of the island and the where and how of everything the erosion is heart breaking and that mother nature is really taking everything into her own hands.

After a 40 minute run from the barge we arrived at the registration point and David did all the official stuff. We were camping at Cornwells but didn't have the site that the club normally stays as a tour group had moved in. We found the others Peter and Tracy, Mat, Evan, Aleisha and the kids and pulled up to set up camp. Tents up toilets sorted we were ready to explore. Helen and David were buggered so decided to stay at camp and have nanna naps (we think it was special cuddle time) and we headed off to the Kingfisher Resort for lunch. We headed inland the tracks are pretty bumpy and our leader Peter gave us a good insight of the island and many laughs as we headed across the other side. 

We had a pit stop and turned into the Bowen pit crew Peter had to change a tyre and it was the quickest I’ve seen one changed. We had a beautiful lunch and it was great to get to know the guys what a great bunch of down to earth people. On the way back to camp we stopped into Lake McKenzie and the kids and some of the big kids went swimming the water was so clear and cold.
 
We also stopped at Central Station now that was a trip down the history lane I learnt things about Fraser that I had no idea about and we did the walk down the path beside the Wanggoolba Creak and it looks like sand the water is that clear and you can hear nothing no running water at all. After arriving back to camp it was nearly dark and after a very early start it was shower dinner and few drinks and an early night.

Sunday morning met us with a magical day, the clean up began I have never seen so many bottle tops or toothbrushes in my life but what an amazing effort we had five cars from our club and managed to fill 96 bags of rubbish. It was great to see all the clubs pull together for such a great cause and clean up Fraser. We did our section after a mix up by others and then moved further down the beach where a part had been missed and finished off by walking our way back towards the skip cleaning as we went, it was a great feeling knowing that we had done our bit for the environment and the island. After unloading the trailers we headed back to camp and decided to head up to Eli Creek..Peter lead the way the tide was rising so time really wasn't on our side. The plane had landed on the beach so that was a treat for us all then we had to cross the rocks ohh what an experience that was a few more ks up the beach and we had to turn around as the tide was to high. Back at camp we decided to have lunch and we all had nanna naps. Craig and I had a visitor to our camp a local fellow on 4 legs a dingo came around but we missed him Helen had taken some photos to show us.

At about p.m. we headed down to Eurong for the annual club dinner and it was great to see all the people that helped clean up the island. We had a lovely BBQ dinner and watched as the Gold Coast cleaned up the prize pool this year. It all just seemed to wrap up and the heavens opened so we had a wet trip back to camp. After a few more drinks and a few more drinks we called it a night.

We headed home on the Monday after a wonderful weekend I am so pleased that we went and I am thankful for the wonderful people that we went with not only did they teach us some wonderful facts they made us feel welcome to the club and made us laugh the whole time we were away.

Cheers,

Michelle