I thought it would be rude not to do at least one touristy thing while I was in Brisbane, so I plumped for a trip to Fraser Island, which is the world's largest sand island and lies a few hours' trip northeast of the city. I joined a tour group rather than hiring a car, because I'm lazy and I figured (as I had in Cairns) that I'd be much better off having someone to tell me what's what.

And how right I was! It was a fabulous fabulous tour, with a small group of cool people and a chilled-out guide who knew everything there was to know about the island. And I even somehow got to sit in the front seat of the 4WD on both days, despite offering the seat to the others! So my buttocks had plenty to be thankful for too.

Jack dropped me at the Roma Street Travel Centre at 6.30am on Tuesday, bless him, which saved me a train journey and gave me an extra 15 minutes in bed. There I met the three English lads who were on the tour as well: Chris (who is living in Brisbane) and Phil & John (who were out visiting him from the UK). The journey took us out past the Glasshouse Mountains, one of which looked a little like Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio, and to the coast at Noosa, which is a very posh little beach resort.

We stopped there for coffee, and picked up the other passengers, two Kiwi girls called Ngaire and Ellen. It was at this point that I scored the front seat - yay! Soon we were off the paved roads and onto the beach highway. This is a bizarre concept, which I hadn't seen since 90 Mile Beach in New Zealand's Northland region. Only there it was just tourists, whereas here there are actually people living off this road, with no other way of getting to their house!

We rounded the headland and found ourselves on Rainbow Beach, so named for its multicoloured sands. I was imagining purples and greens, but in fact it's just a very broad range of reds, ochres and yellows. Quite pleasing.

Then we stopped for lunch in a little town on the seaside before heading up the coast a little to where the Fraser Island ferries pick up passengers. They have boats that can basically sail right up on to the beach, so your 4WD can drive right on board without having to worry about a jetty or some such.

On the other side, the real magic began. We headed up 75 Mile Beach, which seems like an endless stretch of flat yellow sand disappearing into the distance, fringed on one side by vegetation and on the other by the sea. This is the enduring Fraser Island experience, really. It is just amazing.

While on the island we saw stunning freshwater lakes, lush rainforest (this is the only place on Earth where rainforest is to be found on a sand soil), vast expanses of sand dune, unique plant species - some dating back to the Jurassic period - and at night a sky that was full to overflowing with stars, planets, and galaxies. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and not a breath of wind to disrupt my awe-struck gaping at the heavens in their nocturnal glory.

The evening's beers and dinner were of a good price/enormity ratio. We had a laugh over dinner and then over beers in the rapidly cooling camp site. The overnight camping was not too much of an ordeal. The weather was kind to us, so we didn't have to contend with floods or gales. I slept reasonably well, only once waking with the paranoid fear that a dingo was chewing on my right knee (perhaps it was because we'd seen a mystic-seeming and hungry-looking dingo on the beach the night before).

The next day was even more special, because that was the day we got to see Lake McKenzie. This is a giant freshwater lake in the middle of the island, which has crystal clear - and I mean crystal - waters and is set in a bowl of the whitest sand I have ever seen in my life. The lake is formed by seawater that has filtered through the sands of the island, those sands themselves entirely bleached of any mineral content, leaving almost pure silicon. And then, around that, tall green tropical forests carpet the ground to the horizon in all directions. Idyllic.

And then we drove home. I'd say more, but it was all an anticlimax after Lake McKenzie. It had only been a two-day trip, but I felt I'd been to another planet. I shall treasure my memories of Fraser Island.