Saturday, October 2nd and Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
If you ever come to Australia, I highly recommend that you spend some time.....if only a day, on Fraser Island. If you like to camp (which we all know I don't).......it is a must.
My Saturday morning started early with a pick-up from my hotel. I decided to go onto the Island with a small group. Just 13 of us in a 4X4 mini-bus. After picking up a few other people we started the drive back south to Rainbow Beach to pick up our last few passengers and then make our way onto the island. If you are looking at a map you are probably wondering why I didn't just stay in Rainbow Beach since that is where I needed to be to get onto Fraser Island. The answer is because I was trying to break up some of the travel. It is 2 hours from Hervey Bay to Rainbow Beach and it just broke up the trip a bit for me.
The transportation for the weekend. Seats 13 passengers plus the driver. No extra room for luggage though. We were all only allowed to bring a small overnight bag. Easy to do since we were only staying one night.
Fraser Island is basically a giant sandbar. It is in fact the World's largest sand island. It is about 120 kilometres (approx 75 miles) long and on average is 14 kilometres (9 miles) wide. At it's widest point, the island is 22 kilometres (14 miles) wide. There are a few rules to know before you get there. The biggest are that you are not allowed to bring any animals to the island, make sure you read and follow all signs and you must have a 4x4 to drive on it. Like many places in Australia, Fraser Island is a World Heritage protected site so it is very important to follow the rules. To get there......vehicle barge.
The anchor on the barge. It takes about 10 minutes to travel from mainland Australia to Fraser Island.
Rush hour traffic on the island. Yes this is indeed the highway. How many lanes there are totally depends on whether it is high or low tide. During high tide there are inland roads that you have to drive to get by certain points.
Once we arrived on the island, our first stop was at our accommodation for the night for some tea and biscuits (as in cookies). We stayed at a little eco research centre run by the University of the Sunshine Coast called Dilli Village. The place is basic to say the least, and totally surrounded by a dingo fence (I'll get to that) but a cute little place all in all. Basically we dropped off some extra luggage, finished our tea and then headed out to see some of the island.
One of the inland sand trails. Just so you know, there are speed limits on the island. 80 km/hr on the "highway" unless otherwise marked and 30 km/hr on the inland trails. There are also police in the area for speeders and others who break any of the island rules. Our driver, Neil, says he has only gotten stuck once and much prefers to drive when the weather is a little wet. The wetness makes the tracks a little harder which means it is less likely the bus will bet bogged down in loose sand.
Our first real stop of the day was at Lake Mackenzie, which is one of over 100 fresh water lakes you will find on the island. It is a beautiful spot although today the water wasn't quite as nice because, well the weather wasn't very nice.
The beautiful Lake Mackenzie. Even without sun.....totally worth the visit.
The important thing to know about Lake Mackenzie is that it's sand is almost pure silica which means it is very soft and gentle and nice. If you believe our tour guide, this sand is great for polishing jewelry (as long as it is real....it will take the coating right off the fake stuff), is great at exfoliating (skin, face, body, whatever) and it will polish your teeth to a pearly white shine (no I didn't try it). And the water is so soft and pure that it is suppose to be the best conditioner you can find.
The water was not that warm but that didn't stop us from hanging out in it for a while.
Once we all dried off we headed to the fenced-in picnic area to have some lunch. Everywhere on the island things are inside dingo fences. Not really because the dingos are so dangerous they will hurt us but mostly because we want to keep them as wild as possible and not let them get use to human contact. Of course touching or feeding them is very against the rules and it is very important not to leave any garbage around for them.
The goanna we found that was also outside the fence. I wasn't going to take a picture of it but everyone else was so I did too. So here he is.
After lunch we headed to Central Station, so aptly named because it use to be the location of the central forestry department station from 1920 to 1959. It is in the heart of the rain forest found on Fraser Island. For about 130 years the island use to be heavily logged. Now walking around you hardly see any signs of it. The trees here were used in construction projects all over the world including the Suez Canal.
A little look at the boardwalk.
From Central station we made a short 45 minute walk on the boardwalk along the Wanggoolba Creek. This fresh water creek is often known as the invisible creek because it's waters are crystal clear and it is runs almost perfectly silent. It is suggested that the water you see in the creek is 75 to 100 years old because that is about how long it takes rain water and such to filter through the sand.
Watch this video and turn up your sound. You should hear.....pretty much nothing.
Along the trail. The rain forest is full of all kinds of plants and trees (as you would expect). Along the creek is the only place on the island where you can find the king fern. They sprout the largest fronds in the world.
Once we were through the forest we made our way back to Dilli Village to settle into our little cabins and have some dinner and a few drinks. Neil, our driver, also doubles as the chef. Like most men in Australia......cooks a pretty good steak.
The little cabin I was in.
Cute little place. I had this one all to myself which was good because that meant I got an extra blanket. It was actually a little cold overnight.
The little swimming hole at Dilli Village. No I didn't test these waters.
One of the little dingo pups that found his way through the fence. He was the cutest little thing ever. We all just wanted to pet and play with him but had to remind ourselves that he is a wild animal so we couldn't touch. He did find the back door to the kitchen however. That didn't make the caretaker too happy.
He was outside the fence...probably waiting for the little one. At Dilli Village they are not too concerned about the little ones getting in the fence, they are more worried that they will stay inside and then be too big to get back out.
There are about 150 dingos on Fraser Island, all of which are pure dingo (unlike the ones you will find in other parts of Australia who have cross bred with domestic dogs.) They stay pure dingo of course because you are not allowed to bring any dogs onto the island. They track the populations through electronic chips. Originally they would have been brought here by the aboriginal tribes who once inhabited the island. The dingos are protected and you are not allowed to hunt them.
Dilli Village at night. A very cute little place. Certainly not big but clean and nice and eco-friendly. What else can you ask for?
Sunday morning, after breakfast, we headed back up the island to check out a few more things. The weather today....worse than yesterday but we still saw as much as we could.
One last look at our favourite little guy before we headed off. Don't let the sunshine spots in this picture fool you.....the day was wet and grey.
From Dilli Village we made our way north to check out a few things. The first place we stopped was at the Maheno Shipwreck.
This is the Maheno....or what is left of her. Originally built in 1905 as a luxury passenger ferry between New Zealand and Australia, The Maheno has had a colourful history. For 9 years she carried passengers between the 2 countries before she was refitted and enlisted in the Australian Navy. During World War I, she spent 5 years as a hospital ship carrying around an estimated 25,000 sick, wounded and dying soldiers on the English Channel.
After the war, she went back to ferrying passengers before being decommissioned in 1935. She was then sold to the Japanese for scrap. While being towed to Japan, she was shipwrecked on Fraser Island. Many attempts were made to recover her but since she is still here I guess it is safe to say they were all unsuccessful. I'm told 5 decks of this once great ship lie below the sand. It is also interesting to know the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) used her for target practice for a while. Apparently they have bad aim because she is in remarkably good shape all things considered.
Yes, I do look a little cold and wet because I am a little cold and wet. The rain and the wind make visiting a ship wreck....almost a little spooky.
Some of the waves off Fraser Island. They are not very inviting and no we did go swimming. This area is also known for stingers (that's jelly fish) and sharks so really nothing about this water is inviting.
After the ship wreck we continued our way north to a spot called Indian Heads. It is volcanic out cove and is the anchor of the island (you know, it keeps all the sand from just floating away....or something like that).
That's Indian Heads, so named because as Captain Cook floated by he saw a number of aboriginals assembled there. Back then, all people with dark skin were called "Indians" and so Captain Cook called it Indian Heads.
We actually had a chance to climb up the small hill, and even with the wind and the rain it was worth the trip up to see the view.
Looking down at our little bus.....at least it looks little from here.
I just find signs that have pictures depicting people falling head first off cliffs funny.
The view of the water. Somewhere in behind me are a few humpback whales. I'm not sure where because I didn't see them but I was told that they did swim by while we were up there.
Indian Heads was are farthest point north we travelled and once we had enjoyed the view as much as we were going to enjoy it we start to make our way back south again. Our next stop was at one of the coloured sand locations. Unfortunately in the rain it was a lot harder to see all the variations.
The variations of red, brown, yellow and orange colours you can find here are caused by the different levels of iron oxide in the sand. This is caused by the decaying of animals and plants.
From there we headed to Eli Creek. It is the largest of the fresh water creeks on Fraser Island. Most of these creeks eventually drain into the ocean by travelling across the beach that we drive on. This often leads to some interesting driving because those creek beds can get pretty deep.
Eli Creek. I know what you are thinking, the water looks dirty but I assure you it is crystal clear. What you see is the super soft sand on the bottom of the creek. Eli Creek actually has a very strong current and on hot days tourists love to lie in the water and let the current take them for a ride. I skipped the river float on this cold day. Maybe next time.
And after that we headed back to Dilli Village for some lunch and then back to mainland Australia. Our quick trip to Fraser Island was over. We arrived safely back in Hervey Bay at around 1600 (4pm) just in time to watch the clouds disappear and the sun come out. I assure you it was a beautiful sunset but one I could have gone without seeing.
Julie
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