Oz - Week 43 Airlie Beach to Fraser Island

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A couple of extra days are included in this edition as I travelled from the Whitsundays to Hervey Bay and then on to Fraser Island, where I had more sand to play in than I could ever have imagined and swam in the clearest lake water ever.

When I returned to Airlie Beach after the fantastic 3 night sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, I was offered the disabled access room at the hotel for the same cheap internet rate I had previously paid. The room was larger than the last one but the bathroom was crazy big, with enough room to hold a wheelchair basketball tournament. The wet-room style shower was massive and wide so I stuck the radio on and danced like a loon waving my arms around under the powerful water spray - thank God for curtains (both shower and balcony). I had loved the sailing trip so much that I checked out the offers for another one, but the prices were still high and the weather looked really dodgy for the next few days, so I just mooched abut town. Bit of a waste of 3 days really as there was nothing else I wanted to do or see in the area. So I jumped on the overnight bus heading South to Hervey Bay, gateway to Fraser Island.

The bus took 12 hours, arriving a 6am (tip - Premier is way cheaper than Greyhound on this route) and I was glad that I wasn’t aiming for Agnes Water or the town of 1770 as those passengers were dropped at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere at 1.30am and their connection didn’t arrive until 9am I had planned on a couple of days in 1770 partly due to the name (the year that Cook set foot on one of the few places he actually landed hereabouts) and partly as its got a good reputation as a chilled beach village with people reporting that it has a nice vibe, but the connections were too hard and the weather was not great, so I aimed further south for Hervey Bay. Of course the hotel reception didn’t open until 1.5 hours after I arrived, but I chatted to the nice night porter who turned a blind eye when I helped myself to coffee from a trolley that had been laid out for an early-departing corporate group. My room was average with a tiny balcony that overlooked the harbour, with a couple of restaurants, cafes and tour shops in the area but not much else. I thought I had made a mistake choosing an hotel so far from the centre of town until I visited the hub and found that it was no more exciting than where I was staying.

Hervey Bay is quite large and spread out but there is not much going on other than their great tourist attractions of fishing, sailing tours, whale watching (late July to October) and visiting Fraser Island and there is not much public transport to get you around the strung-out town or the surrounding area. Unfortunately the official start of the whale watching was a week away and most of the sailing-trip boats had stopped running in preparation for the whale tours and the whale tours hadn’t really started in earnest. The town is mainly a retirement area, with lots of condos, retirement villages and bingo clubs. There was a boardwalk running for miles along the beaches that were lovely and wide with golden sand, but a bit too chilly to sit on as it was overcast with a strong breeze - I guess I cant complain as this is mid-Winter and the weather is still miles better than the UK in their Summer. I had done whale watching in South Africa already, so I wandered the tour shops, checked out the deals to Fraser Island and found a good 2 day trip leaving on Wednesday with Fraser Explorer Tours, on special offer if you stayed in a quadshare dorm.

After being collected by bus at 7.30am we were driven to River Heads for the 40 minute barge crossing over the Great Sandy Strait in the early morning light and the sun broke through, delivering the promised improvement in the weather with a great outlook for our trip. We were split into groups and met Graham our great guide and driver for the next 2 days and introduced to Truck 14, the best 4-wheel drive vehicle on the island. We were a group of 20 of all different nationalities, mainly from Europe, and I was the only passenger with English as their first language, which was unusual but not an issue as almost everyone spoke excellent English, much to my shame. Truck 14 was very high, needing a climb of several steps to get in, but was far wider and taller than most of the other vehicles we saw which gave room for generous, leather padded seats with plenty of leg room. The seats were raked so that the people at the back were higher then those at the front and could get a perfect view from the huge front and side windows. As the bus was not full we were able to spread out and I had a double seat to myself. Even the seatbelts were comfortable, which was a good thing as we had to wear them all the time, as the sand-roads were full of cavernous holes and ridges the size of small cars, so you got thrown about a lot. It felt as if you were driving in a luxurious military tank and was nearly as noisy.

Fraser Island is huge - its 125 miles long and is the size of the county of Surrey in UK or twice the size of Manhattan. Its actually the 4th largest Australian Island (Tasmania being the largest) and is completely made of sand apart from 4 small rocky outcrops. It is covered in open forest, mangroves and a large area of sub-tropical rainforest. Its a fairly unique place, highly protected with National Park status. It was named after a ships captain who, along with his wife Eliza and his crew, was captured by Aboriginals and treated roughly. Captain Fraser and his First Mate were killed in horrible ways but Eliza was rescued and helped to escape by a run-away convict. She eventually married the captain of the ship returning her to the UK and they made a lot of money from Eliza recounting the story of her ordeal at fairground booths throughout the UK. The original Aboriginals were from a tribe called the Bachelors and they called the Island the native word for Paradise, as there was abundant fresh water, seafood, forest fruits and small game to live on, with a pleasant climate. They were wickedly persecuted and murdered by the early white loggers and eventually in 1904 the remaining few were relocated to two mainland sites.

Our first stop was for a guided walk through a forest where we saw some giant staghead ferns growing on the side of trees, some at eye level but many way up in the canopy. Apparently these plants are very expensive to buy as they are so slow growing, and the one in the photo would have set you back around $8,000 - we were surrounded by hundreds of the things, many larger than the one we were studying, but of course they are all protected and the penalties for taking them are steep. We also saw some great examples of strangler vines that were twisted in elaborate patterns around their host trees, who were slowly being killed by these fast-growing parasite plants.

Graham advised us to pour away any water we had brought with us and refill our bottles from a tap in the forest that provides pure spring water. The rain takes over 100 years to filter through the sand to the watertable and a further 100 years to come back up to the springs and creeks, so we were drinking delicious cold, sweet, pure water that was at least 200 years old. Fraser Island sits over one of the largest natural fresh water supplies in the World, all having been filtered through the amazing sand system of the Island and surrounding Great Sandy Straits area. They estimate that if it never rained here again, this natural reservoir would allow the numerous creeks and rivers in the area to continue to flow at full stretch for over 20 years. When you see the amazing rate of flow of the waterways, this is a mind-boggling statistic - for example Eli Creek that we visited later in the day flows out at 20 million litres an hour.

We continued through the forest to the start of the sub-tropical rainforest area where we walked along the side of Wanggoolba Creek, one of the many creeks on the island. Its really strange to walk beside or through creeks on Fraser as they are completely silent, even the fast flowing and deep ones. The water travels over the soft sandy beds and there are no rocks or pebbles that normally cause the noise you associate with running water. It was a bit eerie as we followed this creek for 2 kilometres while we walked a lovely rainforest trek through the lush dense trees and plants. Of particular note were the giant King ferns that are thought to be one of the earliest plant forms that have been on the Earth for millions of years. We were blissfully ignorant of the myriad of dangerous, poisonous and darn-right unpleasant creepy crawlies we were passing, as later Graham explained about the snakes, spiders and insects of the area. However, we had yet to learn that we had been passing the deadly funnelweb spiders at the rate of approximately one per 2 meters along our walk and were quite happy watching the crystal clear water of the creek, the dappled sunlight breaking through the canopy occasionally and the lush vegetation We did see some of the Golden Orb spiders in their gleaming golden webs, but stayed well away. Graham met us with Truck 14 at the end of the walk and proceeded to make our toes curl with facts such as Fraser Island has 11 of the World’s deadliest snakes and dozens of the deadliest spiders. Oh joy, we were in this nest of vipers for another 2 days.

We went for an early lunch to the Eurong Resort which was where we were to eat and sleep while we were on the island. The food was a plentiful buffet which was far better quality then some of the other tour companies provide. One of the girls on our trip had a friend travelling with one of the other operators, so we got regular updates on the differences between the itinerary, quality of the equipment, vehicle, guide commentary, food and lodging and our tour sounded as if it was far better in all aspects.

After lunch we set out over the dingo gate onto 75 Mile Beach. The resorts are all surrounded with anti-dingo electrified fencing as the animals are attracted to the smell of food. The only way to cross the fenceline is over one of the grids or through the pedestrian gates at the side of the grid - of course you can try to walk over the grid, but the 12 volts will give you a warm jolt. We saw a couple of dingoes almost as soon as we hit the beach and stopped to watch as they harassed a fisherman, obviously attracted by the smell of his bait or catch, or perhaps the man had a personal odour problem. We jumped out of the truck to take photos but stayed well back as its mating season and the animals are more dangerous than usual. The fisherman chased them off eventually and they skulked back into the undergrowth.

The beach runs up two thirds of the Eastern side of the island is used as the main highway either side of low tide. Its flat and wide and reminded me of the beach at Cape Reinga at the top end of New Zealand. We were to travel along roughly 75 kilometres of it during the first day’s excursions, seeing lots of campers, fishermen and crazy young backpackers having fun in 4-wheel drive convoys. Until recently you could hire a 4-wheel drive truck and go off exploring on your own. However due to countless daily accidents and a couple of fatalities, on 1 July they changed the rules so that you have to go with a guide vehicle. This obviously is safer but has probably increased the price. Graham said that its a good thing for the guided tour operators as they spent big chunks of their day either helping to pull or dig out amateurs stuck in the sand or doling out first aid to idiots who had crashed or rolled.

We blatted northwards along the sand at 80 kilometres an hour to Eli Creek, which is about half way up the Island. We braved the chill and waded along the creek, ensuring we stayed on the shallow side which keeps you less than thigh deep, as the other side can see you stepping through waist high water. Again, there is no sound from the flowing water, just the sound of hundreds of people screeching at the cold, laughing as they pushed each other into the deeper parts or started rumours about the depth of the bit around the corner for those coming in the opposite direction (oopps, guilty of that one). It is one of the major attractions on the island and it was crowded and noisy, but it was still great fun. Sadly its too dangerous to go into the sea other than to paddle at the very edge less than ankle deep, as there are two deadly things awaiting anyone daft enough to try. Firstly there are thousands of sharks, of more than a dozen types, who infest the coast and come right into the shallows. There are a few other nasties such as sting rays too, but the water drops off quickly to a deep trench that is pretty much live shark soup. If that’s not enough to deter you, the rip currents along this stretch of the coast are deadly. All in all, the cold creek was a much better option. There are loads of freshwater lakes on Fraser too, more about them later

We stopped briefly at Pinnacles Coloured Sands where the layers of sand laid down over millions of years contain a wide range of colours. There are reputed to be around 54 different colours, but the sun was behind the high cliff-like dunes and it was hard to see properly. Yes, they are interesting and multicoloured, but you can see many different hues in all of the exposed dunes and sand cliffs along the beach, so this stop was not as spectacular as we were expecting.

Our most northerly stop was spectacular though. There are only 4 sites on the island that contain rock and the point called Indian Head sticks out into the deep sea trench where the whole marine foodchain hunt each other. So, for the price of a sweaty, joint-aching climb up the steep cliff and out to the precipice of precariously balanced boulders, you can look down about 300 feet and watch sharks, manta rays, dolphins, stingrays, large fish of all types and if you are luck and the season is right, you can spot whales further out to sea from your terrifying perch. Its all made slightly more scary by the number of people up there who you need to pass at the cliff edge in order to gain a viewing spot. Not only can you look down into the ocean from Indian Head, but you get a great view back along the wide beach you have just travelled, with the trucks looking like insects and the people barely visible, plus views inland across huge dunes Some of the dunes are covered in trees or vegetation but some are bare and remind you of the Sahara. We were lucky and spotted loads of the above list during our hour-long stay. Cook named it when he saw a large group of natives standing on the top and in those times any race that was not white were called Indians.

On the trip back down the beach we stopped to look at a large dead manta ray who had died the previous day on the sands, with no obvious cause. It was perfectly whole, with no evidence of shark bite or other trauma and had not started to rot enough to attract the dingoes. I was amazed by the bright purple colour of its upper half, which doesn’t show clearly in the photos. It was sad, but interesting.

Just a little further on we pulled up at the corroding hulk of the Maheno shipwreck and were lucky enough to get there at low tide so we could walk partly around the sea-side, which is not often accessible. It is rotting quite quickly and the stern section has already been taken by water and sand, leaving the rusting two thirds to view. Its too dangerous to walk on but you can peer through the broken ribs and few remaining portholes, although there is nothing but more red and orange rusty metal to see inside, with the odd barnacle and seagull droppings. The ship was a large empty passenger ship being towed to a shipyard by its new Japanese owners when it got caught in an out-of-season cyclone, snapped the tow-line and was washed onto Fraser Island. The owners abandoned it when the Australian Government of the time tried to charge duty on any part of the ship that was removed, so the vessel was left to rot on 75 Mile Beach and eventually become a photo opportunity for tourists.

Back at Eurong we were allocated our rooms and I got to share with two nice girls, Ira from Germany and Lin from from Japan, which gave us plenty of bed choice in the six-bed room. Unfortunately all of the metal-framed beds squeaked at the slightest movement, so it was a noisy night when added to my snoring. We enjoyed another buffet for dinner and were lucky enough to get there on roast night, with a choice of beef, pork and lamb with all the trimmings. I stuffed myself, which is just as well as I had quite a bit to drink later that night. Ira and I shared a bottle of wine (tip - a bottle is the same price as two glasses here) and then Graham our driver joined us and bought another bottle. We walked over to the bar where Ira found some fellow Germans to chat to and then to dance with and I had a couple of beers while I watched Graham get to the semi-finals of the pool competition, more by luck than skill. We celebrated his achievements with several beers while we chatted for a couple more hours. Although I was pickled I managed to get up at 5.45am to watch the dawn, which was gorgeous, colourful and serene.

After a big cooked breakfast to counteract the hangover, we set off at 8am for the bumpy inland trip to Lake McKenzie, one of several dune-hung freshwater lakes on the island. Over thousands of years rotting vegetation compacts to create a rock-hard substance that in turn forms a watertight layer between the surrounding sand dunes, this fills with the pure filtered fresh water and becomes a lake. The base layer is covered with sand and the water is as clear as gin. Lake McKenzie is 9 metres deep in the middle, yet you could see every tiny thing on the sandy floor beneath you as you swam in the chilly water. Although the sand is gorgeous, it actually is almost devoid of nutrients, so only a few tiny turtles and two types of small fish can survive here. The water is several different shades of blue and the surrounding sand is the pure while silica power variety, similar to Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays. We were lucky that we had a sunny clear day and although it was still cool when we arrived we had two hours while the sun got higher and warmer to play in the soft sand, paddle and swim in the amazingly beautiful lake. Its surrounded by steep sided sand dunes and trees, and you are asked not to enter the water with any sunscreen on, in order to minimise pollution. It was very pretty and unusual. Sadly its also very popular and although we arrived early, there were two other Trucks of people including some very noisy ones. Over the two hours more and more people poured onto the beach as the day tripper vehicles arrived and it felt like Brighton on a Bank Holiday.

Most of the Island is covered in forest of some sort and they are all full of spiders and snakes. Graham said that if you walk anywhere on the Island at night with a headtorch on and look down, you can see dozens if pinprick dots glowing all around you. These are the eyes of spiders. We visited a forest full of the special Fraser Island Satinay trees that are big, straight-trunked trees, endemic to the island Their sap produces a natural deterrent to sea-boring creatures, which made them the ideal choice of timber for jetties, dock-linings and any construction where long-term water submersion was required. They were used in water-based construction projects all over the World, including some of the docks at Tillbury in London. For a while in the late 19th and early 20th century there was a large logging industry on the island, gathering a huge range of hard and soft woods, but this all ceased when the area was converted to National Park.

We went back to Eurong for lunch at 11.30am (exactly the same buffet choice as the day before) and had the choice of staying around the resort including the use of the very nice pool until 3.30pm or going on an arduous 7 kilometre walk through undulating forest tracks then uphill through deep sand over the dunes and big sandblows to the small green-watered Lake Wabby. I had climbed dunes in the past so opted to lounge about the Resort for the afternoon and joined a French couple on a refreshing hours walk along the beach that livened up when two small planes landed on the beach. We chatted to the pilots for a while as they got ready to jump on board the passing tour trucks to try to sell flights. The planes will take you up for 10 minutes for $70 to see the beach and Island from the air and to perhaps spot dolphins, sharks or whales, but we had already seen all of that from Indian Head and one of the pilots only looked about 12 years old, so we gave it a miss. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, but I did take a shot of one of the planes when we passed it later from our truck. We stayed there while they took up several groups of passengers and they buzzed us each time they flew past. Being the targets of dive bombing planes was fun and I am sure their passengers took lots of shots of our middle fingers.

Sadly due to the tides we had to catch the early 4.30pm barge back, so the last hour of inland deep-sand track driving was a bit frantic in order to make it in time. It was a great couple of days and very good value. For anyone thinking of visiting Fraser, I would strongly recommend doing the 2 day tour rather than a day trip, as having spoken to people on both, it is clear that you are far less rushed and see much more on the longer option. I was changing hotels and the drop-off driver kindly stopped to let me pick up my luggage stored at my original hotel, then dropped me at the door of my new one, which was lovely. It was close to the ultra-long pier that was used in the past to load the ships but nowadays is only used by fishermen and walkers. The new place was great and had a washing machine and dryer, so I spent my last day in Hervey Bay catching up on laundry before getting the Greyhound bus South to Noosa.

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