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Published: January 18th 2007
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Dingo on the beach
They're not as scared of people as they used to be, but can get vicious, because they're trying to steal food Fraser Island - as we said before, it's the largest sand island in the world and it's off the Queensland coast. We were picked up early in the morning and put aboard a 4 Wheel Drive coach along with about 30 other people and off we went on a barge to the island. We landed on 75 Mile Beach, which is a long golden sand beach, which doubles as a runway for light aircraft and a road for 4 wheel drive vehicles. The edge of the beach seems stable enough, but whenever cars tried to go across the beach inland, they had a tendency to get bogged down - I'd have hated to do a self-drive 4WD hire there.
After driving along the beach for a while, we stopped and walked inland to a barrage lake, Lake Wabby. It was very hot and we had to walk across a huge bare sand-dune, of course the hot sand got into your footwear and burnt, but you just had to to keep going. The lake was worth it, it was a beautiful emerald green colour and warm and deep, so we had a swim, before walking out to the bus, fortunately via
a different route through stabilised sand dunes which had eucalyptus and scrub growing on them.
In the afternoon, we walked through the rain forest - different from an NZ rain forest, much less jungle like and much more light gets through to the forest floor. Of course, being at the tail-end of the coach load of 30 people, we saw no wild life, apart from the occasional bird, though the vanguard saw a couple of iguanas.
Next we went to an inland perched lake, Lake Mackenzie, which was much larger and had crystal clear water deepening through the blues to a really intense dark blue. More swimming. It's wonderful to have all these places where you can swim outdoors and stay warm.
Back to the island resort for dinner and bed. We were in the budget resort which was very comfortable if not opulent: there was a luxury resort at the other side of the island.
The next morning back to the coach and to Seventy Five Mile Beach. Cara took the opportunity to take a 20 minute ride in a light 7 seater aircraft around the island - taking off and landing on the beach.
Fraser Island
This is an aerial view of the sandune we walked over to Lake Wabby Her photos from the air are very good and we'll maybe put a couple into our blog (thanks to the wonders of modern technology). It was also remarkable value at about 25 pounds. Once the plane had landed, the air passengers got back on the coach and we headed right to the end of the island to a headland called Indian Head, which has nothing to do with India and doesn't look like a head. From there you get a view of the ocean around and can see sharks, manta rays, sting rays, turtles and dolphins.
The next stop was the Champagne pools, rock pools shaped like the top of a glass, which are filled with water as the tide comes in over the edge of the "glass". These were brilliant - especially for those of us who wear contact lenses and therefore always wear goggles for swimming. The deeper bits of the pools were full of brightly coloured fish, some small, some larger. So I pretended to be a shark and watched and chased the fish.
Last stop, Eli Creek, a freshwater creek, which runs out into the ocean. We walked up the side of it and
Lake Wabby
Emerald green... then waded down it to the confluence, being careful not to get into the sea, which has been known to have 14 feet man-eating tiger sharks in water less than waist deep.
Eventually we got back onto the coach and were dropped off at the hostel. A quick meal and then off to bed for another early start.
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