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Published: February 5th 2010
Lake Wabby
Sandra doing the 'shuffle' up the sandWe were up bright and early this morning for our trip to Fraser Island. I wasn’t sure what to expect as all I really knew about it Fraser Island was that it is the worlds biggest sand island. So I am thinking the Kalahari surrounded by water. Our tour guide picked us up just after 7am and we headed off to catch our ferry over to the island. We picked up a number of other island tourists along the way but fortunately the majority were just doing a 1 day trip and we were on the 2 day. It just so happened that it was spring tides so when we arrived at the ferry the water was just about up to road level. The majority of the mangroves were completed submerged with only the tips of the tallest ones sticking out of the water. After a 30min ferry trip we had arrived on the island. It was immediately apparent that this wasn’t the Kalahari surrounded by water, more like the Amazon. All I could see was rainforest. The weird thing about it was we were standing on sea sand. Real soft sea sand like you find on the beach. It turns
out the island is about 125km long (72 miles) and about 16km across (10 miles) and is completely made out of sea sand. There are no paved roads just tracks through the forests, on the sand. Now I knew why only 4x4 were allowed on the island.
Our guide then brought over our tour bus. When I say tour bus think public bus on steroids. We piled in and headed off into the dark heart of the rainforest. The ride was very enjoyable, up and over sand dune hills, sliding about with gay abandon. Our first stop on the trip was Lake Wabby. I know what you are thinking, but yes, this sand dune really has lakes on it - 42 in fact. Getting to Lake Wabby involved a short sprint along the beach on the bus and then a 2km walk through the forest. When we got there it was quite amazing. This deep green lake dammed by a big sand dune. Sandra and I decided to walk up to the top of the sand dune to see what was on the other side. We had taken off our shoes and realised half way up that sand that
Lake McKenzie
White sands and crystal blue waters is baked by the midday sun gets quite hot. Thus began what I will call the Lake Wabby shuffle. It involves hoping from one foot to the other whilst trying to still head up the dune. Once we could feel the blisters forming on out feet we decided that the view from the top probably wasn’t any good anyway and that we preferred how it looked from the bottom. Like leaping gazelles we descended rapidly and quickly sought sanctuary in the soothing coolness of the lake. It was great to swim in, nice and cool, with only Sandra & I, some catfish and about 40 other island tourists in the lake.
From Lake Wabby we went to lunch and then headed inland a bit to Lake McKenzie. This lake was totally different from Wabby. The water was a bright blue and it was surrounded by the whitest sand I’ve ever seen. We played around in the lake for awhile and then did a nice little rain forest walk along a creek before going for supper and retiring to a hotel room for the night. Aahh the feel of a bed and a fan. It was a good day.
Lake McKenzie
Self-portrait We woke up bright and early once again, this time to see the sunrise, or a Hayley as we call it. As we headed down to the beach we were joined by a horsefly. This horsefly then multiplied and by the time we got to the sea we were in a swarm of horseflies. Let me take a moment to describe what an Australian horsefly is. It is a fly - obviously - but it is the size of a small rat, with wings. And, and, at this time of year they are looking to lay eggs so they need protein. Where do they get that protein I hear you ask, where else than from our blood? Yes that’s right these rat sized flies are bloodsuckers. So as Sandra merrily snapped away photos of the sunrise, I was in mortal combat with an army of horseflies looking for a juicy breakfast. At first I tried the crazy kamikaze technique or running around waving my arms around trying to kill or concuss anything within arms reach. This worked momentarily until I ran out of steam. I then used the Zen master approach of sitting absolutely still, waiting for the fly to
land on me and then ..... BAM like a Venus fly trap I squashed that sucker with my shoe. In the end the score card read Flies - 2 bites, Billy - 20 Flies. Where was I - ah sunrise, yes, it came up.
The weather this day was a not as good as the day before, it was less sunshine in paradise and more apocalypse now. But hey, by now we are like ducks - waterproof. We spent most of this day driving up the beach for about 3 hrs. We stopped at a creek that ran into the sea where we walked upstream and then floated back down again. Very relaxing. A few flies got fed to the fishes. We then proceeded to a lookout point called Indian Head but as the weather was poor and the waters choppy we couldn’t see anything in the waters below. On the return trip back down the beach we stopped off briefly at a shipwreck for some pictures. Due to the extremely low tides we were able to walk around the whole wreck. Our ferry trip back was delayed as there wasn’t enough water for the ferry to get into
the dock so we had to wait for the tide to turn. We eventually made it back to our sweet little tent and had a good nights sleep listening to the comforting sound of rain battering the side of the tent. All in all a great couple of days.
We head down to Brisbane and the Australia Zoo next, looking forward to it, should be good fun.
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mom
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sand dune
Yes I remember how hot the sand dunes in Port Elizabeth got. Hard work on the legs! It looks beautiful.