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Published: February 26th 2007
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Fraser island is the biggest sand island in the world measureing 127km long and between 5 and 27 kms wide as well as being about 620mts deep. it is said to contain more sand than the entire Sahara desert, and i thought it was gonna be a little sand pit of a place, how wrong, i should have learned by now that aussies don't do small anything.
For the couple of days before we went to fraser island we stayed in Hervey Bay the closed bit of main land to the island. Hervey bay doesn't have much there in the way of entertainment, but is a great place for relaxing and just energising after time on the road, we got lucky booking into a great little hostel, which has been the first place to have proper mattresses and feather pillows, i got the best nights sleep i've had since i left home.
Anyway Fraser Island, there were many ways in which you can see the island, either in a group driving yourseleves around the island and camping out, all in a big bus with about 40 other people and camping out or the way we did it which was
do a group tour of the island but in a much smaller group of 16 people and staying at like a campsite resort thing, basically we went all inclusive on the island, all our meals and drinks as well as accomodation and tours included. I think we deffinitly choose the best way to do it, not having to drive meant that we weren't to tired to go off exploring once we'd stopped and because we didn't have to set up and take down a tent everyday we got more time for exploring.
Day one:
6.30am start as we were being picked up at 7 outside our hostel. around 7 a huge green 4wd bus turns up and we embark on our 3 day journey. On the way to the ferry the driver Alex picked up the rest of the group made up of a few people younger than us but mostly europeans who were older than us. the ferry ride across was fairly univentfull, but if the views of the island from the ferry were anything to go by the rest of our tour was going to be full of awsome sights.
The first couple of hours on the
island were spent driving through some scrub land which had been back burned a couple of mounths ago and was all charred black, this journey took us through to a small lake which was a sort of tea colour and full of turtles. The water was tea coloured beacuse of the trees around it. after lunch we continued to the other side of the island where we went and saw the shipwreak on the beach and the coloured sands a little further up the east coast, by now it was getting on and it was time for us to go to camp and see where we would be sleeping for the next couple of nights. our tent was a huge two room affair, it had a huge double bed in one of the rooms with bedside tables and in the other a couple of chairs and a small table set out like a living room, i was really surprised at the amount of luxury afforded us. Alex the driver/tour guide of the bus also turned out to be the trips chef as well as he prepared us all steaks for our dinner that night, the rest of the night was
spent trying to consume as much as the alcohol as we could.
Alex was really funny, and kept on saying things like "NO DRAMAS" and "NO WORRIES" over the bus tannoy system, as we were all bouncing about in the back of the bus.
Hello peops, El here Dave got bored of writting so its over to me.... so back to Alex, he really made this trip and his little sayings had me in stitches every time I heard them, he was just the most laid bacl chilled out tour guide ever, and he did a superb job of driving us through some very difficult sand, but it never phased him!
So back onto Day 2....
An early start for brekky then into the bus and bounced our way up to the North of the Island. We visited the Champagne Pools which were a mixture of Ocean and fresh water areas. Then we headed further north and west to what was to prove to be Paradise! This part of the island is closed to all other tour operators and self drives, as you need a special permit, luckily the tour we we with has this permit and
when we arrived at Wathumba Creek we could not believe our eyes. Beautiful clear blue waters and pure white sand for miles with little islands of vegitation just a walk or swim away. Unfortunatly we only had an hour here which was not fair cos I wanted to stay forever. Still we made the most of it and walked through the shallow water to reach a more substancial dip, and while playing around you could spot stingrays swimming around in the waters. ( now yes thats what killed Steve Irwin but we were told as long a you let them do their thing and not try to go near them they will not hert you) so we just stood by as they swam past and it was fine! So after the hour was up we had to drag ourselves out of the stunningness and continue onto our lunch break. Here we got visited by the famous Dingo. The Dingos on Fraser Island are the last remaining Australian pure dingos. Dangerous animals but also very stunning.
The afternoon was spent climbing the Indian Head rocks, where you get a great view of the Island from the top. This is one of
only 3 rock formations on the island.
Then it was back to camp for dinner and drinks.
Day 3.....
The final day another early start back onto the bus after brekky and off we went to our first destination of the day Lake Wabby
We then went to a resort in the middle of the island for a buffet lunch. We then had to change busses as our one was needed for another group who had just arrived for their trip but there bus had broken down, so we was changed onto a large coach style bus no where near as good. So into the rainforest (thats right in the middle of this Sand Island is a rainforest!)for a drive and stroll back throught he amazing high trees. Back on bus and over to our last stop Lake Garawongera, a pretty clear ish fresh water, good for moisturising but the bottom was really sqeggy mushy feeling on your feet, was quite odd!
Then it was time to head for the ferry back to the mainland, howeveron the way about 10 minutes away from the path to the ferry we got bogged in sand. We was stuck for about
Tree
Some of the trees have had to adapt and now have their roots at the top instead of below so they can consume water from the rain. an hour the bus infront had tried to use the tow to pull us out, Alex and the other drivers had tried to dig out some sand from underneath but still no luck after more digging and getting a group of the men from the bus infron behind and ours they managed to push it out and we were back on our way. While standing there watching this we were quite amused by it all as it had happened right at the end of our trip. The only down side was we got eaten by mossies and sand flies.
Forgot to mention you cant swim in the ocean around this island although looks great is dagerous. 1) Lethal Helly Fish, 2) Man eating Sharks, 3) Big rips. So lucky for the rest of the lovely creeks and Lakes!
Back to our same little hostel it was bliss to have a nice shower and our fresh room back for the night. So to sum it all up our Fraser Island adventure was truly superb! Highly amusing and exciting!
Enjoy the pics!
Dave and El x
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Love the arty shots!