Hervey Bay and Fraser Island


Advertisement
Australia's flag
Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Hervey Bay » Fraser Island
June 14th 2009
Published: June 14th 2009
Edit Blog Post

We’ve been very busy bees the last few weeks. Work has been going great for both of us and we’ve really settled into city living. We’ve moved apartment in the last few weeks. Found a lovely 2 bed apartment, just a couple of hundred yards away from our old place. It’s right on Hyde Park. We now have a gorgeous view of St. Mary’s Cathedral and Hyde Park, with Sydney Harbour in the background. We still have our gym and swimming pool in the building, so we’re still keeping our high living standards, nothing but the best for us! Haha

We finally brought our camera for a trip around the city to the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), a lovely shopping centre where Lynsey gets the bus to work daily, and Town Hall. Next stop was Hyde Park, and into St Mary’s Cathedral. Which is absolutely gorgeous! Really outdid our expectations of the place.

We found a lovely Irish bar that does the best steaks we’ve tasted, add in the fact that they do excellent Guinness (I know I was surprised too) and we’ve found somewhere I know we’ll be visiting again and again! Except Sundays… seems they close on Sundays, which was quite frustrating a couple of weeks ago when we strolled for 15 minutes through the city to get there!

We also managed to finally get to Bondi Beach! ! Wasn’t quite the weather for sunbathing and/or swimming, but it was really enjoyable. We’ve seen a lot of lovely beaches thus far, and no doubt it’s right up there with the best of them. Best part though had to be our fish and chips, from a proper chipper. We sat on the promenade eating them and was like being back in Dun Laoghaire. The deep fried Mars bar we got to accompany the fish and chips wasn’t quite what we’d hoped it would be, but maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t like it. Full of grease and chocolate, not an ounce of goodness. At least chips, no matter how greasy, are potatoes at the end of the day! Haha part of your 5-a-day!

The week preceding our trip to the Fraser Coast was quite an important one. We celebrated Lynsey’s birthday. We had a gorgeous Indian meal in a lovely restaurant in Darling Harbour, with a gorgeous view of the harbour itself. Followed of course by gorgeous Death By Chocolate cake and ice-cream!

Friday 5th June and we were all set for our 1st trip out of Sydney since we arrived. Flight was booked, accommodation was booked. But thanks to my alarm not going off we nearly threw all that money down the drain!! Lynsey thankfully woke up, an hour and twenty minutes after the alarm was due to wake us! A mad dash ensued, and we were out of the apartment in 5 minutes flat, running across the road to jump in the 1st taxi that caught our eye. We made it on time to check in, but the flight had also been delayed for a half hour because of fog. It was another half hour again before it finally took off, but by then we were just happy to be on the plane!

From there thankfully it was plain sailing. We were greeted with gorgeous sunshine and lovely 23degree heat. A lot warmer then Sydney, which may I add is getting quite cold these days! !

We found a lovely little seaside town awaiting us. One major point of interest is Urangan Pier. It stretches 720 metres over the beach and a huge sand bank, finishing in the ocean and was built in 1917 to facilitate the export of sugar and later coal. The timber it’s made from was brought over from Fraser Island. We took a stroll along it, armed with our trademark ice-creams of course!

After our stroll around town we availed of our complimentary drink at the bar of the resort, and sat lakeside enjoying them. The resort was like a little wildlife park. Its centrepiece was the aforementioned lake, quite gorgeous at sunset with quite a lot of different species of birds and ducks attracted to it and the trees along the banks. The food in the resort was absolutely gorgeous, with rump and rib fillet steaks a cheap $13.99, a price that included chips and an all you can eat buffet of salad and veg. And as for the breakfast.. It was free (included in the price of the room), and was also an all you can eat buffet that consisted of a fry, cereal, fruit and yoghurt. And so it was that on the Saturday morning, we filled ourselves up as much as we could at breakfast to set ourselves up for the trip to Fraser Island.

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, stretching over 123 kilometres in length and 22 kilometres at its widest point and drilling has shown that sand extends to 100 metres below sea level in places. It was listed as a World Heritage area by UNESCO in 1992. The local Aboriginal people call Fraser Island ‘K’Gari’, which is very fitting as it roughly translates into paradise. It is said that all the sand from the eastern coast of Australia eventually ends up at Fraser Island

We were picked up at 7.45am (so you can imagine how early we were up for breakfast!), and soon after we were on the ferry crossing the Great Sandy Straight. It was quite a foggy morning, limiting our views of the island as we approached, but we knew that once the sun burned through it would be another scorcher. We were picked up on the other side at Wanggoolba Creek by our tour guide and boarded the 4 x 4 tour bus. All vehicles on the island must be 4 x 4; there aren’t any proper roads, just sand tracks.

Our first stop was Central Station which is a former forestry camp, and a walk along the banks of Wanggoolba Creek, and it’s perfectly silent freshwater stream. It stays a constant 17 degrees all year round. Then it was onto the Seventy-Five Mile Beach, which in fact is only 56 miles long. It’s a most amazing beach highway, where all road rules apply, the speed limit is 80km an hour and you must give way to aeroplanes landing and taking off. Just as we turned onto the beach we spotted our first dingo. Interesting fella, with not a care in the world about the bus that stopped beside him full of people taking videos and photos. His only worry was getting through the bait and catch a fisherman had left there in the sand while in the ocean fishing 50 metres away! Took his time and was finished before the fisherman had realised what was happening.

On we drove up the beach overtaking 4 x 4 jeeps along the way. Now and again we slowed down to clamber over rocks on the beach only recently uncovered by the tide sweeping away the sand previously covering them as little as 4 months ago. The coast of Fraser Island is constantly changing. The shifting sands of the island have continually concealed and revealed a unique geological history. The dunes have the longest and most complete age sequence of coastal dune systems in the world.

Our next stop was Eli Creek, the largest freshwater creek on the east coast of Fraser Island. It flows onto Seventy-Five Mile Beach at a whopping rate of about 4.2 million litres of water every hour! There we got out and took a few snaps. The sand is sooo soft and not hot and burny like it gets sometimes on the Spanish beaches. It was cool to the touch and absolutely gorgeous. We decided not to swim in the creek as many had done, holding off until we would come to Lake McKenzie later on.

On to the Coloured Sands/The Pinnacles. These comprise 72 different colours, mostly reds and yellows, but if you ask me it looks more like 4! Must’ve taken A LOT of analysis to decipher the colours. Back to the Maheno shipwreck and this was an interesting sight and story. It was built in Scotland in 1905 and was a luxury cruise ship that sailed between Auckland and Sydney, in 1907 actually setting the record for crossing the Tasman in 2 days 21hours. She was commissioned as a hospital ship in Europe during World War I and decommissioned as a cruise ship after the war. In July 1935 while being towed to Japan for scrapping, she was struck by an out-of -season cyclone and washed ashore. Many attempts to refloat her were failures and she became target practice for the Australian air force during World War II. There are 4 decks currently under the sand, which means it’s not going anywhere in a hurry! Haha

We partook in a bit of lunch thereafter. The Eurong Resort provided us with a hot and cold buffet that was included in the price. After our bellies were full, we headed to the last stop of the day, Lake McKenzie, for a swim. Lake McKenzie is an amazing sparkling blue lake, ringed by white sandy beaches. Upon our arrival we came cross another cheeky dingo. This guy was the bit cheekier than the last. He was rummaging through the bags of a group of young twenty-something’s, while they sat there! Not a care in the world, and not perturbed in the slightest by one guy’s attempt to shoo him off. Not withstanding the fact that there was easily two hundred or so people surrounding him on the beach, he found something he fancied, pulled it out of a bag and walked off with it, before deciding 5 yards away that he didn’t want it anymore. So on he strolled having a look at everybody else’s stuff, before slinking away into the bushes.

We had a swim in the gorgeous lake. It is an acidic lake, dependent on rainfall for the maintenance of its water level. Subsequently, despite the lovely warm weather, it was FREEZING! Haha Lovely once we were fully immersed though.

And like that our tour of Fraser Island was at an end. We boarded 4WD bus, headed back toward the ferry and soon enough we were back at the resort for more lovely dinner and drinks.

The Sunday was yet another gorgeous day. We took it upon ourselves to stroll down to Urangan Harbour. Lovely place with both working and pleasure boats filling the harbour. We had the hard job of sitting in a nice restaurant overlooking the harbour and having a nice lunch and some ice cold drinks. Life is hard let me tell you! Haha

Keep watching for more to come soon.



Additional photos below
Photos: 78, Displayed: 29


Advertisement



14th June 2009

YEAH! New blog entry and pics! THANKS!
Hi guys! So glad you took the time to write and upload some pics!! Yep, still get soooooo jelous (but also really happy for u!) Fried mars? why did you even think of trying??? no comments! Yeah, I can see life is really hard down there! MUCHOS BESOS! Elvira

Tot: 0.499s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 51; dbt: 0.2046s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb