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Published: July 15th 2006
Fraser Island
One of the main roads on the island!!I have returned unscathed from Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, and had a fantastic 3 days of driving, camping, wildlife spotting and squatting in bushes(!) with some great people.
Kathy and I arrived in Rainbow Beach on Mon 10th. After finding our room and dropping off our stuff, we headed out to explore; it didn't take us very long because there is only one street of shops/cafes and the beach!!So we had a paddle in the sea and lay on the beach to compare it to Noosa and then headed back for our Fraser Island briefing.
Here we were shown 2 videos; one was about driving on sand, dos and don'ts of camping etc and the other was a safety video showing us what to do if we encountered a dingo and what other dangers we might encounter e.g. don't swim in the sea cos its full of sharks and rays & watch out when walking on the beaches because they are being used as a 2-way road too!!). We were then split into 4 groups and had a bit of time to get to know each other and decide how much alcohol we wanted
Team C
Day 3 after we'd finished packing the car for the final time.(Take note of my outfit!) to buy from the bar to take with us (don't forget the important things!). So we went and packed our daysacks (when 11 people are all squeezed into a 4wd, there isn't much room on the roof for lots of luggage!!), had a pre-trip cocktail at the bar and then headed to bed quite early.
We were up bright and early the next morning - well, we did have 7 girls trying to shower and get ready before 7am. We loaded our cars up with all the equipment, food and drink we'd need for the next 3 days and were given a quick talk on how to drive the 4wd on sand and then it was time to set off on our adventure.
We headed in convoy to Inskip point to catch our barge over to the island and after a 15min barge trip we landed on the island which would be our home for the next 3 days. We followed the inland track for 13km before emerging onto the beach and zooming along the hard,wet sand at 80km/h until we got to Lake McKenzie. Unfortunately the weather was a bit rubbish - cool and overcast, so only a
Lake McKenzie
The crystal blue waters looked very inviting but were pretty chilly. brave few ventured into the freezing cold lake for a swim (although i did paddle up to my knees!) but the scenery was amazing and the water in the lake was crystal clear. We then drove up to the Maheno shipwreck - a huge shipwreck which is slowly disappearing into the sand, and decided to camp there overnight. We found a nice flat spot just behind the fore dune and pitched our tents. We then wandered down to the wreck as it was getting dark; the ship was looking rather ghostly in the mist and moonlight - v. 'pirates of the caribbean' but without Johnny Depp! Then it was time to cook our dinner in the dark! It was steak, homemade potato salad and salad on the menu (although we found that all meals also had another unwanted ingredient...sand!!!) and it tasted fantastic. Then plenty of 'goon' (cheap boxed wine) and beer was consumed whilst chatting and listening to music. We had a couple of four legged visitors to camp throughout the evening but after investigating and realising we weren't tasty enough and there were lots of us they would saunter off again. Although this did worry us girlies when
we needed a pee and so we all got to know each other very well very quickly as we always went in pairs or threes!
Day 2 dawned with blue skies and sunshine and so we had breakfast, did our washing up (in the sea with water and sand) and packed up the car before going down to explore the wreck and check out the coloured sands of the cliffs along the beach. We had to wait until the tide was going out and it was safe to drive on the beach (12.17pm) before we could set off for Indian Head. I decided to get behind the wheel for the first stretch and had great fun driving along the beach - it's not that different from motorway driving. Then we realised we needed to restock on ice for the eskys and fresh water so decided to stop of at Cathedral beach site which is up a steep slope covered in v.soft,deep sand and then a bumpy inland track. Well, this was not so fun and felt like i didn't have enough control in the deep sand. Found out afterwards that i drove up the middle of a 2 way
Indian Heads
It's a long way down to shark infested waters!! round when getting up the slope 😊 luckily nothing was coming the other way and from the position of some of the tyre tracks, i'd say i wasn't the only one who'd done it! Needless to say it was a bit different from pootling around at home in Fredski but i'm v.glad i did it and really enjoyed the bit on the beach.
Indian Heads is the most northern point we were allowed to drive to on the island and is meant to be the best place to spot lots of wildlife out at sea. After a short walk we came to a huge rocky outcrop which was perfect for climbing all over overhanging rocks which were hundreds of metres above the water and just sitting looking out to the ocean. Whilst there we spotted sharks, whales, dolphins, manta rays, turtles and kites. We then had our first mix-up of the trip when one of our group thought we were going straight on to visit 'Champagne Pools' and the rest of us went back to the car to prepare lunch. Unfortunately, champagne pools is a 2 hour round trip and we didn't think we would have enough time to do
How to ward off a dingo
This was us assuming the pose we were meant to do if we encountered a dingo, i'm not convinced it would do a lot! it and get to our camp site before dark and with no mobiles there was no way of letting her know. So we had a leisurely lunch and a bit of a sunbathe whilst we waited for her return. Then bombed it along the beach and got to Cornwells camping ground just before dark after a heart stopping moment on the way back past the wreck where we thought we were going to roll the car and ended up stuck in deep sand so we all had to jump out and dig out the sand behind the wheels and then we were on our way again!
We were v.glad that the tents were really easy to pitch, even in the dark and we got them up really quickly and unloaded the car. It was then time to cook dinner again, chicken and vege stirfry with rice, which sounded simple enough but turned into a seriously memorable aspect of our trip. Whilst some of us chopped the vege, the others put the rice on to cook. Then we started to fry the onion, garlic and some of the vege. We only started to suspect something was wrong when the contents
Lake Wabby
To get an idea of scale, those little dots on the dune are people. of the pan began to froth and foam. Ooooops, we'd put washing up liquid not oil in the pan because the bottle wasn't labelled! So after throwing that away, we managed to cook the remainder of the meal without any further mishaps and the end result was v.tasty if slightly delayed. After several hours of drinking games, chatting and dancing in the dark we retired to our tents for the night to try and get some sleep.
Day 3 started quite cloudy but still nice and warm so we made ourselves a breakfast of fried egg sandwiches-yep, shock horror, i now eat eggs(oh, and raw tomatoes)(!!!) and the leftover remaining food and then packed up camp before setting off on a v.v.v.v.bumpy inland track to Lake Wabby. We all got to experience our first 'dunny' when we arrived at the car park but hey, at least we had walls around us for a change!! We then walked to Lake Wabby which is a huge sand dune with a fresh water lake at the bottom. We ran around on the soft, deep, powdery sand slopes like small children until we were exhausted and then hiked back to the car 😊
Carlo Sandblow, Rainbow Beach
It was rather windy up there! It was then time to head back to the barge and the end of our adventure. We made it back to the hostel, unpacked our car and got the tour guys to check we hadn't damaged 'their baby' before checking back into our rooms. Then it was time for the first, much needed shower in 3 days which we all agreed could possibly have been one of the best showers we'd ever had!!!It was soooooo nice to feel clean, look clean and smell nice again 😊 We all collapsed into our beds pretty early and went into comas until the following morning.
Most of our group are heading up to 'The town of 1770'(cool name, huh?!) for a day or two so plan to have a bit of a reunion in th hostel there. Kathy and I decided to spend an extra night here at Rainbow Beach last night to fully recover. (Interesting fact - Rainbow Beach is named after the coloured sand cliffs here. In an aboriginal legend the cliffs were coloured when 'Yinigie', the spirit of the Gods representing Rainbow, was killed in a fight, spreading his colourful spirit across the sands.) In the morning we checked out the Carlo Sandblow which was pretty impressive. It is a big sand dune on the top of the cliffs which runs down to the beach and has great views over to Fraser Island and Double Island point. The afternoon we used to catch up on our journals and relax.
We are catching our bus to 'Agnes Water' (town next to 1770) later on today. Then we plan to head to Rockhampton and then Airlie Beach to do our trips to the Whitsundays.
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Carly
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Hello there, GOD it's hot, I'm sitting here in my underwear. Thinking of you with your bad weather and wishing we had abit. Sound's like your having an even better time than before, if that's possible. Work's ok. Sarahs left, Charlottes had her 18th Birthday. Vicki the locum is here....but now shes going......nightmare. Claire Lamb was in today, Mels had a baby girl, 7lbs at 9pm 19/7/06. So same as usual really. Anyway keep up the good work, think your next job should be a travel writer, feels as though we're there too. Loads of love Carly and all the Birds. xxx