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There was a point during our trip to Fraser Island where we were sitting on a beach with nothing but the moon for light and nothing to see but sand for 20 miles either side of us and I was feeling really frustrated for some reason and couldn't figure out why so I told the rest of the group to see if anyone else was the same. One of the girls in the group said,
"it's because unless you're here, you can't tell anyone else how amazing this is"
That pretty much sums up Fraser Island.
Fraser Island is the world's largset sand island. It does exactly what it says on the tin as well, it is just sand, pure and simple. To get around Fraser Island, the hostels group you together in a group of ten people, give you a spanking new Toyota Land Cruiser and send you off to explore the place. We were given a briefing as soon as we arrived at the hostel regarding the island, do's and dont's that sort of thing and were then given a sample shopping list to go to the local shop and get our food for the
next three days. Now 10 strangers thrown together and then told to go off and shop for three days sounds like a bit of a recipe for disaster but everyone quickly got chatting and there were no particlularly picky eaters, so it was decided to split up the group, some folk looking after breakfasts, some folk looking after spag bol, some folk looking after the barbecue etc etc, dead diplomatic it was. It also gave everyone a chance to get to know each other before spending three days crow-barred into a 4x4 for three days.
The shopping completed, it was back to the hostel for drinks and a natter at the bar. There were 2 Scots, 2 Irish, 4 folk from Englandshire, 1 German and Justus (pronounced yoostoos, but everyone ended calling him Justice. As in fight for.) from Holland. John and I entered the killer pool competition and Lee got chatting with a few of the others out the back. I think everyone could tell from the start that we were pretty lucky with the group we had as everyone got on pretty well.
We were up at 8 the next morning to get our 4x4 checked
out. We are given a list of everything that we should be given and we have to unload it from the jeep and then pack it all back on again, ticking all the equipment off as we went. It was then next door to the other hostel where we and 4 other 40 other travellers to Fraser Island were given a fairly entertaining briefing from the ranger about how to drive in sand, how to dig ourselves out, and how to make yourselves comfy if you wanted to sleep on top of the jeeps ("don't come a-knockin' if the jeeps a-rockin'" was his party piece, but it seemed to go down well). By this time all eeryone wanted to was to get in the jeep and take off for the island but the drivers had to get a few extra tips for driving in the sand from our "fair dinkum" ausie ranger (everyone is "fair dinkum" over here)
The ferry crossing from Rainbow Beach to Fraser Island only takes about 10 minutes so your driving skillsare put to the test straight away. There are no roads on the island so the beach is the highway, you drive on the
left and the speed limit is 80kph. The beach itself is over 70 miles long and we were given an itinerary to follow so that we could see the best sights of the island.
ur first stop was at Lake Mackenzie, a natural fresh water lake that is about an hours drive from the ferry stop. It's stunning. t's not really big enough to call it a lake to be honest , it's more like a lagoon, but the water in it was about as clear as you'll find anywhere. You can go in up to your neck and your feet are as clear through the water as they are out of it. Aso, because the lake is fresh water, there is no salt content, so treading water becomes so much more difficult. I think a few of the guys would have been happy to just stay there for the three days, but we hopped back into the jeep and headed off to make camp for the evening.
Every so often on the beach there are areas which have been designated as camping spots so the idea was to find one before they were all taken and before
it got dark, which happens really quickly. There are official campsites on the island but these have a 9 o'clock curfew so they were quickly ruled out. There was some serious wine drinking to be done and we would need a little longer than 9 o'clock to complete this. Jenny, from Essex, couldn't seem to understand that wouldn't be anywhere near a shower for this trip and she kept asking about it and got the same answer every time but it wasn't sinking in, "If you want to be near a shower, you'll need to go to bed at 9 o'clock". Te 4x4's are all equipped with MP3 player ports so we could all plug in our music and listen to stuff that everyone liked so that was us for the evening.
One thiing that the guides hadn't explaied about Fraser Island is the sunset. I don't think we've ever seen one quite like it. The sun disappears in about half an hour, just drops right out of the sky so it's pretty spectacular. The best bit about it though is that about 20 minutes later, the moon rises from the ocean. It comes up pretty quickly and when
it first appears it is bright orange so all the light you have is the bright orange glow from the moon and it slowly gets more and morre white as it gets overhead. This was the point where we were all sitting on the beach speechless. You really have to see ti to believe it. There are photos here but they don't do it justice. One of the highlights of our trip so far we reckon.
Our second day we had to get to a place called Lake Wabby, a smaller but more spectacular lake further up the island. The brochure says it is a 1.8km walk from the beach to the lake but that's al it says. What it doesn't tell you is that the walk consits of about 0.5km of treck through the woods followed by another hike the rest of the way over these massive sand dunes. You go from the jungle to the desert in about three strides. It's one of the toughest walks we've ever done, especially as there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was well into the 30's by this time. By the time we got to the lake,
Lee just dumped all her gear in my arms and just ran down the rest of the dune and jumped straight into the water as she was so hot. The lake itself is freezing for some reason and within about two feet of the waters edge, you are neck deep as the drop is so steep. Lake Wabby was wicked and we stayed for about two hours so that we could all give our feet time to stop swelleing up. Dueto the fact that everyone took their shoes off, you were walking through ankle deep sand that had been baking in the sun for 7 hours. Your feet didn't burn exactly, but the heat from the sand just made the swell right up. The walk back was better as it was mostly downhill, but you could see the look on other peoples faces coming the other way that just said "we're dying here, this lake better be worth the walk".
Our next destination was Indian Heads which are cliffs at the furthest point of the island that you can drive to. The cliffs are about 200ft high and they jut right out into the ocean. The advantage of this
is that you can sit at the top of the cliffs and watch sharks feeding, manta rays cruising past and the odd turtle, doing whatever turtles do. Indian Heads was also our first encounter witht e famous Fraser Island dingoes. They are the purest breed of dingoes in Australia as they can't breed with anything else. They are scavengers which means there are heavy penalties for anyone leaving food out at night as they will basically be invaded by the dingoes if they think there is food there. They will come up and check you out and we had a few sniffing at the tent at night but you are constantly warned to keep away form them. They have been known to attack small children that are left alone so folk do keep their distance.
Our final campsite for the trip was at the wreck of an old steamship that had been beached around the 1950's and the purpose of camping there was to catch the sunrise over the wreck at about 05.00. This was made somewhat more difficult by the amount of wine that was consumed that nght but we managed it. It was pretty sepctacular strolling along
the beach to the wreck, no noise, no cars and just the ocean washing up around your feet (check me out gettin' aw misty-eyed here) and we got some great photos of the sunrise while we were there. I also managed to get dressed in the dark, but for some reason, I put Lee's shorts on instead of my own. I reckon I suit them actually.
Due to the tides, you are unable to drive before 12 noon so we had a wee lie-in after the sunrise and then headed off to Eli Creek. Eli Creek is a let down to be honest, the creek itself is only about a hundred yards long and knee high in water so the best thing we could do at this place was just get the towels out and sunbathe for a while. A couple of the boys were that bored they raced their water bottles to the ocean, but then they got bored of that as well and just crashed out. We headed home to Rainbow each at about two o'clock as there is only one ferry pick up per day, and you have to get your jeep checked at the garage
and clean all the tents and pots and pans before you can go back to the hostel. There is no feeling like getting into a showers and instead of water running into the plughole all you see is sand. It got everywhere so the water restruictions kinda went out the window so that we could all get clean again. We all headed out to finish off out leftover drinks from the trip and said our goodbyes to everyone which was nice. Some were staying, some were going North and some were going South so hopefully we will meet up with the guys further up the coast.
Fraser Island is one of the most spectacular places we've ever seen and it was a wee bit unexpected as well which made it all the more nicer. I don't think we'll ever forget it to be honest.
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Daddio
non-member comment
That's better
Now this is what you are really travelling for (is it no?).