Fraser Island

Keiji and I took part in a 2-day tour in Fraser Island. They also offer self-drive tours for young people and I think I would´ve preferred one of those over our organized tour, but unfortunately we didn´t have time for a longer tour. Ours was good, though, and we saw all the main attractions...

Monday 23.7. A tour bus came to pick us up from our hostel quite early in the morning, and after picking up some more people we drove to the wharf to take a ferry over to Fraser Island. It´s the worlds largest sand island streching for 124kms, built of 600m deep sand, on which everything grows. It has been World Heritage listed since 1992 and they´re actually considering to begin restricting the number of tourists allowed to enter the island, to protect its nature. It definately is a beautiful island with diverse nature: long beaches, pristine lakes and green rainforests. Anyways, after spending half an hour on the ferry we arrived in the island, where our 4WD busses were waiting for us. Our tour bus was full: It was 48 of us altogether. I found a nice seat at the very back of the bus, accompanied by Vicky from London and these three British guys. Keiji sat next to some Asian guy right in front of us. All the driving tracks on the island are pretty narrow and really bumpy! That´s why all vehicles operating there must be 4WD, which is the only way to get around there, besides walking and landing on the beach with small aeroplanes.

Our first stop was at Wanggoolba Greek, where we took a 3km long walk through a sub-tropical rainforest. Our guide explained us about all the different vegetation on the island. It´s amazing how many different plants grow on the sand! The walk was really nice indeed. After finishing it we drove to Eurong Beach Resort for a buffee lunch. It was so many different dishes I can´t remember the last time I had eaten so much! After lunch we drove along the 75km long beach, which is also a highway. The speed limit is 80km/h, and there is actually quite a lot of traffic there with all the tour busses and smaller vehicles. Many people go fishing there, too. Our destination was Maheno Shipwreck, a rustic hull of an old ship. It was built in Ireland as early as 1904 and sailed between Sydney and Auckland (New Zealand) before serving as a hospital ship during WW1. It was purchased by a Japanese steel company in 1935, and they broke it in parts before intending to move it. However, it got broken so badly it couldn´t sail anymore and was left behind. So it ended up staying on Fraser Island, where it´s a tourist attraction nowadays. After taking pictures of the hull we drove to Eli Creek, which is a small river with shallow water. Many people walked in the water, but I was too lazy to take off my hiking boots (no idea why I had decided to wear them on such a warm day).

Rainforest at Wanggoolba Greek

Maheno shipwreck

Then it was time for our last activity; going to Lake Wabby. It was my favorite part of the whole tour! We drove there along the beach highway, and saw a whale swimming in the ocean. To get to the lake we had to walk some 2,5km on a sandy path. The lake was absolutely beautiful: a high sand hill, clear (green) water and green rainforest on the other side. The sun was shining and the lake was very well sheltered from wind. I wish I had been wearing my bikini since I would´ve loved to go swimming. Keiji and I walked up the sand hill to walk on wide sand dunes behind it and take some pictures. I also kept climbing up the hill and running down to the water, which was a lot of fun! Too soon it was time to head back to the bus. We walked back bare feet across Hammerstone Sandblow, which was a nice sandy path.

Lake Wobby

Running on sand dunes

Back at the resort we checked in to our rooms, which were really nice. Keiji and I shared a room with a British couple. After taking showers we had the most delicious buffee dinner with meat, pasta, fish and chicken, and pudding for dessert :P Then we spent the rest of the night at Beach Bar chatting with our room mates, Vicky and another couple from South Africa. They had been traveling a lot around the world and had many interesting stories to tell. Since the most popular animal on the island is dingo, and you´re supposed to run into them all the time (according to all the warning signs that you can find everywhere) I had excepted to actually see some. I was a bit dissappointed I hadn´t, so I convinced the others to come to the dark beach with me for a dingo search before going to bed. Unfortunately we saw none.

Tuesday 24.7. It felt so luxurous waking up in the morning and getting out of bed without feeling cold! After a big English breakfast (bacon, eggs, beans, toast, sausages, fruit etc) we drove to Indian Head, which is a rock formation and one of the islands best lookouts. The weather was once again excellent and we spent an hour just climbing up there and sitting around enjoying the view. It was quite a long drive there, so on our way there we stopped to take some more pictures of the Maheno ship during low tide, and on our way back we took a look at the Coloured Sands. They were basically just rock formations with different coloring. Then it was time to enjoy our last delicious meal, which was barbeque lunch, and we bought ice cream for dessert.

Indian Head

This day was a lot less busy than the previous one. We drove to Lake McKenzie. I thought I wanted to swim so I changed to my bikini, all prepared to enjoy the beach. But when we got there it was pretty windy and the sun kept going away. So I kept my clothes on, and we left for a walk with Keiji and Vicky. We didn´t get far, though, but ended up sitting on the sand a bit further away from all the other people (it was quite a lot of tourists there). We spent the whole time just chatting and enjoying the view. The lake was beautiful indeed with the bluest water and whitest sand ever. Our guide told us the water has such a low hp-level it actually cleans and conditions your hair just as well as any shampoo. And the white sand can be used to clean jewellery, because it´s 98% silicon. Unfortunately I had no jewellery with me so I couldn´t try.

Lake McKenzie

After staying at the lake for almost two hours it was time to end our tour and drive back to the ferry. We got to spend some more time on the bumpy roads. Just as we got back to the bus it started raining. I can´t believe how lucky we were with the weather! The weather forecast had promised cloudy and rain for both Monday and Tuesday, but instead we had sunshine :) It definately made the tour a lot more enjoyable and left me with a really good impression about Fraser Island. So, we took the ferry back to Hervey Bay and we dropped off at our hostel, where we had some dinner and watched one last movie; Remember the Titans.