Fraser Island

We booked a day tour to Fraser island, murray our driver picked us and two German couples up bright and early. To get to Fraser island we had to take a ferry, whilst we waited for the ferry Murray let the air out of the tyres on his 4x4 to spread the load better on the sand. Fraser island is the biggest sand island in the world and one of free places where rainforest grows on sand. Plants can grow on the sand here due to a fungus called Mycorrhiza which makes nutrients available to plant roots.

Arriving on the island we drove on  bumpy sand packed roads through the forest to Lake McKenzie. This lake sits on a layer of compacted sand that stops it draining away. It is high on the island and is fed solely by rain water. Despite the overcast weather it still looked stunning and swimming in it the water was warm due its shallow depth and sweet. That day it was crammed with German tourists, in Australia they seem to mainly travel in groups of ten plus which often makes them overwhelming in a hostel kitchen or a tourist spot like this.

Back in the 4x4 Murray was telling us about the forest and the island, he was very knowledgeable and had clearly been doing this for a while. He brought us to an abandoned timber cutting settlement that once cut and transported timber by railway to the mainland. Reading the information boards here i read that the British settlers had given the island back to the natives as a reserve only to take it back on discovery of the valuable timber that it contained the very next year. This kind of treatment of the aboriginies seems to have been a common theme in much of Australia. 

This area had a board walk running parallel to it and a stream where you can walk by and over the stream. Streams here are striking because the water is clear and beneath instead of the mud in English streams is orange sand.

Onwards from there we bumped and bumped and bumped along to to beach on the east side of the island. This beach is immense at 75 miles long and very wide at low tide. Wide that is unless the weather is terrible, which it was, water was driven in by the wind. This gave us only about ten feet to drive on, this worried murray because further up the beach streams make the beach difficult to pass at high water levels.

We came to Eli Creek where you can swim down from slightly inland into the sea. It was cold so only I and a one of the german guys took the plunge. The creek was cold but it was cool to float down through a rainforest.

Now came the test of murrays driving skill and 4x4. A creek further along the beach was washed by big waves every minute or so. At first murray was reluctant to cross but was shamed by two big 4x4 buses crossing before him. Timing it carefully he crossed with no problems.

This meant we could go far north enough to see the wreck of a ship bought by the japanese in the 1930s as scrap that had become stuck in a storm. The ship had been used as target practice by the australian military and rusted down over the years but was still cool to see.

Further north still was an area of cliffs called the coloured sand cliffs. Although in the rain they werent as impressive as i imagine they are on a normal day.

On our way back to the mainland we saw  what i was hoping to see most of all, a wild dingo. 

All in all a great day, probably a lot better on a sunny day but well worth a visit anyway.