Fraser Island

One day in Hervey Bay and we had booked ourselves onto the barge to take us over to Fraser Island!

It took us just 45 minutes to cross the Great Sandy Strait from River Heads, to Kingfisher Bay. This is where we started our dog leg adventure of the largest sand island in the world. Altogether, we steered clear of the west coast, owing to recent reports of a big school of jelly fish just off the coast. First stop was Lake McKenzie, apparently the most photographed spot on the island. (I don't know how they could possibly verify that!). The lake itself was lovely, but the journey to it was AWESOME. There are no metal tracks on the Island, just sand, so our transport was a German engineered 4x4 beast that is essentially a 'cut and shut' of a lorry and a bus on steroids. Travel was like a roller-coaster with no safety features driven by a tour guide that was the splitting image of Locke from the series 'Lost'. If anyone has seen 'Lost', you will understand our concerns :)

Over the next day or two we ventured out onto the eastern beach, the 75 Mile Beach (that is 49 miles long). Our driver had a screw loose and drove at 80 kmph along the beach dodging dingoes and washed up trees. We journeyed at speed along the beach from Yidney Rocks, through Eli Creek (where we stopped for a swim), past the Pinnacles (a colourful sand phenomena) and to the Northern most point of Cathedral Beach at Waddy Point. After a quick dip in the Champagne Pools we headed back down the coast leaving plenty of time on route to admire the Maheno Shipwreck. The ship itself is huge, and most of it was submerged under the sand. It was really cool to get up and close to such a large shipwreck, without the need for oxygen and flippers :).

Fraser Island is very much a must see in this part of the world. For us, the wild dingoes and the great wealth of knowledge that our tour guide 'Locke' had to offer made it pretty memorable. For the night, we stayed in an elevated wood cabin high above the rainforest which was pretty sweet but I clocked double figures in mozzie bites that night, despite 80% Bushman deet!

Enjoy the piccies, and wish us luck finding some volunteering further down the coast! (Maybe helping with the flood damage?)

Over and out.