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December 27, 2005
Fraser Island trip....finally
Alright, so I did the Fraser Island 4WD self-drive tour on December 19-21, but I haven't had the time to write about it til now cause I now work at the hostel.
The preparation for the trip started the day before as we had a meeting with our group to hear about some of the dangers of driving on the island, our basic itinerary. Then we planned our meals and a couple of us went shopping. Turns out Ravid and Verad, the Islraeli couple that were on my Whitsundays trip were also in my Fraser tour group. Verad and I headed off for the most stressful shopping ever invented. It's not fun to try and buy food for 9 people for a 3 day camping trip on a budget of $20 per person. In retrospect, we did rather well cause I've since seen other groups try it (it's part of my job to take the shoppers over to Woolworth's) and they take much longer and actually look more stressed out.
The first day of the tour was an early one, up at 6am to pack up the trucks and watch a video of some of the accidents that backpackers have caused while on the island. The speech is a little over the top but does the trick cause there really is no better recipe for disaster than 9-10 backpackers cruising along the beach in a 3.5 tonnes Landcruiser with the roofrack loaded up with gear and food.
We drove down to Rivers Head to catch the barge over to the island. After a 30 minute cruise they dropped the gate and we drove off into the sandy wilderness. Driving on the island is a blast. The Landcruisers are tough, beefy 4WD with a 4.2L diesel engine that's got heaps of balls. The first stop of the day was Lake Mackenzie, a freshwater lake created by water being forced inwards on the island. The seawater is filtered by the sand leaving lakewater so clear that 10-15m visibility is possible on a calm day and the water is relatively drinkable. On top of that the sand is so white and fine that the beach easily could compete with Whitehaven beach for beauty. We did up some sandwiches for lunch and were off to the east coast of the island for our first taste of beach driving.
Once we hit the beach at Eurong we cruised along the water's edge (cause that's where you find the hard sand) up to the wreck of the Maheno, a cruiseliner built in 1905 (second largest in the world at that time) and washed ashore during a cyclone in 1935. It's a pretty cool sight as over the years, more and more sand has been washed onto the island so the wreck is being covered with more and more sand. I only noticed it when looking at older tourist photos of the wreck and noticing how different they were from mine. It was also at this point that I realized how crappy it is trying to take peaceful, serene photos of a tourist attraction. You want to get a nice pic with the wreck sitting in front of the endless stretch of beach or with the ocean in the background, but there's always somebody running around the wreck or walking in and out of the frame, ruining a nice shot. I hate tourists....(and yes, I realize the irony of it, that doesn't mean that they/we are any less annoying).
After the Maheno we cruised up to Dundubara to the campground where we were to spend our first night. Typical camping stuff ensued - the heavenly 'pssshhht' sound of beercans being opened, tents were set up, a fire started and food prepared. In the end, that whole $20 per person for food turned into $23/pn but that was alright cause we ate really well. The first night was corn on the cob, sliced spuds (more Aussie slang) done in garlic butter and steaks marinated in a little salt, pepper and worchestershire sauce.....if it's spelt wrong I don't care cause no one pronounces it the same way in Canada so I'm sure the Aussie pronounciation is completely off the wall. A good time was had that night around the campfire.
Note: Camping on Fraser Island, you will discover that sandflies are quite annoying. They are, however, a little on the slow side so it's always fun to catch them and feed them to the very, very large spiders that seem to be everywhere....including the men's urinals...always a shock when you're half awake taking a leak and discover a 10cm spider only half a meter from your face.
The next morning we packed up camp and headed to Indian Head, a giant point on the east coast where you can see mantas, sharks, turtles and dolphins...although we only saw some manta rays and a few turtles. From Indian Head we cruised up to the champagne pools, where waves crash over the rocks creating pools of seawater that are safe to swim in (you can't swim on the beach because of the sharks and a killer riptide). Stefan (a German in our group) and I had a good time climbing up on the rocks and getting pounded by the surf. In the pic below (coming soon), you can barely make out where I am, and Stefan is completely engulfed by the water...which also carried him a couple solid meters away when I looked around after the wave hit. Rockin good time...yes, that pun was intended. After all, it's something cheesey that my parents would say, so I figured if there reading this as well they'll enjoy some humour for the old...er.
After hanging around the pools for a bit we headed back down the eastern coast to Eli Creek, a freshwater creek that dumps 4 million litres of water out to the ocean every hour. They've got a boardwalk set up so you can walk 500m upstream and then body surf out to the beach. Another lunch spent there and then south again to Rainbow Gorge to check out the massive dunes. It was breath-taking to see so much sand. Closest I've been to a desert...except that all around us were trees. Fact of the day:....hmmm, scratch that, Rumour of the day: it is speculated that there is more sand on Fraser Island than in the Sahara Desert.
Pictures are worth a thousand words so they say...(who is 'they'? if me and some mates got together, we'd be referred to as they, could we then come up with a saying like Canadians are damn sexy....so they (now being us) say?)....wow, I just lost myself. I think I was trying to say, just look at my pictures cause it's damn obvious I'm not eloquently descriptive in my writing.
The second night we camped out in a little spot just off the beach and chilled out with some other groups that we camping there. Another good feast, this time chicken chili pasta. We weren't allowed a campfire (Dundubara is the only one where fire is allowed) so we went down to the beach and chilled out under the almost full moon. It was pretty sweet, with the only light coming from the moon, a few ships far off on the ocean and the occasional flashlight needed to find where we set down our beers. Almost forgot, there may have been some light provided by flashes of flaming sambucas....
Another early morning breakfast of cornflakes and we were off to Lake Wabbe, which turned out to be a 2.5km hike inland. Well worth it to see a giant sandblow encroaching on the island's deepest lake. Spent a few hours just hanging out in the water and on the dune and we were off to catch one last glimpse and swim in Lake Mackenzie before catching the barge at 2:30pm.
The trip on the barge back to the mainland was filled with mixed emotions. It was an incredible trip, even though we didn't see any dingos (the campsite beside us did, but we didn't) or sharks or dolphins. But there was something missing, I don't know what it was but I just felt that at somepoint I had to go back to the island. Which is why I'm still in Hervey Bay working for the hostel that sent me to Fraser the first time. I will be going back, cause I want to see those dingos.
Posted by Dr.Unk at December 27, 2005 7:18 PM
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