Wednesday 10th January – Fraser Island Day Tour

I understand that the guys who wanted to party and chat all night didn’t know that I had to get up at 530am but they should’ve been more considerate in any case if you ask me. Especially seeing as it was 3am when they STARTED (and 430am when they finally called it a night).  I just lay there thinking that they must shut up soon and adamantly telling myself that I wouldn’t let tiredness ruin my day on Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the World.  There are numerous ways and tours you can take to see Fraser but, due to the normal constraints of lack of time and money, we had managed to secure two cut-price passes for a long day tour.

We were picked up on our special massive 4X4 truck-thingamy by our driver, Brock, at 630am in Noosaville and as the only twosome in the whole party, we were selected to sit up front for the day.  These turned out to be the best seats in the house to enjoy the experience and get the best photographs.  There was one more pick-up before the bus was completely full and we headed to our first ferry of the day – a two-minute crossing of the Noosa river on a cable barge. 

The Noosa River Ferry

The coloured sand cliffs at Rainbow Beach and Simon modelling our wheels for the day

Then we hit the beach highway all the way along to Rainbow Beach, so called because of its multi-coloured sand cliffs, where we had our first tea stop and leg stretch of the day (above).  We were following another matching Discovery Tours truck so that meant we could get images of what we were experiencing.  It was higher up in that cab than I thought, as I half leapt, half fell onto the sand.

We continued, at speed, up the beach.  These guys have specialist training to know how to handle both the terrain and the vehicles.  Anyone can drive a 4X4 vehicle on the beach road with a permit but it seemed a regular occurrence during the day to see someone stuck in deep, loose sand so I was happy we were travelling with an expert.

The beach highway stretched ahead for miles...

Aboard the Fraser Island Ferry

Up to another point and we joined the queue for the second ferry crossing, this time to Fraser Island itself.  Again, this was a very brief crossing of barely five minutes.  There are only two ferry crossing points onto Fraser.  We were arriving at the Southern tip, whilst you can also arrive on the west coast via a 45-minute ferry from near Hervey Bay. 

Once on the island, we did some more speedy sand-highway driving up the east coast whilst the tide was out, before turning through Eurong, the main island resort which originated as a timber-logging base.  From then on the speed of the driving plummeted as we hit single-track bumpy sand tracks weaving through the forest whilst also having to negotiate with traffic coming in the other direction.  Most of the time we were the larger of the two vehicles, so won that battle! The roads at times were horrendous but with the constantly shifting sands of the terrain all you can do is use a suitable vehicle and take them as you find them I guess.  This video will hopefully give you a taste of why we were happy to be in the front of the truck instead of the bouncy seats at the back.... (stuffed dingo is driver's own)

A typical 'road' on Fraser Island

It felt much later, but was only about 1045am when we reached Lake McKenzie, our stopping point for a swim and lunch. The Water was refreshing but not overly cold.  Lunch was then a build-your-own wrap out of a large selection of meat, salad and sauces.  

View of Lake McKenzie from the shore and, below, from the water...

Back on the road, our next destination was called Central Station.  They tried building a railway here to get supplies to different parts of the island but the shifting sands made it impossible to make it work.  The idea was shelved but the name stuck. For us, it was the starting point for a walk through some ancient rainforest.  The species of fern and trees found here were around in the age of the dinosaur and this is one of only two places on Earth where you can find such tall, well-established trees growing in sand alone.  The crescendo of the cicadas in the foliage around us was impactive. I attempted to get some video footage to capture it. 

The giant trunk of a Satanay tree

Apart from the odd lizard and skink we failed to find any other native fauna but the flora along the pristine creek was impressive. 

Stunning rainforest

Having been rewarded for our efforts with refreshments it was time to start the lengthy return journey to Noosa.  Luckily, the tides today were kind to us and left just enough space for us to drive back along the beaches all of the way.  I wasn’t sure about taking the tour from so far away from Fraser but in fact this turned out to be a bonus.  There is no way we could have visited the beaches we have got to experience today in the ‘Cyber Punk’!  When we continue our journey north tomorrow, it will seem dull travelling on boring tarmac in comparison to today!

Sadly, we never got to see a dingo on the island.  It sounds like their numbers here have gone into steep decline after a tragic incident in the 2000s when a 5-year-old boy was killed by a pack of them.  There was a cull following this incident.  The dingoes had to pay, despite the cause of this tragedy probably being human error, but now there are strict guidelines limiting visitors to eating food only in fenced off areas.  This, coupled with hefty fines for anyone caught breaking the rules or feeding the wildlife is hoped to keep dingo and human more distant from each other.  Now there are believed to be less than 300 on the island the most evidence we saw of them was some tracks in the sand.

The journey back to Noosa was as enjoyable as the outward journey.  I don’t think you could ever get bored of speeding along the sand with breaking waves on one side and the sun reflecting off the coloured cliffs on the other.   

We were dropped back by our car shortly before 530pm and only had a couple of minutes on the road back to the riverside campsite where tonight we actually had a pitch to ourselves, in a hopefully more peaceful location than last night.