Hervey Bay and Fraser Island

Richard posing in the campervan in 1770!
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We set off just before the sunrise from Sarina and managed to drive 500km by lunchtime, which made it possible to take a detour to Town of 1770 where James Cook landed in the year 1770.  The 'town' is tiny, consisting of a small beach and marina, a cafe and a small residential area overlooking the ocean.  It was really beautiful and we were glad to have made it there.  We had lunch in the cafe before setting off for Hervey Bay, arriving at dusk.  We settled into the Coconut Grove Caravan Park, where there seemed to be more permanent residents than tourists, but it was cheap so we didn't care!

75 Mile Beach
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The next morning we were the first pick-up because we were furthest out of the way, but got a good tour of Hervey Bay.  Every other street seemed to be named after somewhere in the South West of England, with Exeter Street, Taunton Street and even a large area of the town called Torquay!  We were dropped at the dock at River Head and caught the boat over to Fraser Island where Captain Kangaroo was waiting for us in his 4WD coach!

The lake was absolutely beautiful with white sandy beaches surrounding the pure, deep blue freshwater lake.

Wreck of the Maheno
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We were almost the last ones onto the coach and couldn't get a seat together, but it didn't really matter because Captain Kangaroo was talking the whole time and we were sat next to some nice people anyway!  Hollie had the middle seat on the back row, which gave a great view of the 'road' and was a lot of fun as everyone at the back bounced into the air over the big bumps!

We drove to Central Station in the middle of the island, which was once the centre of the logging community.  Fortunately the management of the island was excellent, limiting the size and number of trees felled very strictly, which made it impossible for us to see the difference between areas that had been harvested 40 years ago and others that were never touched.

Aerial view of Fraser Island
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After a short walk through the forest (no leaches to worry about this time!) we carried on to Eurong Beach resort on the East of the island.  As we approached, the Captain pointed out the 'dingo-proof' fence that was under construction around the resort and made his feelings known that it wouldn't work and that the Dingos aren't a problem anyway.  Inside the fence we found a couple of dingos that had strolled in from the beach straight across the cattle grid!  It was a stupid design because it just filled up with sand anyway, but apparently they had trialed an electrified version, which the dingos just jumped across instead!

The Maheno from the air
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We left Eurong and drove onto the 75 Mile Beach, which is now called The Great Sandy Highway and is actually classified as a highway!  The only differences between The Great Sandy Highway and all other highways in the world are that pedestrians have right of way, cars can pass on either side of the 'road' and planes can land and take off anywhere along it!

We made our way North to Eli Creek through which, 4 million litres of water flows every hour from one of the freshwater lakes on the island.  We went for a paddle and waded up the freezing cold stream, which soon became quite deep!

Lake Mackenzie
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It started to rain a bit so we jumped back on the bus and headed to the wreck of the Maheno, an old cruise liner that used to sail between Australia and New Zealand and was sold to a Japanese company after many years of service.  On the way to Japan the ship was caught in a storm and washed up on the beach.  Two attempts to free the ship from the sand failed, so the new owners held an auction, selling everything from the doors to the salt and pepper pots before leaving the ship to rust!  During WWII the Australian Military used the ship for bombing and limpit-mine practice.  Amazingly, the ship has remained fairly intact and still very much resembles a ship, although it flexed and swayed with every crashing wave!  We both got a bit wet after wading too far into the waves to take a few photos!

Captain Kangaroo!
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After that we arranged to go on a plane ride over the island and were dropped off with 6 others, while the bus continued up to the coloured sands.  It was a strange sensation taking off from the beach, but it was great fun as the pilot flew close over our coach, presumably to scare Captain Kangaroo!  The flight was just 20 minutes long but we had an amazing view of the lakes and the rainforest, which looked like a huge congregation of broccoli!  We also flew over the shipwreck and up to the coloured sands.  The landing was the smoothest of all our flights so far and we seemlessly rejoined the coach as the second plane group came screaming overhead, scaring the Captain even more than we had suspected!

We made our way back to Eurong for lunch, which was a big 'smorgasbord' (buffet).  Richard made it an all you can eat smorgasbord, which impressed our new friends.  Once we'd explained about our indulgences on the sailing trip they were less surprised!

After lunch we made our way along some very bumpy tracks to Lake Mackenzie where we spent the rest of the afternoon.  The lake was absolutely beautiful with white sandy beaches surrounding the pure, deep blue freshwater lake.  The sight was even more spectacular than Whitehaven Beach!

The ferry shipped us back to the mainland where we found Captain Kangaroo waiting to drive us back to Hervey Bay.  Of course, we were the last drop off, but it was a lot quicker than the morning round and we got some nice views of the sunset across the bay.

In the evening we went in search of an internet cafe to get the phone number of one of Richard's old coursemates, Chris who was in Brisbane where we would soon be stopping.  We walked for almost an hour without finding anything before Hollie suggested we try his English mobile.  Surprisingly, Chris answered the phone, which made it even more annoying that we had walked miles for no reason!  We arranged to meet the next night where he was staying with some more of our friends from home, Gary and Kate who settled into jobs and a house in Brisbane 3 months ago.

We wandered back to the campsite trying to take the positives from such a long walk and Hollie even summoned the strength to cook before we finally got to crash out in bed!  (After constructing it of course!)