Fraser Island

Beautifully clear Lake Mackenzie
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We arrived in Hervey Bay and booked a one day tour for Fraser Island.  We debated a bit over 1 day vs. 2 day vs. 3 day and they have guided tours and self guided and all that, but we decided to go for the one day guided based on cost and time (basically exactly what we are basing the majority of our decisions on).  We ended up booking through one of the local hostels (Fraser Roving Hostel) and the guy asked where we could be picked up and we weren't sure because we hadn't scouting out any potential camping or sleeping in the car places yet.  He said we could camp on the hostel grounds and use all the facilities for $10 between us - that is the deal of the century for Australian accommodation, which is normally quite expensive.

Rainbow Cliffs along the 75 mile beach
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I was super excited to go to Fraser Island, we had heard nothing but great things about it. Fraser Island - stretching over 123 Kms along the southern coast of Queensland. Fraser Island with an area of 184 000 hectares is the largest sand island in the world.

Fraser Island's World Heritage listing means it is protected for all to appreciate and enjoy. Fraser island is a place of exceptional beauty, with its long uninterrupted white beaches flanked by strikingly coloured sand cliffs, and over 100 freshwater lakes, some tea-coloured and others clear and blue all ringed by white sandy beaches. Ancient rainforests grow in sand along the banks of fast-flowing, crystal-clear creeks. Fraser Island is the only place in the world where tall rainforests are found growing on sand dunes at elevations of over 200 meters, it's pretty cool, normally nothing grows out of sand.  We knew it was a sand island but since we were driving around on it all day we expected that there would be a few roads.  There are roads...and they are made out of sand...which is why you can only go around the island with a 4-wheel drive

Rainforest walk
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vehicle, but even then I don't think I would have fancied driving there.  Of course our bus ended up getting stuck during the tour, and we had to wait for another bus to come and pull us out.  Another 4x4 tried but the bus was so big it really needed something of the same size to pull it out.

Our Fraser Island tour centered around Lake Mackenzie, and was aptly names the 'Lake Mackenzie tour'.  Our tour guide was named 'JR' and he was a really nice, knowledgeable guy.  Our first stop was lake Mackenzie and we had and hour or so to swim and explore.  There are loads of Dingos on the Island and the island is the only place in Australia where they are considered dangerous (mainly due to being fed by visitors and losing their fear of humans). We had to leave everything on the bus b/c they steal bags if they smell food and your passport could be lost forever in the jungle with a cheeky wee dingo!  Lake Mackenzie is a beautiful and amazingly blue "perched" lake sitting on top of compact sand 100 m above sea level. The beach sand of Lake Mckenzie is nearly pure silica and it is possible to wash hair, teeth, jewelry, and exfoliate one's skin. We washed my earrings and they were noticeably shinier afterward.

bus getting towed
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The water off Fraser Island is so shark infested that it's not recommended to swim, the guy at our hostel said he used to live there and he wouldn't even recommend going in up to your knees.  We saw people swimming while we were there but our guide said they were 'beyond stupid' - we took his word for it and refrained from swimming.  There is also a shark breeding ground near the top of the island so there are sharks in the waters year round. We drove along the famous '75 mile beach' the beach also acts as both a highway and a runway. The hard packed sand below the high tide mark can make for quite smooth driving, and all the usual highway rules apply, one of the island specific highway rules state that vehicles must give way to aircraft if they are oncoming...DUH!  There were alot of cool sites along the 75 miles beach;

The Coloured Sands Fraser Island, known as the Pinnacles, sculptured by natures elements are truly one of Fraser Islands natural wonders. The sands are multicoloured cliffs of red, yellow, brown, yellow and orange sands is an array of spectacular colours.

A major landmark of Fraser Island is the shipwreck of the S.S. Maheno found along the 75 miles beach.  The S.S. Maheno was originally built in 1905 in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship. In 1935, the ship was declared outdated and while the ship was being towed from Melbourne when it was caught in a strong cyclone. A few days later, on she drifted ashore and was beached on Fraser Island. During WWII the Maheno served as target bombing practice for the RAAF.

Eli Creek is the largest creek on the east coast of the island with a flow of 80 million liters per day. There is a boardwalk for visitors to reach the top of the creek and swim or ride down the creek if they wish.  It's kind of like a lazy river, you just flow along with the water, very cool...literally...the water was freezing!  But it was a very cool little creek, would have enjoyed it more if I'd had an inner tube to float in though.

We did a rain forest trek, and saw where the funnel web spider lives - one of the most poisonous in the world - ooooo!

We LOVED Fraser Island, it is so nice, so unique and so beautiful, we were definitely glad we made the trip, we may have to go for a longer one next time.

We were so sandy when we got back, was glad we were staying in the hostel to get cleaned up - we spent the rest of the day in the pool.

On our last night in the hostel we had a weird occurrence.  We locked the tent at night with a pad lock (I mean if someone seriously wanted to get in they could just cut the side open, so it's really most of a deterrent than a security system) the next morning as we were checking out there was someone at the front desk saying that his room had been broken into the night before and he woke up to find a guys passing stuff out the window to his friend waiting underneath, when the guy woke up the robbers ran off.  We had thought in the morning that our lock was pulled to the maximum length, and we never leave it like that, so we could have been potential robbery victims!  We were lucky and very glad to have our wee lock.

The guy at our hostel also convinced us to pay our parking ticket.  He said that Aus was getting quite strict so we could leave it but it may show up again if we ever tried to get back in the country - probably wouldn't be an issue - but we decided to pay it anyway.  We think he may have secretly been working for Airlie Beach traffic police.