THE BREATHTAKING WILDERNESS OF THE FRASER ISLAND
After a nearly 3-month pause from travelling since our last trip to the Great Ocean Road in the South East of Australia, we were itching to see some of the iconic sights outside the area of Sydney and Fraser Island has been on the top of the list since we moved to the country! We managed to convince our friends, Astrid and Razvan to join us for the long Easter weekend and discover this special place.
The entire island is part of the UNESCO World Heritage due to its unique flora and fauna living purely on sand (!), which sounds unbelievable. In fact, it is the largest sand island in the world (about 120 x 25km), made up of the sediment that the strong offshore currents carry northwards along the coast and accumulate on Fraser. But what makes the island truly special is its amazing variety of unique and untouched nature, from rainforests growing out from this sand, to crystal-clear turquoise or red lakes and the freely roaming dingoes (wild dogs) that are protected on the island. There are no roads, only sand strips in the forest and along the beach, and no settlements, so the best way to discover this land is by camping in the wild, away from civilisation, and driving around in a 4WD. We could not wait!
The 120km-long "main road" of Fraser
The ferry crossings to Fraser Island are a short 2-hour drive North of Brisbane in either Hervey Bay or Rainbow Beach (although direct flights exist to Hervey Bay only), which we covered after work on a Friday night, so we could make the most of our first full day - which was a good idea, because by the time we'd picked up the 4WD car the morning after, had the obligatory training on sand-driving and crossed the channel on a 15-minute ferry ride, it was already 12:00am! Getting around on the island itself also takes a lot longer than you think - the speed limit on the in-land tracks is only 30km/h (and in reality you're happy if you can average 20km/h), so it's much faster and more fun to drive on the packed sand beaches at 60km/h. The trick is that you can only drive on the beaches when the tide is out, so you are limited to 6-hour windows. Combined with the fact that you're not allowed to drive on the beaches after sunset, it needed quite some logistics to make sure we didn't get stranded on the other side of the island in the dark!
Camping by Lake Boomanjin
On the first day, after an hour-drive on the narrow and bumpy sand road through the forest, we arrived to the campsite and set up our tent by Lake Boomanjin. The campsite here is one of the 3 spots on the island with a dingo (wild dog)-fence, all the other spots are completely out in the open. Dingoes have gotten very used to humans, so they tend to raid any food left out in the open, and in 2001 there was also an incident of an unsupervised child being killed by dingoes, so Renata wanted to eliminate the possibility of waking up to a dingo staring down at us. To be honest, although there are alarming signs on how to avoid dingoes all around the island, it took us almost two entire days to finally see one! By that point we thought dingoes might have all been a myth to attract curious tourists!
Dingo on the main road at dusk
Many Australians spend a longer time on the island and they take their singing-and-dancing camping gear, some of which looked like a luxurious villa compared to our non-waterproof tent and basic tool set that we got with our car. Some families had entire solar arrays, neon lamps, a refrigerator - since you have to bring all your food to the island with you to avoid buying from the limited food supply at Eurong that cost you an arm and a leg -, and even a portable shower! They must have known that the public shower would be out of order... Well, we didn't, but we decided we were clean enough after bathing in the fresh water of the lake by the campsite while watching the sunrise!
Sunrise bath in the lake
We clearly learnt a thing or two for our next outback trip from watching these neighbours though, for instance that
mosquito repellent is not only a nice to have on Fraser,
a headlamp's battery does not last forever,
if you want to cook dinner you need (enough) gas in your portable stove...
Looking at the positives, our basic gear must have made our stay a lot more exciting than theirs, they surely did not wake up overnight when hearing drops of rain on a non-waterproof tent, or they did not have mosquito bites lasting for about a couple of weeks all around to remember the trip longer! We also enjoyed hours' long card games around our little portable garden furniture and in the romantic light of our headlamps, and we benefited from going to sleep early to then getting up early and seeing the sunrise.
The sentinel of the campsite
Our campsite looked at the lake Boomanjin. The interesting thing about it is that its water is completely red from the tannin in the leaves that washes into it - leading to some great pictures! Over the centuries the leaves have sunk to the bottom creating a waterproof layer beneath the sand - otherwise the water would all drain out! When we were there the water-level was also very low (hence why the showers were disconnected), so we could walk across the lake and still not get deeper than our knees.
The red lake of Boomanjin
We had an ambitious plan for the next day: we needed to get to Eli's Creek and the Maheno shipwreck halfway across the island by 07:00am when the tides came in, so we had to wake up and drive the winding inland tracks to the beach in the dark, and drive on the beach from the crack of dawn as long as we were able to. Watching the sunrise over the endless beaches was a lot better reward than a cup of coffee to motivate the team (especially as we had no coffee), and certainly made the early start worthwhile! Next time we might consider staying in a campsite along the main road itself to cut off the first 45mins drive leading to the road from the forest.
Maheno shipwreck and Eli's creek
Luckily we made it to the shipwreck on time and could admire it before the tide - and the crowd - arrived. The SS Maheno was being towed away to a scrapyard when it was hit by a cyclone and met its (fortunate for tourists at least) end. The eerie shipwreck skeleton is washed up on the beach and is one of the top scenic spots on the island.
After walking around the wreck we chose a very pretty spot for our picnic breakfast, then checked out the actual creek itself while we waited for the next beach-driving window in the afternoon.
View from our breakfast spot
Eli's creek is a very popular attraction especially with children floating down the lazy fresh water river in inflatable rafts. Despite the very refreshing water temperature it gets busy relatively early in the morning, as families set up their chairs and even tents and play volleyball or cook BBQs on the creek bank. The section of the river for floating is only about a 100-meters but it's in a pretty and leafy settings that makes it definitely worth a round or two!
Eli's creek floating and its crowd later in the day
The beach close to the creek is also a landing-strip for small airplanes for those eager to go for a scenic trip around. We realised this when one of them flew 5m above our head! 4WD traffic is manually regulated at flight take-off which is a funny experience.
Indian's Head and Champagne Pools
After the tide went back out, we continued on the 'road' to the lookout at Indian's Head in the Northeast corner of the island, and the nearby natural formation of the Champagne (swimming) pools. The cliff of Indian's Head offers possibly the nicest views of the island's sand dunes, the miles-long beach road and the magnificent waves around it, It is also meant to be the viewing spot of sharks and whales (in winter) swimming around the coasts straight under the rocks. We did not see these but were still blown away by the view to both ends of the island.
The view from Indian's Head
The most Eastern corner of our drive - and the furthest you are allowed to drive on the island - was at the Champagne Pools. These were named after the bubbles the water makes after the huge waves from the ocean break off the reef. It's a fun experience and is undoubtedly one of the most popular points of the island as you can cool down in the sea.
On that note, actually it is only in the lakes, rivers and these rock pools that you're able to swim on Fraser, since the ocean is full of deadly jellyfish and sharks - which is a shame as the ocean is so inviting for a swim! As a general rule, you can only swim in fenced off areas in the ocean anywhere to the North of the Sunshine Coast, outside Brisbane, which is a disappointment to lots of tourists. Of course, some people don't care too much about these signs and go into the water for fishing or even swimming on Fraser. Looking at the thousands of dead jellyfish washed to the shore all along the main road, we decided to stick to the pool and the lakes.
Pristine Birrabeen and McKenzie lakes
One the third and final day on the island, we went to discover some of the remaining lakes that were relatively nearby, starting with Birrabeen lake and ending at McKenzie lake. These lakes were one of the highlights of the island - their glaring white sand and turquoise waters looked exactly like a tropical beach, except for being filled with fresh water - something that felt absurd despite seeing it with our own eyes! Birrabeen is significantly less visited than McKenzie, especially earlier in the day, so as we got there within about a 30-minute drive from our campsite we could have it all for ourselves for a while.
Lake Birrabeen
Inland from Birrabeen to McKenzie we passed huge Satinay trees lining the sides of the road, some of which were used to construct the Suez Canal. We made a short stop at Central Station showcasing the island's logging history before it was designated a natural reserve. Today there's only a limited amount of its special trees on the island due to the heavy deforestation the island has suffered from.
McKenzie Lake is clearly the most picturesque lake of all we've visited on the island despite being busier as well. The water temperature was perfect for a nice swim and walk around. We even found a little hidden corner around the left side of the beach, where there were much fewer people, so we had a whole 1km stretch of golden sand almost just to ourselves! It was the best ending to our adventures on the island.
Main side of McKenzie beach
Hidden part of the beach
With a heavy heart we started back to the ferry crossing, passing through Eurong, the 'village' on the island, comprised of a dozen houses, including a petrol station, a café/bakery and 300m of paved roads! As it was nearing the end of the Easter holiday weekend, we joined the huge queues of cars heading back across to the mainland and managed to make it with the penultimate ferry. Refueling the jeep after these 3 days, we were a bit surprised realising that we had consumed 120 liters of petrol - more than twice what I had ever pumped into a single car!
Dingo #2 of the trip just before our departure so that we don't think there is only one living on the island
Queue waiting for the ferry towards the mainland
After all these adventures on the Island, we spent a final morning in the waves of the Sunshine Coast just outside of Brisbane to relax in a setting with more infrastructure and to process all the experiences we had over the past three days. Our conclusion is that the Sunshine Coast is a nice place, but too developed for our taste, but we would recommend the spectacular lakes and the scenery on Fraser Island any day!