Feb 16th – Fraser Island
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Originally uploaded by roupiesontour
The largest sand island in the world looked suspiciously green from Hervey bay side – full of foliage and trees which surely can’t grow on sand – wrong. We had booked a trip for one day as overnight was a bit budget busting. We were picked up from the hostel early but the free breakfast had made us get up anyway – who can resist free Fruit Loops?
Fraser Island was so named after a shipwrecked wife (who lied and had a mental illness) swore she was captured and put into slavery by the Aborigines on the island. The Aborigines claimed to have taken her in, clothed and fed her. Eliza Fraser when rescued kept telling variations on her story to Victorian dinner tables so in the end no-one believed her but the island still has her name. It is all sand and amazingly there is loads of fresh water here – some of which pumps into the ocean to create interesting marine life. I still can’t believe the trees – timber mining was big on the island until the 90’s. Little known fact – the Australian army camouflage pattern was taken from the pattern of the Kauri pine on the island.
Many people hire cars – they must be 4wd due to the sand but we were on a huge tank of a bus which took us all round. The beach (70 mile beach) goes on as far as the eye can see and seeing the shipwreck of a luxury cruise liner perched in the sand was crazy. There one of the purest races of wild dingoes on the island but we didn’t get to see any. We did see pelicans, lace wing lizards, eels and a few fish. The tour took us up to Lake Mackenzie with it’s pure rain water and white silica sand. All the women went in the water as myth has it will take 10 years off you and leave your skin and hair soft. I’d better go in twice then.
Touring the island was fascinating and the guide was really good, despite the country music that we had on the pick up bus. I can’t believe that country is so big over here – something I hadn’t expected of Aussies, to be that sentimental but there you have it! We were so lucky with the weather as it stayed bright all day – it had been raining non stop for a week before we got there. All the fresh air tired us out as we were back in bed by 8.30.
roupiesontour