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Fraser Island

The object to the left of the van on the left of the second picture is a frisbee that I managed to capture mid-flight whilst photographing our 4-Wheel-Drive vehicles on the beach at Fraser Island, in case you were wondering. I could have said it was a UFO and made millions touting the picture to the specialist press, but I thought ‘Naaaahh’ and told you all the truth instead, cos I’m a good fella. (Note: in this post ‘4-Wheel-Drive’ will be referred to as ‘4WD’, because (a) I’m lazy when it comes to typing, and (b) that’s what everyone calls it over here…).

You can’t go anywhere on Fraser Island without a 4WD vehicle because the whole base of the island is composed of sand, from the beach to the forests to the shores of the lakes and earth of the campgrounds. Getting around is both fun and frightening – with eleven people in each of the three 4WDs in our ontourage, it makes for a bumpy ride from one place to the next. We had three days to explore the natural wonders Fraser Island had to offer, which included the stunning Lake Mackensie (which I got absolutely no pictures of due to my camera being stuffed at the back of the vehicle’s equipment hold), and the massive-sand-dune lined Lake Wabby. The lakes are glorious freshwater inland features that you can swim in and relax on their white/golden fine sand shores. The above picture (3rd pic) is a shot of Lake Wabby from a raised lookout point.

Everyone bonded very quickly in our group, before we knew it roles were naturally assigned for cooking, tent erecting, beer cooling, etc. On the first night all three 4WD’s parked up at the same spot and camped behind dunes overlooking the beach. It’s advised not to swim in the sea at all off Fraser Island due to the frequency of sharks, poisonous jellyfish and rip tides – safe to say, no-one gave it a try. As most people were still suffering from a hangover and total lack of sleep (guilty as charged…), it was an early quiet one for everyone. During the night Dingos (a Dingo is a kind of dog/fox type animal that populate Fraser Island, as well as other parts of Australia) could be heard calling out – these dogs will raid your food boxes if left out overnight searching for scraps, and they can be dangerous hence approaching them is not advised. Sensibly, we packed all our stuff away in the 4WDs before heading to bed… this particular evening anyway….

We were only allowed to drive on the beach when the tide was at its lowest.  As two of the three groups (including ours) surfaced a little late on Day 2, we’d missed our window to make it northwards along the shoreline to Indian Head, a popular and apparently worthwhile focus point of the Island.  One group had already made the effort to leave in time and never saw them again until the end of the trip.  Ourselves and group B – which became known as Team Irish due to having 5 amazingly funny and crazy lads from Dublin… the rest were Germans, but for our purposes they were part of Team Irish… – camped out on the second night together and had an amazing party.  The following morning we were rudely awoken by the Island’s Rangers whom weren’t very happy with the fact that we’d left most of our food and beer outside overnight for what could have been a ‘Dingo feast’.  Subsequently we were fined $225 per car for being such silly buggers.  We brushed it off and made our way to the Island’s very remote Police Station to pay up –

 

 

The police station was empty.  Haha.  But we still had to pay the fine on the mainland.  Boo-hoo.

I found my Fraser Island experience to be more about the people invloved than the Island itself, even though it is a perfect example of stunning nature at its very best.  Everyone’s a character, and everyone plays a part in the experience.  It’s hard to put into words, but it’s a bit like how the A-Team works.  It just does.  And it was lots of fun.  I love it when a plan comes together…

J.

Tags: Australia, Random Stuff, Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Australia, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.