From the 15th until the 20th of June we went to Fraser Island. A few hours drive north of Brisbane, Fraser Island is a World Heritage Site and with good reason: It’s an island made entirely of sand that holds a rainforest and temperate and coastal forests. It’s accessible only by 4wd or, if you have enough money and are a dickhead, private plane tour that actually lands on the beach.
The east side is buffeted by the Pacific and the waves are crazy. Some of them go sideways. We took one look at the surf and realized why the pamphlets all said not to go swimming in it. The west side is calm as it goes along Hervey Bay. You can drive on the beaches (MUST drive on the beaches, actually) and there are inland tracks that go to some of the 70+ lakes on the island.
The island is accessed from Hervey Bay or, if you’re cheap like us, Rainbow Beach. The problem with Rainbow Beach is there’s almost nothing there and what is there is expensive. We ended up going to Gympie the day before (150km round trip) for food and gas. We brought enough food for either 4 people for 4 days or two people for a week, so we were covered if we decided to stay longer. We filled both gas tanks (160 liters or so) and filled our water tanks for the first time (65 liters). That was just water for cooking and such. We had nearly 30 liters of bottled water as well.
The first day was spent driving up the beach to the inland lakes scenic route. A wonder of Fraser is not just that there are so many lakes, it’s that they’re all different. Some have crystal clear waters and some are brown, stained from the vegetation. Some of the beaches are normal sand and some are white sand. There are perched and barrage lakes (Fraser has the biggest and highest of both) and even a lake that developed out of a sandblow (when the sand from the beach breaks through the vegetation and moves inland, growing at a rate of a meter a year until it becomes a massive dune. We spent the night at Central Station in the rainforest where we met a German couple, Robert and Danni, and drank white russians with them until the wee hours of 10pm.
The thing about rainforests is this: they’re lovely to visit and drive through but they’re miserable for camping. The trees are so thick and high that it gets dark at 3.30pm, you never really get the sun through it to dry out your stuff, and it’s wet. Anyway, Central Station was decent. They had this electrified dingo fence around it that seemed pretty stupid to me. The idea is okay, you keep the dingoes out and the kids safe. But if a dingo gets in, then he can’t get out and the kids are all screwed.
The next day we drove around the island’s southern end and visited the overrated Lake McKenzie before settling in at a campground on the west side. Nice place but the bathrooms were, um, let’s call them spartan. No dingo fence but no dingoes anyway. The third day it rained. And rained. And rained. We drove around for awhile and then went up the eastern beach to Waddy Point which is a fantastic place. No tourist buses go there, the brutal wind from the Pacific is stopped by Indian Head, and you get both the sunrise and sunset. We liked it so much that we stayed there for two nights. If you go, make sure you camp at the beach campground and not the one on the hill. And tell Les we said “hi.”
What wasn’t fantastic was what happened there. The front driver’s side tire went flat because the stem broke loose since it stuck out past the rim. It was a really idiotic design. Seriously. We were missing jack parts so I couldn’t change the tire. I tried using the air jack but that’s clearly not what it’s designed for. And it was raining like mad. So we gave up for the day.
That’s when I locked my keys in the car. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue but Monique had gotten into the habit of assuming I had my keys so she didn’t carry her own. Needless to say she’s out of that habit.
Anyway, the good news there was we sleep on our car, not in it, so we just went to sleep. The next day we got up and it was a beautiful sunny morning. With the help of Les, the old guy who has been living on the beach for 20 years, moving every 28 days like the law says he must, and the guy on the other side of us, we got the door open. I’m not going to tell you how because I don’t want the car broken into but I’ll tell you this: it was a stroke of brilliance and teamwork and it is way harder to break into a Landcruiser than I thought. After that, I changed the tire (don’t even get me started about that ordeal… it required two jacks) and then we were in good position to enjoy the rest of the day. And a great day it was. We even went into the world’s most dangerous surf, as I’ve decided to call it. The rip was terrible. Oh, and we saw dingoes.
On the last day we went back down the beach and stopped at the sights we skipped on the way up. We took a look at the Champagne Pools, the Maheno wreck, Eli Creek, and the rock formations. Then we raced the rising tide to get back down to the barge to go back to Rainbow Beach. All in all, it was a great trip, and I recommend it to anyone. -jp
Man kann es ein Erlebnis nennen oder ein Tour ins Ungewisse oder ins komplette Chaos!? Naja, der erste Tag war noch sehr entspannt. Wir sind zur Insel mit der Fähre übergesetzt und die ersten Kilometer über den Strand gedüst und dann ab zur ersten Übernachtungsstätte zur Central Station direkt in den Regenwald gefahren. Regenwald, dieses Wort klingt so toll, was es auch ist, bis man eine Nacht drin verbringen darf und, nein nicht die Mücken, sondern der Regen im Regenwald war unsere Herausforderung. Kalt und feucht ist es da und ob die Sonne scheint, sieht man eigentlich auch nicht. Das soll keine Beschwerung sein, nur eine Erfahrung. Wir hatten eine Menge Spaß, da wir ein deutsches Päarchen aus der Nähe von Fulda kennengelernt haben. Und wir haben lecker gegrillt und White Russians getrunken!
Am zweiten Tag ging es quer über die Insel. Allradantrieb fahren soviel der Biggie hergibt! Ein Spaß sag ich euch. Zahlreiche, wunderschöne und unterschiedliche Seen hat die Insel zu bieten. Der eine See ist glasklar und braun wegen ansäßiger Pflanzen, der andere himmelblau mit schneeweißem Sandstrand. Am dritten Tag dachten wir uns, was ist die Welt langweilig, wenn das Wetter immer gut ist und alles so reibungslos läuft – haha! Gesagt getan, es hat nicht nur in Strömen geregnet, sondern in “Strömungen”, dazu haben wir uns gedacht so einen platten Reifen, das können wir auch und weils doch so schön war, meinte Justin er kann doch eigentlich den Autoschlüssel auch mal im Auto lassen und die Türen doch aber schonmal (von außen) schließen… Mittlerweile können wir drüber lachen, denn wir wissen ja schon was danach kam. Wir haben uns einfach ins Bett gelegt und erstmal den nächsten Morgen abgewartet. Blauer Himmel, ein paar Drähte, verschmutzte Hände und Helfer später, saßen wir am Frühstückstisch. Ja, wir haben unseren Biggie geknackt! Was gar nicht leicht war, aber wenn man so ein bisschen in Physik aufgepaßt hat, dann ist das gar nicht mehr so schwer. Ok, ein bisschen Verzweiflung war zwischendrin auch dabei, aber sowas verdrängt man ja schnell! Das mit dem Reifen hat Justin und die Helfer dann auch irgendwie hinbekommen und da dann auch dieser Tag beinahe rum war, haben wir uns entschieden an der wahrscheinlich gefährlichsten Brandung ein Bad zu nehmen (wir hatten seit 2 Tagen nicht geduscht! ja, so gehts uns hier unten in Australien…)
Abschließend kann ich zu Fraser Island sagen, man muß hier gewesen sein, denn die einsamen Strände, wunderschönen Sonnenaufgänge und die beinahe unberührte Natur, sind unbezahlbar! -mk
