Fraser Island

We spent two days and one night on Fraser Island, a sand island that is on the World Heritage list. Our third day of this trip was spent driving down the coast of Australia from Rainbow Beach to Brisbane stopping at spots our guides deemed intriguing and unique.
Guided by Allie and Darren of Bushwacker Ecotours, we spent the first morning (Thursday) getting out of Brisbane. Darren was disappointed that the riders of his coach (including me) couldn’t keep our eyes open. Allie and Charlie’s Land Rover was more lively – the students’ benches weren’t conducive to sleeping. We had a quick lunch at Rainbow beach and then rode the ferry to Fraser Island.
By now I was in the front cab with Darren, having finished my quiz questions for the Lone Pine visit. I have never driven on a beach and so had some white knuckle moments as Darren tore up the coast. That was nothing compared to the experience of students in the back seat whenever Darren failed to slow for a sand ridge. The driving conditions didn’t improve when we moved off the coast to the center of the island. Add to that the excitement of two vehicles going in opposite directions on a sand road the width of one coach. And then a dingo came trotting down the road! As he passed our coach, I noticed his ear was tagged. Every dingo on the island is tagged.
Our guides took us to Beerabeen Lake, a perched lake. Such a lake doesn’t drain because the earth beneath the sand is too compacted. While the students enjoyed the water, Charlie and I walked along the shore, looking at vegetation and for creatures. Charlie showed me a sundew, a red sand flower that attracts ants to its sweetness and then consumes them.
Our next stop was at a satinay tree – so big that seven or eight students with stretched arms were needed to surround the tree. Satinay wood was used in the construction of the Suez Canal. We then stopped at Central Station, so named because once there was a railway station here for the transporting of timber. This was hard to picture because Fraser Island today is a rainforest with a few resorts and camping sites scattered about. The rails are gone; there is no timber industry. Charlie and Allie discovered the bright orange poisonous nut of the cicad. The indigenous peoples worked out a way to use this nut – they drilled holes in it, placed it in running water for a long period of time, thus rinsing out the poison, and then ground it up for damper bread.
Allie took us to a creek of fresh water, filtered by the sand so that it is potable. I couldn’t believe this; it looked scummy from a distance. However, when I was standing over it, I realized what I mistook for algae was the sandy bottom of the creek. The water was so clear that I could see everything in the stream, including the bottom.
We took a walk along the creek and then through the rainforest, emerging just before dusk.
The next day we hiked to a barrage lake, a lake that forms when the flow of water is blocked. Lake Wobby was blocked by a sand blow. A careful trek (for most of us) down the sand dune led us to the warm waters of the lake. The lake has a school of catfish, safe from fishermen because Australians don’t eat catfish. I believe Darren said catfish can’t be filleted the way he likes his fish prepared.
Meanwhile, back at the vehicles, Allie was trying to do a good deed when she realized a dingo (probably the one that was watching us on the beach as we prepared for our hike) had climbed into a near-by car. When she shooed him out, he entered her Land Rover and made off with her shoe. Then an island trooper stopped by to check on the island permits for the vehicles. Not just anyone can take the ferry over to Fraser Island. And so Allie had more excitement than we did.
We did short driving bursts up the coast, stopping at another clear creek, this one suitable for wading, if getting wet up to your waist is considered wading. We saw an old shipwreck. Coffee rocks – compressed sand made black because decaying material has mixed with it – litter the beach, sometimes forcing vehicles onto the interior sand roads. We stopped to look at a batch. Our lunch was on the beach at the northern point of the island, Indian Head. Later in the day we hiked to the top of the cliff which overlooked our picnic spot – a breathtaking view. As we left, a sea eagle rose from below us on the thermals and soared high above us.
Our guides also took us to the Champagne Pools, some backyard-sized pools of salt water, separated from the beach by outcroppings of rocks and filled, I assume, by waves crashing over the rocks. I believe this was the third opportunity for swimming on our second day.
We left the island by ferry and spent the second night in Rainbow Beach.
Our third day opened with breakfast at a riverside eatery. Here the students could, for $5, feed two fish to the dolphins. The male dolphin, Mystic, “owns” the river and comes in every morning with his mate and their oldest offspring to feed. When they had their fill, they swam away; I desperately wanted to hear “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”
We made 5 other stops on our way back to Brisbane. Two were scenic views. At both, we could see clear to the coast. I could locate the popular vacation spots by the clusters of tall buildings all those miles away. Darren always stops for “morning tea” which means we have a bathroom break and buy some snacks. A longer lunch break was taken at Montville, a city with charming eateries and gift shops.
The highlight of the third day, though, was the stop at Koondalilla National Park. Darren offered us two choices: a 5 kilometer (round trip) hike to the bottom of the waterfall or a 1 kilometer hike to a swimming hole at the bottom of a different waterfall. Darren, Dan, Bridget, and I went on the long hike. The path was a bit muddy and treacherous at times, but the views were well worth the effort. When we reached the bottom, we had to scramble over a pile of boulders to get the full view of the waterfall. On its downward path, the water split into separate streams and then flowed together the way ping pong balls bounce down a grid of nails. Not too far away, we saw the thick roots of a strangler fig covering the sheer cliff face. It very much looked as if the roots were holding the wall of the cliff in place.
We headed for the other waterfall and the rest of the group. Most of the students were sunbathing on a flat rock, but some were sitting in anticipation near the pool of water at the base of their waterfall. A student inched her way onto the rocks near the waterfall, and when she was at a height above the pool equivalent to a high dive, she jumped. As he pried my fingers off his arm, Charlie muttered, “Welcome to my world!” and congratulated me on choosing the less stressful activity.
One last treat remained. We drove past the Glass House Mountains, lava shafts of extinct volcanoes. Several are still bare and stand stark and beautiful against the sky.
At the hotel, we said our good-byes to Darren and Allie, collected our large suitcases from storage, and went about the business of getting dinner. The next two days in Brisbane are free days, and so perhaps we will get some rest.