Fraser Island

We woke up very early in Hervey Bay and met with the rest of our safari group in the bar of Beaches, the hostel we stayed at. It felt like we were back under restricted supervision again, because we were guided in making tons of decisions, like who would drive and what groceries we would buy, and then we were packed into the 4WD Land Rovers to drive to the 4WD company where we were instructed in all sorts of safety procedures and what not to do on the island. It basically went like this: “If you don’t do exactly what we tell you, you WILL die.” We were taught how to pack the vehicles, given our camping gear, and we drove off to the ferry.

It was a misty morning, and the ferry ride was rather cold and miserable. By the time we got to Fraser Island, it was raining quite heavily, and as we drove through the rainforest on bumpy dirt roads, it began to pour. On our first drive, we were supposed to make several stops: Eli Creek, the shipwreck, and the Pinnacles, but high tide was early, and we had to have the car off the beach (the road) by 1 o’clock. And it was pouring. So we just drove to our campsite at Cathedral Beach. There were eleven people in our car (Group B), and another eleven people in Group A. In addition to me, Steve, Eva, and Kelly, we also had Dilan from Germany; Maggie and Anita from Ireland; Paddy, Tom, and Scott from England; and Rob from Sweden. When we got to our campsite, the rain was bucketing from the sky, and we only had a small pavilion of 4 picnic tables to keep us dry. Tom made a genius comment as we huddled under the pavilion. Something like, “Great. Our group is mostly girls, and it’s going to take forever to pitch a tent with them, and the tents are going to get soaking wet.” So, what happens? Kelly, Eva, and I (with the help of Steve) pitch two of the 6-person tents in HALF the time that Tom, Scott, and Rob pitch the third. I put Tom in his place after THAT incident.

Basically we were soaking wet all afternoon, and as there was nothing to do other than hang out under a pavilion, everyone began drinking by about 3 in the afternoon. I was a little bummed about the situation, but after dinner, we discovered that three of the guys who had stayed in our hostel at Cairns were in the other group of 22 people who had arrived the night before, so we got to spend some unexpected time with them. A couple of dingoes came right up to our campsite, too, so it was cool to see them. We’d only ever seen them on the roadside as we drove past before. We were all really tired from waking up so early and from driving for so long the day before, so we went to bed early in our wet tents.

We woke up early, too. Day Two on Fraser was a bit more exciting. The sun actually peeped through the clouds, and we filled our day with seeing everything we were supposed to see that day, and everything we had missed the day before. We began by walking up Indian Head, a cliff jutting out into the ocean. The view was beautiful both from the beach and from the top of the cliff, looking out to sea. The sun came out and was shining on the wet grass, and everything was so bright and sun-warmed. After Indian Head, we drove to the Rock Pools. Lumps of rock broke the incoming waves enough that they protected the beach, but water from huge waves slid over the rocks and formed cold pools in the sand. I didn’t go swimming, but others did. I just laid on the rocks and let the sun warm me up.






After the Rock Pools, we made up for what we missed the day before. We stopped at the shipwreck (a steamship from the 1930s that crashed onto the sand island) to take pictures; walked through the freezing cold water of Eli Creek, past walking palms with aerial roots; and walked through the sand in front of the red-rock Pinnacles. We had to get our car off the beach again for high tide, so we drove back to the campsite, but I went back down to the beach with some of our group. We tried playing Frisbee, but it was very windy, so Kelly, Steve, Eva, and I went for a walk on the beach. The waves were very strong, and the sky was a mix of cloudy darkness and sunny blue that so much depth to it beyond the waves. It was a gray beach day, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Our night at the campsite was similar to the one before…a group dinner with lots of alcohol before, during, and after. Our tent wasn’t as wet on our second night though, and we got a good night’s sleep.






Day Three on Fraser was mostly spent in the car. We had to drive back the way we came, through the forest to the ferry terminal, but we stopped at three lakes on our way. We only stopped briefly at the first two, to take pictures, but we stayed a while at Lake Mackenzie, the third stop. Lake Mackenzie was probably the most beautiful of the three, with a pure white sand beach and crystal clear water, but it was my least favorite stop because it was so crowded. I walked to the far end of the beach to get away from the noise of all the other people and the smell of cigarette smoke, and a little bit of a Zen moment by myself in the sand. The water was freezing cold, so I only went up to my ankles, but others swam there, because the sun was finally out for good. When we left the lake, we drove to the ferry, and had a much sunnier ferry-ride back to Hervey Bay.




Once we returned to the hostel, we unloaded everything we owned in the parking lot and repacked all our suitcases, cleaned out the car, and packed the car so well that we could actually see out the back window for the very first time. Steve started to drive south, and we ended up pulling into a caravan park at Tin Can Bay after buying groceries for the night. We set up our tents and cooked a Mexican feast in the picnic area, which was lighted AND had two burners. The bathrooms were amazing clean and spacious, and we were full and happy and decided to sleep in the next morning, happy to be in our own dry tents.