Spent the day chilling out in Hervey Bay, not a lot to do here either! Had a nice walk along the beach and saw hundreds of parakeets nesting in the trees at sunset which was nice and came across more friendly possums in the trees at the hostel! Up early the next day to be picked up for our 2 day tour of Fraser Island which was very exciting. We were in a 5 person group, another Israeli guy and a swiss couple plus our tour guide Jarrad in a big 4×4 landcruiser. Got the barge over to Wongoolba creek in the middle of the west coast of the island and drove to our first stop at Central Station, the old logging station on the island with a few remnant huts and set in the rainforest. Went for a nice walk through the rainforest along a clear water creek, amazingly clear water! After our first stop we drove up to Happy Valley where we were staying for a yummy buffet lunch then off in the afternoon for our sightseeing drive along the beach. First stop was Eli Creek, the biggest freshwater creek on the island were we stopped for a nice refreshing swim and then onto the Maheno ship wreck, an old cruise ship from around World War I which was runaground and has now sunk into the sand and only the top of the boat is visible.
Maheno Shipwreck
Unfortunately it started to rain quite a lot so we carried on driving up 75 mile beach to the coloured sands where it was raining even more! The different coloured sand in the cliffs were pretty amazing though! We headed up to the tip of 75 mile beach at Indian Heads for a bit of wildlife spotting where we saw dingos on land and a couple of sharks and manta ray in the ocean until the rain got really heavy! Apparently there are lots of tiger sharks which can frow up to 20 feet long and also humpbacks in a couple of months time! Next stop was the champagne pools where we went for a nice swim, these are huge rock pools that have waves sweeping into them which make them froth (a bit like Champagne!). Last stop for the afternoon was at Lake Allom to see the fresh water turtles which were really cool, loads of them came up to see us at the side of the lake but again, just as I got the camera out the heavens opened and we got soaked and the water went blurry so we couldn’t see the turtles! Headed back to our cabin for the night and chilled out after yummy steak for dinner and freshly cooked pipi in garlic sauce, kinda like mussels that we dug up on the beach. I wasn’t overly keen but Ellie loved them!
Set off early after a good breakfast to Lake Wabby for our first stop of the morning, which involved a long walk up over a huge sandblow (similar to a sand dune except it is still moving and being made, this one moves about a metre and a half a year). We got followed by a dingo the whole way to the lake which was pretty cool, think she was a bit bored and clearly wanted to play but they’re a bit too wild to get playful with!
Dingo
Dingo following our group
Spent the morning relaxing by the lake and swimming in the beautiful clear water and seeing lots of fish, mainly salmon tail catfish. On the walk back to the beach we also came across a big Goanna lizard, well over a metre in length, which was climbing up a tree. Headed off to Lake Birrabeen after lunch for a long drive through more forest and then to the most amazingly clear lake with totally clear shallows and a deep blue middle where it was much deeper. Amazing white sand beach all round it too so we stayed there and swam and sunbathed for the entire afternoon.
Sandblow
Goanna up a tree
Lake Birrabeen
Weather was much sunnier today luckily so it made the day much more pleasant for sightseeing. Sadly that was the end of our Fraser Island trip so we headed back over the bumpy sand roads to catch our ferry back to Hervey Bay where we are staying again tonight. Had an amazing time on the Island, shame we couldn’t have stayed for a few more days but it is very expensive! Would highly recommend Fraser Island Company to anyone that is thinking about doing a tour though, our guide was really nice and very informative and entertaining and always managed to find stuff for us to see and do despite the rain on the first day!
