Day 69 Fraser Island (Inskip Point) Wednesday 15th August 2012

Good evening folks,

We toodled over to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island today. We were at the barge just after 8. I chickened out on running the tyres at 20 psi and settled for 25. After considering the tide height and the warning on the map about the SE corner being only passable at low tide I decided to turn up off the beach and follow the track above the dunes along the eastern shore of the island. It was pretty rough in parts although to be fair no worse than many of the other roads we have encountered in Queensland. After about an hour we descended onto eastern beach. The tide was now running out and there was plenty of beach to drive on in this section. We arrived at our exit point at Dili Village and ploughed up through the soft sand inland onto the southern lakes circuit. The tracks were one car wide and mainly soft sand. We stopped at several lakes before arriving in the area known as central station which is where several tracks converge. From here we drove through some dark shady forests to Lake Mackenzie which is the number one tourist destination on the island. Not surprisingly there were several tour vehicles in attendance with about 50 backpackers laying about on the sand or swimming.

Lake Wabby (click picture to enlarge)

We continued on to Lake Wabby lookout which was probably the best view of the whole trip. We moved on to Stonetool blow lookout where we stopped for lunch. This allowed a convoy for four travelling up the fairly steep grade from the beach to pass. The tracks are all single lane and mostly two way so if traffic is encountered someone has to pull off somehow. I did this twice for the same 3 car convoy on different ends of the two tours. Overall the traffic was quite light for which we were thankful. We passed many camp sites. One interesting feature was some were enclosed in cyclone fencing to prevent dingos gaining entry. There is a solid concentration on keeping the dingos wild with penalties for feeding them and hotlines for reporting incidents.

Makeshift lunch kitchen

Scribbly gum

A furry unidentified plant

Lake Birrabeen

Wood rotters

Fishing spot on the way back

After lunch we drove down the hill onto the beach and headed along the beach back towards the barge landing.  Beach driving can have its pitfalls and there is a great emphasis on safe driving techniques in promotional material. It is easy to be zooming along at the limit (80) and come across washouts caused by many of the small streams exiting the island. There have been a number of fatalities in recent years with vehicle rollovers. There is also a police station on the island. There is a separate set of regulations for hire vehicles which includes passenger limits and "no luggage on the roof"

I stopped and had a few casts on the way back. However the encroaching tide and the lack of suitable heavy lures meant this was a brief episode and we drove back to the barge while we could still drive on firm sand. The barge stops running at 530 and the high tide comes to the base of the dunes.

I am glad we didn't take the camper over, people do and Susan says there are camp areas for trailers. They would need to be close to the beach with firm exit ramps. I have written this down as a must return to place. When the weather is sunny and calm it is quite magnificent. The beaches offer excellent fishing and there are many great walks.

We returned to camp and i had a fruitless quick fish before a simple tea. We have new neighbours from Tasmanian. I had a chuckle when Bruce disappeared on dusk saying it was coming in too cold. I would have thought being from tassie he would have been of sterner stuff. The biggest laugh is it was actually 16 at 730 which is a night time heatwave at the present moment. Maybe he just wanted to escape another one of my great stories.

I cannot finish without passing comment on the exemplary behaviour of my passenger today. Those of you who have driven with her know she is a somewhat nervous passenger (actually a bloody nightmare) but today was cool calm and collected. I warned her that in the NPWS video they cautioned against panicking passengers startling the driver and causing accidents. Maybe it was this or maybe it was our moving average speed was only 28km/h  (including the 60-70 section on the beach) for the 133 km travelled that was the cause. Whatever it made for a relaxing journey especially for an inexperienced sand driver such as myself.

night folks

Simon

Typical Fraser tracks

Lake McKenzie

Lake Wabby lookout