Fraser Island

The largest sand island in the world, Fraser Island, sits just a few kilometers off the east coast of Australia, and we caught the forty-five minute ferry over on Sunday. We rented a Land Cruiser in Hervey Bay and took off for three days and two nights to see as much of the island as possible. The driving through the interior of the island is fairly grueling, with the deep ruts and tree roots throwing vehicles from side to side as they plod along under the 30 km/hr speed limit. The one-way tracks necessitate one vehicle backing up if two meet going in opposite directions, but this only happened twice to us as we were there outside peak season.

We made our way to two lakes in the interior on consecutive days, the first being Lake Mackenzie. This lake has the clearest water I have ever seen, and we spent the first afternoon lazing around in the shallows before making our way down to the beach to camp. There are a number of dingo packs on the island, with over two hundred of them having been caught and tagged by the rangers. Getting off the ferry, we thought that if we could catch a glimpse of one we would consider ourselves lucky. Setting up our tents in the tree line just above the beach, a dingo wandered through our site and we were quick to pull out our cameras to take some shots. Disinterested in us, it lay down in the sand on the beach just out of sight and then trotted off. Cooking hotdogs that night down on the beach because the flies were so heavy at our camp site, three dingos showed up and began to move around the vehicle and the camp stove, obviously drawn by the smell of the meat. They got progressively braver as the night went on, and eventually we had to drive them away, yelling and kicking sand. They never disappeared, just retreated, and when we left to go back to the site they quickly moved in to lick up the water we had boiled the hotdogs in.

The next day we headed back into the interior to Lake Wabby, the deepest lake on the island. It sits at the base of a steep sand dune, so steep in fact that it is possible to run and dive off of the sand into the water. Signs warned against it, but it didn't stop us after checking out the depth of the water. There were countless catfish in the lake, and we spent a good amount of time killing flies and then tossing them into the water for the fish. From the slope of the dune, I counted over thirty catfish around Jordache as he flicked bits of sand and laughed at the stupid fish that thought it was edible. Vaulting off the dune, I attempted to catch a fish with my hands, and while I felt them bounce off my body as I broke the water, I could never get both hands on one.

After Lake Wabby, we drove along the beach, careful to keep track of the tide times to make sure we wouldn't get caught by waves moving up the beach. Exploring tidal pools and hiking trails, we got to the North end of the beach and then headed south back to our previous night's camp site.