It was our first swim of the trip and we weren’t even in the tropics yet! It’s mid-June in a pre-coronavirus world on a trip north from our home in Tasmania.
For the past few days, we’d been resting at Tin Can Bay on the Fraser Coast and decided to take a trip to Fraser Island with Nature Tours. The weather was a balmy 26C (78F), so we saw Fraser Island at its magnificent best and even managed a swim, but more on that later.
Our day started with a 7:30am pick up from Rainbow Beach in a four-wheel drive bus with about 16 others. The size of this tour allows for a comfortable number. Some other tours have up to 30 people.
From Rainbow Beach, it was out to Inskip Point where we drove straight off the beach onto the barge for the 15-minute trip across to the island. Many people get there under their own steam rather than booking an organised tour.
We chose to visit with a group as we are relying on our Mazda BT50 to transport us and our van another 1,500 kilometres north and then all the way home, so the risk of damage or breakdown was not worth the worry. Also, we had no retrieval gear to get our ute out of trouble, so felt it was better to sit back, relax and be shown the way around the highlights of Fraser Island.
It is possible to hire anything you need, even an 4WD vehicle if you want to make the trip yourself. We chose a single day trip, but the tour groups offer heaps of multi-day options. Having said that, if we were 20 years younger and equipped with the proper gear, we would have been there in a flash with camping and fishing gear to spend a week on the island.
Off the barge, the tides and weather conditions dictate where you can go, but we headed straight around the point and onto the 75 Mile Beach. It was incredible to see the number of 4WD vehicles on the island, and this was supposed to be a quiet time.
Police patrol the beach, and there were speed limit signs and road rules to abide by. The police stopped our driver for a breath analysis test on the way back, which is routine on 75 Mile Beach.
I was also surprised to see the amount of accommodation on Fraser considering it’s a World Heritage-listed area. Fraser Island is well managed and tourism doesn’t appear to be damaging the island, which is growing in area and volume every year due to the continuing natural cycle that delivers sand onto the island.
For anyone who has been on another planet for the past 30 years, Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island and gained World Heritage listing in 1992. It is unique in its size and also that it has tall rainforests growing in sand and large freshwater lakes in the centre of the island.
The beautiful Lake Mckenzie was where we had our first swim and what an enjoyable experience it was, even though the water was pretty cold initially! Fraser Island has more than 250km of ocean beaches, freshwater lakes, rainforest and mangroves and is a remarkable example of various ecosystems that have developed in the confined area of an island.
We spent all day touring the island and were fortunate to see quite a few of the island’s other attraction, wild pure-bred dingoes. Most of the sightings were from the bus, but there are plenty of warnings about approaching dingoes, walking alone and keeping small children close.
It is forbidden to take food onto the beach at Lake Mckenzie, so when my wife, Jo, and I came face to face with a dingo on the narrow track heading back to the bus, we were very wary. The dingo came close enough that I could have reached out and touched it, but I resisted the temptation, and we just passed on the track. It seems that it was heading for the beach for some photo opportunities with all the humans!
We had a fantastic day visiting the highlights of the island and were well looked after by our tour guide who provided us with morning tea, a barbecue lunch and topped it off with coffee and lamingtons on the beach while we waited for the barge to arrive! You can’t get more Australian than lamingtons on Fraser Island!
We were dropped back at Rainbow Beach at about 3:30pm, but the guests who came from further down the coast had the bonus of a drive home along the Sunshine Coast beaches back to Noosa.
A great day out at a magnificent place thanks to our tour organisers. Our only regret is that we didn’t come prepared to camp on the island. If you are capable and have the opportunity, make sure you have the full Fraser Island experience.