Day 14: Sunday, August 21 Fraser Island
A long day being bounced, jostled and jolted in a vehicle for most of eight hours as we traveled over sand roads through the bush. By the same token the time spent driving on the beach was like being on a super highway. In fact the beach is designated as a highway. It has a speed limit and the police patrol it regularly. The sand is so hard packed that vehicles hardly leave tracks unless they get off into the soft sand toward the shoreline.
The day dawned completely overcast and threatening rain but it soon cleared and was another beautiful day. I was out on the balcony early watching the sky begin to lighten and listening to birds come awake and begin their morning songs and squawks. You hardly ever see a bird but you can certainly hear them. At night it is the frogs or other creatures that provide the music. I don't know what the temperature was but it was quite hot in the sun but pleasant in the shade.
We were late leaving (of course I was there a half hour early) because they couldn't locate two people who had reserved seats. I was getting a little antsy because I didn't think it was fair to keep fifteen people waiting for the sake of two others who were too inconsiderate to show up on time. They never did show up and we eventually left to begin the tour. Our driver guide was a retired soldier who just began this job a few months ago but he is certainly very knowledgeable and a pretty good story teller. He asked me if I was travelling alone and when I said that I was he invited me to sit in the co-pilot seat. That was great as I had been considering asking if I could sit there as I had on the tour outside of Cairns. The only problem sitting there is that you can see all of the bumps coming so are tense for the duration of the trip - not to mention that it is much much more difficult getting in and out of the vehicle.
Our first stop was a freshwater lake (Lake Mackenzie ?). It is a beautiful clear lake about nine meters deep. The water stays because the sane beneath it is saturated. There are no streams to feed or drain it and the water is replenished by rain. The water is slightly acidic and is said to exfoliate those who swim in it and some of our group did, The sand is brilliant white and extremely fine. In fact the driver told us that if you rub wet sand on your jewelry it would polish it. I tried it on my bracelet and it did a great job. Amazing. Morning tea was a choice of coffee or tea and cookies and muffins. I had two soggy oatmeal cookies and a quarter cup of horrible instant coffee.
As we drove through the bush the driver told us the history of various things on the island - how it was formed, logging, how it was named, etc. All very interesting but so much information that I doubt I can remember five per cent of it. The walk through the rain forest was very similar to the others I have taken on this trip but you do pick up a little bit of new information every time. Lunch was at another resort. It was a small buffet but that was ok with me as I was still feeling full from the night before so I only had some salads (coleslaw, lettuce, pasta). There was also a hot dish that I think was curried chicken.
After lunch we headed for the beach on the east coast of the island. It seems to go on forever (and I suppose does run the length of the island). There are no rocks on the island so it is just miles and miles of sand and iridescent blue ocean showing just a few splashes of white as the waves break on the shore. Unfortunately they strongly discourage swimming because of the strong rip currents and the sharks that hang out just offshore. There were lots of people surf fishing but I didn't see a soul in the water. Seems such a shame. As we were driving the driver said he saw some whales but none of us did. We were looking for dingoes along the edge of the bush because he said they often stay there looking for food (dead fish, etc.) washed up on shore at low tide. Unfortunately we didn't see a thing. There are only between 200 and 250 on the whole island so not seeing anything isn't too surprising. In fact the driver told us that we were more likely to see them inside the resort compound than outside in spite of the dingo proof fence all around the place.
One of the stops was at the "coloured sands" that are pinnacles of sand layered with bands of different colours caused by oxidization of different minerals. I would love to be there at sunrise or in different light conditions. We were there just after one o'clock so the sun was high overhead and made the photos less than ideal. In addition we were only there for ten minutes or so. We stopped next at the wreck of a ship from the early 1900's. There isn't much left of it because the air force used it for target practice during WWII. They dropped over 200 bombs but only hit it three times.
When I first heard that Fraser Island was a sand island the picture that came to mind was a desert like island of huge drifting dunes. Well it is all dunes but they are almost all covered with vegetation from scrub grass to huge trees. Not at all what I imagined. There are places where the sand has blown and suffocated the tress and those areas look more like what I expected. We only saw one of these areas from a great distance. As we were driving through the bush I saw many old and dead trees that had shapes of animals in them and was wishing I could stop to take pictures but no such luck (this has been my problem on every tour - no time for "art" only for touristy type photos). The tour was called "Beauty Spots" and those were the only sort of places we stopped. The aboriginal word for the island means "paradise"...
I decided to try the main restaurant for dinner because they claim to use a lot of local foods. My appetizer was samples of emu, crocodile and kangaroo. It was very tasty but also all very tough. The main course was kangaroo loin. About half of it was melt-in-your-mouth tender and the other half was quite tough. I told the waitress that I very much doubted that the tough half was in fact loin because every loin I have ever butchered or eaten was consistently tender throughout (unless over cooked of course). I don't particularly like complaining but when they ask how everything was I figure they deserve to hear the truth. At any rate when I got my bill I saw that they had decided not to charge me for the appetizer. I appreciated that token.
After dinner I checked out the internet computer and found that it is basically useless to me because there is nowhere to put a floppy disk and I am not going to sit there feeding in a dollar every five minutes for the hours it takes me to record these journals. I might use it to check my e-mail but that will be it until I get to an internet cafe in Brisbane or to the hotel in Vancouver.
Not sure what I will do tomorrow. I might go down and fish off the dock but haven't made a firm decision yet. I am hesitating because I don't know where I could realistically clean the fish - a hotel room isn't an ideal spot - and fishing just for the sake of catching and releasing isn't particularly interesting to me. There are lots of organized activities in the evening as well but I will have to wait to see what is on the daily list.