A few months ago, my friend Cedric suggested a trip to Fraser Island, a sand island about 120 km north of Brisbane. I had been to the mainland beaches near there several times, but never to the island itself, so it sounded good to me.
Amazingly, 9 of us managed to organise to take a Friday and Monday off work so we could spend 4 days there. The island is about 100 km long from the southern to northern tips, and up to 20 km wide, so it would take a while to get around to all the best places. All the driving is done either on the beach or on sandy inland tracks, so only 4 wheel drives are permitted on the island, and only a limited number of them at any time. Ced organised all the permits and hired a Nissan Patrol for him, Avril, Allan and Darlene. Michael and Michelle hired a Toyota Landcruiser people-mover with a pop-up top for sleeping for themselves and daughter Aoife. Dom’s dad was kind enough to lend his Toyota HiLux work ute to Dom and Dee, and I rode with them. The ute tray isn’t covered, so we had heaps of elastic straps across the load.
We all drove up from Brisbane last night and crashed at Dee’s parents’ place at Maroochydore, which is about half-way between Brisbane and Fraser. That left us with an easier trip this morning, but we still had to get up early to pack everything into the cars and get to the ferry in time.
We arrived at Inskip Point in heaps of time and deflated the tyres, ready for driving on sand. At loading time, our car led off across the sand to the waiting ferries. I blurted out the theme from The Magnificent Seven as Dee charged towards the first one, onto the ramp and to the front of the platform. Only then did we look back to see the others turning across to the OTHER company’s ferry… which we had pre-paid for. The great western theme was suddenly replaced by the buzzer they use in game shows when you’re wrong. So after a 9-point turn we headed to the CORRECT ferry.
Once on the island, we drove up the eastern beach near Dilli Village where we stopped for a quick swim before going inland. The Southern Lakes Scenic Drive took us past several freshwater lakes on the way to Central Station. We stopped for lunch at Lake Birrabeen, where the water is dark from tannins. Then on to Central Station where we had a few campsites booked for the night. Most of us then headed up to Lake McKenzie, probably the most popular site on the island due to its crystal clear water and white sand beach. Back at Central Station, we took a walk through the surrounding forest to a freshwater creek where the water was so clear I initially thought it wasn’t flowing, and that the white sand on the bottom was still white froth on the top.
Tonight was the Miscambles’ turn at cooking, which went down very well after charging around the island all day. Dee brought a guitar and a pile of lyrics for mostly old songs which we totally wrecked until about 9 pm which was the campsite’s noise curfew.
