Waking up under the canopy of the tall trees at the Central Station camp site was a strange experience. It was almost like being in a huge cathedral with a few blue stained glass windows letting the light through, and I had no sense of the time.
Well, it wasn’t too late. Breakfast was pretty extravagant for a camp. Between us, we had 3 gas bottles, 2 or 3 burners, a couple of tables and heaps of good food. It was a lot of stuff to pack up and down for one night, but fairly quick with 10 pairs of hands. We planned to drive further up the eastern beach today, but because Michael, Michelle and Aoife didn’t go to Lake McKenzie yesterday, we headed there first for a quick swim. I had my first go driving on sand, and it was fine, but it feels wrong to keep the engine revving so high so consistently – I reckon I’ll end up in carbon hell after this weekend. At Lake McKenzie, I think we were hypnotised by the perfect weather and the fresh, clear water, because we ended up staying for a couple of hours.
On the way back out to the beach is another small freshwater lake called Lake Wabby, bordered on one side by a huge steep sandhill and a semi-circle of trees on the other. DJ invited sand into every crevice as she log-rolled all the way down the sandhill into the water. It was really quiet down there (apart from us) and the water was cold, but it was hot out, so there was no rush to leave. We eventually trudged back to the carpark, downed some lunch and headed on to the beach. I had another go at driving, on the beach this time, which was going fine until suddenly the car slowed, dug in and stopped. Turned out that Dee had bumped the 4WD button off just before that, so I was only pushing with 2 wheels – no wonder.
The original plan was to drive up to Eli Creek, but since we had taken our sweet time at the lakes, we were running out of driving time, since you’re not supposed to drive on the beach within 2 hours either side of high tide. So we drove about as far as we could, and stopped at a camping area on the beach a few kilometres south of Eli Creek. We claimed a site and started setting up while some drove back down to Happy Valley to get some supplies, ice and icecreams. This camp site was the total opposite of last night’s… fully exposed and no facilities. Luckily the weather was perfect for dinner under the stars. Dee and Dom knocked up a great vego gnocci meal with me as their kitchen assistant. We had some more fun with the guitar, not worrying about any noise curfew tonight as the white noise of the waves was almost drowning us out anyway.
We’ve been on the island for 2 days and I’ve been hanging out to see some of the dingoes which Fraser Island is famous for. I haven’t seen one yet, but Dom went for a walk tonight and claimed she saw a silhouette of one running past on the beach - so far that’s the only sighting! There’s been heaps of other wildlife though – lots of birds, crabs circling our tents, and heaps of flies!
