Fraser Island Trip!!!

Ok so Kristine dropped me off at her Mum's house in Hervey Bay. I booked onto a guided tour of Fraser Island. I also visited the large group of Bats that live in Hervey Bay and took lots of photos.
So I left for Fraser pretty early at 7.40am and jumped on the bus to the harbour. We all grabbed our boarding passes and waited for the Kingfisher ferry. When it got there we all poured on, some lady was taking everyones picture but I told her I wouldn't buy it so she shouldn't bother taking my picture...
When we arrived at the Island we all jumped on our bus with our ranger, Patrick, who had a strange look of Patrick Swayze (sp?)!! Don't get too excited girls he didn't have the body!!
So we headed out of the resort and started on the fantastic roads on Fraser which consist of sand and hills. It was really fun bumpy about all over the place. We came across a 4WD type car that was stuck so a few of the guys had to help them out.
We drove for quite a while and then parked up, had morning tea and went off for a wlk to Basin Lake. It was about a 30 minute bush walk which was good. All the lakes on Fraser are fresh water and all come from rainfall. The acidic water in some of them can condition your hair and the sand, being so fine, can exfoliate (sp?) and also clean gold and silver. Quite clever. Anyway Basin Lake reminded me slightly of the Green Loch at Glenmore which was kinda cool. I walked round it but a few people swam.
We walked from there to Central Station through the bush and met up with the Ranger there. We then walked about another 2km to the bus. The walks were really nice but we ended up in a bloody queue because of all the tourists!! Annoying...
Once we were all back on the bus we drove to Lake Mackenzie. We arrived at about 2.30pm and so lunch was set up. A very delicious lunch. We wandered down to the lake after stuffing ourselves! I paddled and the water is just crystal clear, very soft. Again there were alot of people around so didn't manage to get a perfect picture!! It really is beautiful though, stunning scenery.
We headed back to the resort after that for dinner and a few drinks. It was a relatively quiet night as we were pretty tired.
Well the next day we were up at 6.30 ready for breakfast at 7!! We packed up, ate and jumped back into the bus. We left the resort around 8 after waking someone up!!
We drove right across the Island to The Great Sandy Highway which is 75 mile beach and is actually classified as a highway with 100km/h speed limit!! It is full of 4WD trucks everywhere and pretty nice to drive along.
We had a quick stop on the beach to take pictures and then drove further up to Eli Creek which is one of the largest easterly creeks, on the Island, feeding a heap of fresh water into the sea daily. We had morning tea there and Kerry, a girl I met, and I did random things on the beach and took photos.
We then headed further along the highway where we could actually do a scenic flight so I did. We jumped into the little plane and sped off down the beach and took to the skies. It was quite an eye opener to see how big Fraser really is. Even knowing that it is the biggest sand island in the world at 125km x 25km (at the thickest point) I didn't realise the size. There is also such a great deal of rainforest on the island. It was stunning in the flight. We saw dolphins and a massive whale from above so we could make out the shape perfectly!! Fantastic. We also saw some of the freshwater lakes, Mackenzie looking massive!, and the big sand drifts. So we were in the air about 20 minutes and I am so glad I did it.
Once we had landed we headed to the Maheno Shipwreck, which when being towed to Japan in 1935 a cyclone cut her adrift and she was driven ashore, its quite strange to see how much of the ship has disappeared. Anyway, I took a few shots of that and then we had to get going. A few more people did a flight so we headed along the beach a bit to pick them up.
We continued along the beach and after having to drive over the back of the beach and onto another beach we reached Indian Head. We jumped out of the bus and all walked upto the top of Indian Head, it was so warm... We sat up there for quite a while. Saw sharks, turtles, stingrays and dolphins in the sea below it was quite a sight. I was so excited to see Sharks in the wild but I wanted them to feast on something - sick person I am!! After taking quite a few pictures and chilling out on the rocks up there we had to be off.
We drove on a bit more to the Champagne Pools where we had lunch and relaxed. A few people swam but not many. I just photographed it. We had to leave at 2.30 as we had to be off the beach by 4.
So we headed back down the beach and had been driving quite a while when Patrick spotted a Dingo so he slammed the breaks on and a few of us jumped out to try and get a picture. Well, we didn't cos the darn Dingo had scampered off before we could. At least I saw one thought and its not hard to imagine. A skinny ginger dog really...
We carried on down the beach and stopped to check out the coloured sands. Just a quick stop really, a few pictures then we were off again. I think we got off the beach at just the right time as the tide was coming in.
We stopped at a lookout, looking back out to sea which was quite nice and then we were off to catch the ferry. The ferry left at 5pm so I said goodbye to Fraser knowing that it is always changing. I would like to go back without any agenda and enjoy each place for as long as I like.
Fraser Island is made up of sand which drifts up the coast and can be made smaller in extreme weather. I would definately recommend anyone nearby visit Fraser, its quite an amazing natural place.
Dawn
xxx