Day 65 - Fraser Island

After much debate and research into our different options, we decided to make the trip to Fraser Island for the day.  I must say, I do get quite annoyed at the cost to explore our own country.  Just to get over to the island for the day with our car it cost $200, but a much cheaper alternative than the $800 it would have cost to do a one day tour for the 5 of us.  So we arrive to catch the first barge over at 8:30am, a bit creepy having to reverse the car onto it.The kids loved the trip over and very quickly found the resident barge cat, who lives on it and just wanders happily amongst the people, getting patted.  We drive straight off the barge onto the beach.  Fraser Island is the largest "sand island" in the world, "How does it not just collapse into the sea like a sand castle, if it is just made of beach sand??" we are asked!!! The island is about 130 km long and about 25km wide.

We first decide to head for the beach on the east side.  You can't drive on the west side and we are conscious of high tide being at 4pm so we decide to do the beach first.  The drive through the track is very rough and sandy and we rarely reach the "hooning" speed limit of 30km.  The track takes you through thick, dense forest, the trees are just enormous, a bit like driving through Pembi on the beach!!!!!

75 mile beach is great to drive along, a lot of people camped in the dunes in their tents, a couple of camper trailers but you couldn't bring a van over.  There are a couple of resorts on the island as well, the place is pretty busy due to school holidays over here.  I had to laugh when I saw a normal 80km speed limit sign sticking out of the sand, I have never seen that on the beach before.  We can't quite believe our eyes when a plane comes and lands in front of us, picks up some passengers then takes off again.

We explore a shipwreck that is on the beach, looks like it has been here for a while, no information board about it so it was a bit of a mystery.

The kids then have a swim in Eli Creek, they can't swim at the beach due to the sharks, however it is supposed to be a great fishing spot over here.  We take another track through the forest to Kingfisher Bay.  The road is a rough as the proverbial.  Dad, Glen comments on my religiousness today!!!!!  The Kingfisher Bay resort is just beautiful, and it has a fantastic gift shop, but we don't spend too long here, as we have a boat to catch.  Next stop is Lake McKenzie, Shannae, Cody and Glen have a swim here, not very hot for swimming but it never bothers them.

Then a quick stop at Camp Station, this was very interesting, it was a secret army training base in World War 2.  Could have spent longer here, but we had to get back to the boat.

So we were glad we went across to Fraser Island in the end.  Probably not ideal to do Fraser Island in one day, but we didn't have the time or the money to book into a resort for a couple of days.  I think I will be able to write a book about the "Turbo Boosted Tours of Australia" as we have certainly mastered the art of seeing as much as we can in the shortest amount of time possible.  The resident cat on the barge was there to greet us, "Garfield" as we affectionately nick-named him, plonked himself down behind Shannae and Tori's seats and enjoyed the trip home asleep, he had obviously had a very hard day.