Hervey Bay and Fraser Island

Turtles at the accomodation

About 400km from the outback station is our next pit stop, Hervey Bay. We are staying 2 nights in a place called Sanctuary Lakes and have a nice spacious wooden villa here. The verandah sits right on the edge a billabong full of turtles and ducks. It's very quiet!

Colossal sand dunes from the sky

This morning we were picked up and taken to get the ferry over the channel to Fraser Island, the largest sand Island in the world.. About 125 km long and 22 wide (or something like that.) It has been formed as 2 volcanos were originally there and sand blowing up from southern australia has washed up and settled there over millions of years, and created the whole island completely made of sand. There is no rock there at all now, except "coffee rock" which is vegetation mulch and sand compacted so hard it looks like rock. It is very dark brown and leaches brown stain when wet, hence the coffee bit. The vegetation has learnt to supply it's own nutrients to be able to grow there and root in the sand.

Lake mckenzie

The island is home to lots of wild dingos, so there are lots of rules on where you can and can't eat. We saw a few from our 4x4 monster bus that took us around today...foxy dogs Lissy called them! Don't think I'd like to stroke one though!

Our first proper stop was lake Mckenzie... A beautiful freshwater lake sitting at the top of the mountains. It was just perfect; turquoise water, that white silica sand again around the outside, all the fun and beauty of the beach but no saltiness!! It was so crystal clear under there, shame it had no fish, the kids would have snorkelled for hours there!!

Getting ready to fly!

J, adam and Frey went on a small 7 seater plane for a while, to fly over the island and see all the other freshwater lakes, rainforest and massive sand dunes that have accumulated there, they said it was amazing, though the weather was foggy/drizzly and the sea on the East Coast very choppy. Normally it's flat and clear and you can see stingrays and sharks In the water from the sky! The plane took off and landed on the beach, on what they called the runway, but was actually just... Well, sand.. No markings etc.

The longest beach on the east coast is where we spend most of our time this afternoon, admiring a rusty 70 year old ship wreck in the pouring rain, rainbow sand cliffs, where variations of iron oxide have changed the colour of the sand there to various shades of red/orange/yellow, and walking the length of the freshwater Eli creek out to where it meets the beach.

Lake Mckenzie from 2000ft

The 4x4 bit on the beach was hairy, there was this thick foam from the choppy sea deposited everywhere, disguising the huge potholes in the sand, so we very nearly toppled a couple of times and then our bus broke down... Luckily there was exactly enough spaces on another coach that we could hop on there, not wait hours for a recovery truck!! The island, especially the lake, was beautiful in this weather, but I bet in fair weather it is absolutely stunning! On the plus side we saw loads of wild kangaroos on the way back to villa too :-)