Fraser Island Adventure Part 1

We are heading off towards NT to hike the Larapinta Trail, a 200km track starting/ finishing at Alice Springs and heading west along the Macdonnel Ranges. The NT border opened on July 17 except to people coming from covid hotspots, one of which is greater Sydney!  So Jubble and l headed into Queensland to spend 14 days out of Sydney before heading into NT from there.

We spent the first evening out of Sydney, my birthday evening, in Port Macquarie where we enjoyed a bottle of bubbles and some delicious Turkish food.  From there we headed to Brisbane where we spent a fantastic couple of days staying with Dad who spoilt us thoroughly.   From Brisbane we headed to Noosa for a few days. One of the highlights was the last day when Dad drove up for lunch for the day. We made him earn it though by taking him on a 6km beach walk in the driving wind and rain to get to Sunshine Beach Surf Life Saving Club! The other highlight was catching up with my aunt, Eliza, for lunch at Peregian Beach.

I wanted to get some hiking in before the Larapinta just to make sure my legs still work,  so we headed to Fraser Island for some hiking and 4WDing. Shortly after driving off the barge at Kingfisher Resort l had my first crack at 4WDing.  Super fun!  No wonder people enjoy it so much. The “roads” are pretty rough and bumpy and wide enough for one car only.   We headed across to the east side of the island to Eurong Resort where we’d booked in for one night given it was raining and we didn’t feel like setting up camp in the rain. 

Fraser Island is out there somewhere

On the east side of the island you hear this constant dull roar of the waves. You can’t hear individual ones,  just a constant roar.   The beach is stunning and quite bizarrely, serves as an 80km/hr highway straight up the island!

I started hiking the Great Walk on day 2. It’s a really beautiful track that runs for about 90kms in the middle of the island. It’s well marked,  clearly defined and easy to walk. The ground is soft underfoot, but firm enough to make walking easy. The bush changes as you make your way along – sometimes more low,  ferny plants, other times towering forests. The canopy is dense and it often seems like dusk under there.

I’ve been pretty excited about the idea of seeing a dingo and was on constant alert ready to stand and stare it down while backing away slowly if l came across one. They say if you get attacked you should defend yourself aggressively. Fingers crossed to that not happening but l do have a hiking pole and a hunting knife (!) just in case.  The closest I came today were these lovely footprints in the sand along Lake Boomajin.

Fraser Island is so well set up for hiking and camping. There are loads of campgrounds, most of which are inside dingo proof fences. Some are hikers camps, others for 4WDs. There are toilets fairly regularly along the walk and showers at some of the campgrounds.  Apparently since they fenced the campgrounds in and started a massive education blitz on the public,  negative dingo interactions have reduced significantly.

On my first day of hiking l covered 21kms, starting in Dilli Village at the southern end of the walk, and making my way past Lake Boomanjin, Lake Benaroon and Lake Birrabeen to finish at Central Station campground. Jubble met me along the way a couple of times – first for a Jubbie bar and a cup of tea at Lake Boomanjin and then for lunch at Lake Birrabeen. 

On day 3 l hiked an 18km circuit from Central Station to Lake McKenzie and back to Central. I was again in awe of the beauty of this island. I started off walking through rainforest with a stream so clear it took awhile to realise there was actually water in it – it just looked like a sand bed.

At Lake McKenzie we had lunch near a lovely lace monitor doing its best to get some sun. It kept moving spots along the tree trunks and branches, stopping in sun then moving again as the sun moved.

Lake McKenzie is one of 40 perched lakes on the island, so called because the lake is perched in sand dunes up above sea level.  Interestingly, Fraser has half the world’s perched lakes. The colour of the water was stunning and the sand bright white.

Most of the return walk was through thick forest on a deep carpet of leaves. I’ve been collecting fungi for Jubble and today l added a heap to my collection. Amazing how many shapes, colours and textures there are.

Back at Camp Jubbie we had a delicious Spanishy rice and veggies dish with some wine and did our planning for the next day. The next section of the walk is apparently remote and not as many options for 4WD meeting points. We are also a bit limited because we shouldn’t drive in the dark and you can’t drive on the beach two hours either side of high tide which is at 3:10pm tomorrow. We’d like to head further north to see a different part of the island also. So I’ve decided to not do the whole walk. Instead I’ll skip a bit, walk through the remote section and finish at a 4WD meeting point. Then we’ll spend the last full day on the island 4WD exploring.