Hervey Bay and Fraser Island

We arrived in Hervey Bay and found a caravan park that would let us store our van for four days while we went over to Fraser Island.  We spent the day packing and shopping, ready to leave on the ferry the following morning.

Fraser Island

We had scored a great hotel deal that included the ferry price ($175 for us and the car).  It departed from River Heads and arrived on Fraser Island at Wanggoolba Creek.  When we boarded the ferry, Ben was thrilled to meet up with two kids he had made friends with in Townsville.  He played with Angus and Sophie for the whole trip over and was disappointed to find out that they were not staying in the same place with us.

Ben with his friends on the ferry to Fraser Island.

Upon arrival, we had to drive about 45 mins across the island to Eurong Resort.  All of the roads on Fraser Island are sand so a high clearance 4WD is needed. Luckily, we have one of those and it was certainly needed.  There are potholes and soft sand sections, tree roots and steep inclines.  The speed limit on the internal roads is 30kmph and you’d be hard pressed to do more than that without risking serious damage to your car.  The main ‘road’ along 75 Mile Beach is actually an official road with an 80kmph speed limit.  It is patrolled by Police and National Parks Rangers and has several sections where it doubles as an airstrip so you need to make sure you look up!

The sandy roads of Fraser Island.

One standout feature of Fraser Island is the abundance of dingo warning signs.  They are everywhere.  You literally cannot turn around without being reminded not to walk anywhere alone and to keep your children close by.  Do not run anywhere.  Do not feed the dingoes or leave food where they might be able to access it.  If you see a dingo, do not run away, stand tall and back away slowly. If attacked, fight them off aggressively because they will try to kill you.  Don’t leave bait out when you are fishing, shut it in your car.  Don’t clean your fish where dingoes might see you.  Don’t even leave food in containers on top of your car because dingoes can get up there and break them open.  The message is very clear.  And yet, we still saw stupid people throwing food scraps into the bushes and letting their kids walk around alone.  Some people just can’t be told.   

One of the many signs.

We checked into our hotel, delighted at full sized beds and a room four times the size of the caravan. We unpacked before taking a drive to Lake Birrabeen.  Lake Birrabeen is a lovely lake with white sand and clear blue water.  We had a swim and headed back for dinner.

Lake Birrabeen.

The following day we did a big drive up 75 Mile Beach.  We had to time it quite carefully as it is recommended that you only try to cross Eli Creek within two hours of low tide.  Eli Creek is close to Eurong and we had to cross it on the way up the beach and once again later in the afternoon to get back south again.  We did NOT want to feature in one of those ‘4WD is washed out to sea’ pictures.

Awesome beach driving.

We stopped off at Eli Creek on the way north.  There is a boardwalk you follow upstream and then the current is so strong that you hop in the water and float down.  Many people take inflatable tyres or boogie boards and Ben did it several times, even going upstream once out of curiosity.

Floating down Eli Creek.

You hop out and walk back up the boardwalk to the start again.

He was very excited to see his friends Angus and Sophie there too but we couldn’t stay to play for very long as we had to be back before the tide came in too far.

Our next stop was the wreck of the Maheno, a container ship with distinguished ANZAC service that had been sold to the Japanese for scrap in the 60s.  During a freak storm, it became detached from the ship towing it to Tokyo and it beached on Fraser Island.  Nobody wanted to pay to recover it so it stayed there rotting and rusting over the decades.

Maheno Wreck.

Further north was Champagne Pools, rock pools that produce champagne like bubbles when the incoming tide causes waves to break over them.  They are pretty cool and the views from the path on the way in are spectacular.

Champagne Pools.

The pools from above.

We were in a bit of a rush by then and left 30mins later than we intended to.  Lou was a bit worried about the impending high tide and what the crossing at Eli Creek would be like but it turned out to be no problem at all.  Either the high tide was a small one or their timing recommendation built in a LOT of fat because the creek wasn’t much bigger than it had been when we crossed at low tide earlier in the day. 

The following day was rainy and dreary as we ventured inland again, to Central Station and Lake McKenzie.  Central Station is a big camping area next to Wanggoolba Creek.  It was a sacred Aboriginal women’s area and later the central home of logging operations on the island (back when logging was permitted).  The remnants of an old school and some other buildings are still there and several walking tracks intersect here, making it a good spot to do some short walks.

Tree hugger Ben.

We took the track along the banks of the creek, which is shallow and crystal clear, flowing silently over pristine white sand and surrounded by lush green ferns and trees.  Everything has a covering of moss and the air has a really damp, rainforest feel.  We were all being very dingo aware and Ben picked up a big whacking stick to walk with.  He’s been watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so stuck the stick down the back of his shirt ninja style.  This amused another group of walkers, some Spanish tourists and we had a great chat to them along the way.  

Dingo stick fight!

As we arrived back at the car we saw a huge black crow ripping into the rubbish bag that the people parked next to us had put up on their roof, presumably to keep it away from dingoes.  They would come back to a very big mess. 

Scavenger Crow.

We headed to Lake McKenzie, the jewel of Fraser Island.  This is what it looks like in the brochures:

On a sunny day..

This is what it looks like on a rainy, overcast day:

Not quite so beautiful in dreary weather.

It was still lovely, but we had to use our imaginations to visualise the beauty that has it listed in ‘Top Ten Beaches of the World’.  We had a swim but it was a bit cold and windy so we didn’t say too long.

In the carpark, we saw our only dingo of the four days we were on the island.  It was a juvenile and had white socks.  It mainly skulked in the bushes, scavenging the food that people had tossed in there but it did come out for a short time to walk openly around the carpark. 

Our only dingo sighting.

We continued our drive and went to a lookout above Lake Wabby and another overlooking Stonetool Sandblow.

Lake Wabby.

Stonetool Sandblow.

Our hotel building was right next to a tennis court and Ben was keen for a game so we borrowed some equipment and had a hit.  The balls they gave us were absolutely rubbish so it was a bit hard but Ben enjoyed doing an activity we haven’t done for months.

It bucketed down rain overnight but luckily had stopped by morning.  It was still overcast but we could see the sun trying to break through.  We hadn’t been for a swim in the resort pool yet and Ben was very keen so we spent the morning there before heading out to the beach again for some fishing.   

Apparently Fraser Island is a fishing mecca but it seems that you really need proper surf rods as the incoming waves are so strong that it’s hard to cast out far enough for your rig not to just get washed back in straight away.

Lou found it too hard to fish in this surf.

While we were driving along the beach we saw an odd black and white lump of something on the sand near the waterline.  We went to investigate and found a huge ball of plastic bags all tied around each other and tangled.  It weighted at least 25 or 30 kilos.  Obviously a lot of that was sand and water and it took both of us to lift it up and carry it back up the beach to the car.  We couldn’t work out how it had got there but did our bit for the environment by taking it back to put in the bins at the resort.

Where did this lump of bags come from?

We caught the ferry back to Hervey Bay that afternoon and after unpacking washed as much sand as we could out of the undercarriage.  Jenny spent a considerable amount of time lying under the car with a hose and came out covered in dirt and leaves.  We then took the car straight to the car wash for another good wash and a thorough vacuum.  We had to make sure to wash every bit of salt water out of all the nooks and gaps and troughs under the car to prevent rust setting in.  Finally Jenny spent 30 minutes spraying the engine bay and underneath with degreaser to get out any last remnants of salt.  As a result of Jenny’s OCD about it, the underside of the car and particularly the engine bay, now look almost as clean as when we drove it out of the dealership.  You’d never know it had been through months of red dust let alone four days of solid sand and salt 4WDing. 

Hervey Bay

We intended to stay one extra day to check out Hervey Bay before continuing south but loved the feel of the place so much that we stayed an extra four.  There is a fantastic long esplanade right along the beach with a bike track running end to end.  There are cafes, playgrounds, parks, exercise stations (Ben loves those), a free water park and a small skate park.  There a several short jetties and one huge one that runs 800m out to sea.  We spent a relaxing few days riding, swimming, fishing and playing.  It was nice not to be rushing around sightseeing for a while.

Awesome water park -and free!

Warming up in the sunshine.

Down he goes..

Ben was keen to go for a ride at the bigger skate park in town so we took him there one afternoon.  There was a group of older boys there and we were blown away by how good they were.  Thanks to Ben’s interest, we have been to a lot of skate parks all over the country and the guys at Hervey Bay are by far the most talented we have seen, on BMX and scooters.  They were flipping and flying high, riding on front wheels and doing all kinds of things we usually only see on YouTube.  

One of the boys doing crazy flips.

Ben was so intimidated that he ended up just wanting to watch them and while we sat there we got talking to one of the boys, named Hayden.  He is in year 8, a great kid and when we told him that Ben wanted a skateboard for Xmas he offered to sell us his old one that was now too small.  We ended up driving him home so he could pick it up and then dropped him back with his mates.  It was a good deal and we were happy to be able to help each other out.  So now Ben has spent the last 2 days skateboarding around the caravan park, getting frustrated at not yet being able to skate over a speed bump without falling off.  We are trying to teach him patience… :-)

And another new hobby...

The Three Blonde Nomads are now reluctantly leaving Hervey Bay as we need to be home in Melbourne in 15 days.