Fraser Island – Queensland, Australia
October 20th 2008
Fraser Island – Queensland, Australia
Today we went on a day tour from Hervey Bay to Fraser Island. It is an island located along the southern coast of Queensland, Australia, approximately 300 km north of Brisbane. Its length is about 120 km with an average width of 15km. It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1992. The island is considered to be the largest sand island in the world at 1840 km². We visited a few of the main attractions on the island, such as:
Lake McKenzie – is located inland from the small town of Eurong. It is a “perched” lake sitting on top of compact sand and vegetable matter 100 metres above sea level. Lake McKenzie has an area of 150 hectares and is just over five metres in depth. The beach sand of Lake McKenzie is nearly pure silica and it is possible to wash hair, teeth, jewelry, and exfoliate one’s skin. The sand is the whitest sand I have every seen. It beautiful.
Eli Creek – is the largest creek on the east coast of the island with a flow of 80 million litres per day. There is a boardwalk for visitors to reach the top of the creek and swim or ride down the creek if they wish. I chose to walk around and through the water to take lots of photos. Eli Creek is located on the 75 Mile Beach
75 Mile Beach – runs along most of the east coast of Fraser Island. While it may not be the best place for swimming due to dangerous currents and plentiful Tiger sharks, it is extremely beautiful and has a number of excellent highlights such as the Maheno Ship Wreck and Eli Creek. The beach also acts as both a highway and a runway. The hard packed sand below the high tide mark can make for quite smooth driving, but care must be taken with speed; there are many deep wash outs and you can suddenly find yourself driving vertically into one if you’re going too fast. Aircraft often land on the beach and if you can afford it, this mode of travel is a great way to see the entire island in a short space of time, with the obligatory beach landing, of course. The highway rules state that vehicles must give way to aircraft if they are oncoming.
Maheno Ship Wreck – Was awesome! It would have been great to see what it looked like in it’s time. The S.S. Maheno was an Edwardian liner on the Tasman Sea crossing between New Zealand and Australia, and was used as a hospital ship by the New Zealand division of the Royal Navy during World War I. A landmark on 75 Mile Beach in Fraser Island the S.S. Maheno was originally built in 1905 in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship for trans-Tasman crossings. It was once declared as the fastest ship for it’s time. During the First World War the ship served as a hospital ship in the English Channel, before returning to a luxury liner. In 1935, the ship was declared outdated and on June 25th, 1935 the ship was being towed from Melbourne to Japan for scrap metal when it was caught in a strong cyclone. A few days later, on July 9th 1935 she drifted ashore and was beached on Fraser Island. During the Second World War the Maheno served as target bombing practice for the RAAF. The ship has since become severely rusted. Climbing on the shipwreck is not permitted.
Central Station – is surrounded by bushwalking tracks to enable full appreciation of the variety of plants living on the island. Some of the rarest ferns grow along the rainforest near the station. With year-round south-easterly wind, huge sand dunes on the island move at the rate of 1 – 2 metres a year, burying away everything on the way, thus making sand on the island extremely rich with nutrients. Sand is constantly washed ashore from as far as New South Wales. Central Station was once used as the town for around 500 people that lived on the island when it was a small logging community. It had a small train that went through there, which is how it got it’s name.
Overall we saw a wild Dingo (dog/fox/wolf like animal native to Australia), saw an amazing ship wreck, beautiful white sands and water so clear you don’t see it at first. It was a very bumpy ride, but you can’t expect much less from a sand island.
It was a great day.
– Bonnie :)
