4X4 HEAVEN

After spending three nights with Terry and Marion, we jumped in our little camper and headed an hour or so up the highway to the Fraser Coast. We only had the intention of staying at Rainbow Beach for a night or two but we’ve become very chilled in this little town so have decided to stay for a week. Terry and Marion have kindly offered to let us return for the weekend and they will then drive us to Brisbane airport on Monday ready for our flight to New Zealand.

Rainbow Beach is a prime example of a quiet holiday village with big ideas. Right behind our campsite a huge complex of luxury apartments are being built as well as a hotel round the corner. With a crystal ball and a large some of money, this would have been a good place to make an investment. Our campsite is close enough to the beach so every night we drift off to sleep to the sound of the ocean.

We took a walk up the beach the other day and were surprised by the amount of vehicles driving up it. Some of the best spots to visit are only accessible by 4×4. For example, we took a lane up to a picnic site which was the furthest a 2 wheel vehicle can go. From there we had to walk 2.2kms to a secluded lake through the woods.

We also noticed on the map there is another freshwater lake also walking distance from this location however this is 7kms (one way) so we were lucky enough to have a couple from our site offer us a lift in there 4×4. Unfortunately due to the drought, the lake was completely bone dry, we failed to notice the sign telling us so, just up the lane! Due to the depth of the sand on this track, the vehicle stalled and we subsequently found out the battery was flat. So here we were causing a traffic jam in the middle of the bush! But luckily enough, with all the 4×4’s queuing up, there were people on hand with their jump leads to help us out.

Yesterday we went on a organized coach trip around Fraser Island. This was only a 15minute ferry ride from Rainbow beach which gave us more time on the island. Fraser Island was created by thousands of years of longshore drift making it the World’s biggest sand Island.

We were reminded a few times of the resident dingo’s vulnerability due to the increase in human contact. Our tour operator seemed to think this has been on the increase since they culled the Brumbies (wild horses) on the island which was their main food source, so they are now turning to humans to scavenge their food. Unfortunately due to a mass shooting of the dingo’s following a death of a 9 year old boy a number of years ago, there are believed to be only about 150-200 of these pure bread animals left which isn‘t many. We didn’t see any on our journey around the island.

There are many lakes on Fraser Island and our tour took us to the second largest called Lake Mckenzie. Not being a water baby myself Lee took a tip on his own in the clear fresh water. Our day also included a walk through part of a rainforest where we saw giant ferns which only grow 2cm per year. Other than steaming round the outside of the island in our coach at fast and furious kilometres per hour, we also stopped off to view the wreck of a passenger liner called Maheno which came to shore during a cyclone in 1935. There’s not much of it left anymore as most of it is under the sand bed and the back half is very nearly corroded away as it was used by the Australian Army as bombing practice during the second World War.

We also stopped for a while at Eli Creek which is a crystal clear waterway which Lee gladly took a dip in and let the current carry him back to the beach.