Fraser Island Adventure Tour

July 6, 2012:
Our Adventure Tours Fraser Island tour guide, Robert, picked up us in a badass 4-wheel drive tour bus. He had the quintessential Aussie accent (to our delight!) like you always see in the films... I guess it's the East Coast that has that accent? Or New South Wales? Or were we in Queensland now? Ah well, the point is we were all ears, possibly fantasizing about taking the tour alone with him... or was that just me? Awkward. We took a ferry on the bus over to the island and started driving along the coast of the island.

The tour bus was designed to drive over sand dunes and through creeks which turned out to be quite useful. Fraser Island is the biggest island in the world made entirely of sand. It has seven separate ecosystems including mangroves (which are just about the coolest thing in my opinion... they are trees that migrate, for god's sake!), subtropical rainforest, woodlands, heaths, sand dunes, etc. Because of the physical geography of the island, there are water tables of fresh water underground that filter back through the sand creating loads of fresh water creeks and lakes that are pure and crystal clear.

Eventually, we made it to Lake McKenzie. In the tour description they had recommended bringing a bathing suit to take a quick dip in the lake. As Canadians, we were undaunted by the fact that in Australia, July is considered mid-winter and wore our bathing suits anyway.

 

It was bloody freezing, but Caitlin and I were the first of all the tour groups to go swimming, stripping down out of our coats and scarves. Britt and Jay eventually followed and essentially we set the trend with several other people coming swimming as well. It reminded us all of the lakes in northern Ontario. No big deal! The silica sand and the really low PH balance of the lake left our skin and hair silky smooth and our jewelry all polished. Some of the other tourists took photos of us swimming (which was a bit weird), but maybe they were as stunned as Robert who asked us how it was. When we answered that it was "refreshing" he asked incredulously if that was Canadian for "****ing freezing". We all grinned and nodded.

Completely changing gears, we spent the time before lunch hiking through the rainforest next to a creek. I am at a loss for words to describe the purity of this place. Despite the obvious marks of tourism, this place seemed so untouched and wild. There were hollow piccabeen palm trees and ferns and jungle vines hanging everywhere. For lunch Jay and Britt ordered prawns but they were shocked to learn that they would be fresh prawns. Both girls were so grossed out because they had to pull the prawns apart themselves... previously they had only had them cooked in pasta. They ended up convincing Robert to take pity on them and he gave them sausages instead; they could not handle the beady little eyes.

 

I had a chance to see my beloved mangrove trees later in the day at Eli Creek. You could see where the roots had torn off from the trees in order to migrate. Our luck, in terms of the weather, finally ran out and we were forced to observe a shipwreck between fat drops of rain. Some people were brave enough to try to take photos. The shipwreck was a Japanese ship or something to that effect and it was haunting.

On the way back to the ferry, we drove along 65 Mile Beach and stopped to see the coloured sands. Luckily the rain let up just long enough for us to get out of the bus and explore for a few minutes. We had had the pleasure of glimpsing several double rainbows before we got there. The minerals in the sand oxidize (rust, basically) to create different colours in the sand. They looked like waterfalls of colour and some of the colour dripped down like paint. I hadn't ever seen anything like it before.

 

The whole island was an amazing experience. When we got back to the hostel in Noosa, we made Kanga burgers with garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli for dinner, got some laundry done, and attempted to watch a DVD with no success. Hoping to sleep in the next for a change, we managed to hold out until 10:30pm before we went to sleep.