Have a dream holiday on Fraser Island, Australia

My very first trip to Fraser Island was in the summer of 1980.

It was a fairly wild place then and a real adventure, just to get there.

We had to travel for two days to Inskip Point on the mainland, then drive onto a big orange barge, and then drive up the beach at low tide.

We camped by a small fresh water pool, high above high water, and spent ten delightful days travelling all over Fraser Island in our Landrover 4WD.

Image: Public domain

You can fly into Hervey Bay

• Camp in a beachside camping area
• Go whale watching (in season)
• Go fishing
• Go bushwalking
• Stay in a luxury resort
• Take a guided tour
• See dingoes, beautiful birds and giant sand monitor lizards
• See the little mail plane land on the beach at Eurong
• Trek around in a 4WD
• Take stunning photographs
• See a shipwreck
• View coloured sands at Cathedral Rocks
• Walk up giant sandblows (dunes)

Link below

Fraser island is a place of exceptional beauty, with its long uninterrupted white beaches flanked by strikingly coloured sand cliffs, and over 100 freshwater lakes, some tea-coloured and others clear and blue all ringed by white sandy beaches. Ancient rainforests grow in sand along the banks of fast-flowing, crystal-clear creeks.

Fraser Island is the only place in the world where tall rainforests are found growing on sand dunes at elevations of over 200 metres. The low "wallum" heaths on the island are of particular evolutionary and ecological significance, and provide magnificent wildflower displays in spring and summer.

There are no rocks on Fraser Island, just coffee rock, which is brown dark clumped together sand.

From Wikipedia:

Coffee rock is the common name for the rock-like formations of indurated sands that were formed from ancient river sediments of the Pleistocene age.

Image: Wikipedia

Image:Wikimedia Commons

So called because of the bubbles from the tidal surge.

I swam in there in 1980 and it was so refreshing!

Image: Tour Fraser Island (Link on image)

on Fraser Island

Lots of fishermen and women come to Fraser Island especially for the tailor run, but there are so many other kinds of fish to catch.

Because of the offshore reefs, there is a diverse fish population.

Cook the fish you catch at your campsite and eat under the stars!

on the lee side of Fraser Island

Humpback whales come up in winter to frolic and calf and they are easily seen on both sides of the island, but Hervey Bay is their main destination, as they migrate from Antarctica.

From Wikipedia:

In 1935, the ship was declared outdated and on June 25, 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 9, 1935[citation needed] she drifted ashore and was beached on the eastern shores of Fraser Island. During the Second World War the Maheno served as target bombing practice[citation needed] for the RAAF. Since then, much of the ship has either been destroyed or disintegrated, and the visible remainder has become severely rusted. Climbing on the shipwreck is prohibited.

so called because the piles for the Suez Canal came from here

Fom Wikipedia:

Logging on the island began in 1863.[13] Blackbutt trees (Eucalyptus pilularis) and kauri pines (Agathis robusta) on Fraser Island were logged extensively as they provided excellent timber.[13][41] Logging started in 1863, initiated by American Jack Piggott (known as 'Yankee Jack'). For the first 70 years of logging, bullock drays were used to haul the timber to loading points on the beach.[15] Railway tracks were laid through the forest to facilitate logging, but were later removed. Some of the largest logs were sent to Egypt for the construction of the Suez Canal.[15] The logging industry continued right through until 1991

When we went there in 1980, we walked along the creek bed. So cool and clear.

Now there is a boardwalk to protect it from people loving it to death!

Image:Wikipedia