Fraser Island

Hello dear ones!

After relaxing in Airlie Beach for a few days after the Whitsundays, we continued to Hervey Bay to spend three days on Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. From the hostel, we took two 4x4 off-road vehicles, which participants over 21 were even allowed to drive themselves, first to the ferry and then to the island. There, extremely uneven sand tracks led us to our camp, where we spent the next two nights. This consisted of our tents, a trailer for food with cooking stoves, a barbecue grill, our seating area, and a portable toilet. In addition, the entire camp was fenced because there are many dingoes on the island - of course, we didn't see any. After this bumpy ride, we were all awake, so we continued to drive to explore the island. First, we went to 'Central Station'. There is a river there called the Invisible River because the water is so clear and it flows so silently that you can sometimes not see it. Our next stop was 'Lake Wabby', which is a relatively unspectacular lake that you have to walk 40 minutes to get to, but the fish in the lake at least gave us a little pedicure. On the way back, we had to climb a huge sand dune that somehow seemed lower on the way there. Eventually, we returned to the cars and drove back to the camp. By the way, the main traffic route on the island is the Seventy-Five-Mile Beach, which serves as a highway and even as a runway for small airplanes. That's pretty crazy, but it's also very beautiful because you can watch whales during the drive.

The next morning, we were woken up by our tour guide Tom at 6 o'clock with strikes on a cooking pot, so we could have breakfast and leave. First, we went to 'Eli Creek', a very clear and especially very cold river that you could walk down or let yourself drift. The water there is so clean that you could even fill up your water bottles at the beginning of the river course. We relaxed there for a while and then went on to 'Indian Head'. From there, we had an incredible view of the endless long beach and could watch whales and turtles in the sea. The next stop was the 'Champagne Pools'. These are natural small pools right by the sea that are flooded by the waves, creating lots of bubbles, which is how they got their name. Unfortunately, it had become a bit cloudy when we were there, but it was still pretty nice there. The last point on the agenda was the 'Maheno Wreck', a very famous shipwreck located right on the beach. It is not as well preserved anymore, but still very impressive and it creates a very nice picture. On an information board, we could also see what the ship used to look like, which was hard to imagine, but the wreck has been there for over 80 years now and 3 decks are buried under the sand.

On the last day, after we had tidied up at the camp, we drove to Lake McKenzie, which is stunningly beautiful. Luckily, we were able to enjoy it in sunny weather after there had been torrential rainfalls during the night. We spent a few more hours there and then it was time to go back to the ferry and back to the mainland.

We both liked the tour even better than the Whitsundays because the island has so many impressive sights and beaches to offer. Additionally, we were lucky with our group because there were only 16 people and usually there are over 30 participants. Our guide Tom was also really cool, which made this tour a complete success.

We would also love to show you pictures, of which we definitely took enough, but unfortunately I am not able to upload the old pictures to the cloud, so the storage space is missing for the new pictures. I really hope that we will soon have better luck with the Wi-Fi and can show you the pictures of the Whitsundays as well.

Today we continued to Rainbow Beach. We will stay here for two nights, there is not much to see, but tonight we went to a huge sand dune where we could slide down with boards and then we watched the sunset. Tomorrow we are going on a horseback ride on the beach, which we are both really looking forward to!

See you soon, Maren and Sarah