Day 2, Fraser Island Adventure - January 14, 2010

Everybody’s favorite Fraser Island tour guide, Karl, had offered a nice sunrise tour complete with some dingoe sightings. Too bad the departure time was 4:45AM. Nicolle and I didn’t even kid ourselves to think we could wake up that early. Though we didn’t get to see the sunrise, I can safely say that I didn’t put any of my babies in danger of being eaten by a dingoe, which is basically a wild dog.

The morning call time arrived again pretty early at around 7:30AM. The menu for the day’s events included a nice 4WD bus ride up the beach with a few stops here and there. The culmination of the trip was the famed Lake McKenzie.

Our first stop on the drive up the beach was Eli Creek. Fraser Island possesses a large amount of fresh water from the process of the sand filtering the water that is deposited onto it. Karl claimed that Fraser Island has more fresh water on it than Sydney Harbor. One of the fresh water creeks we saw was Eli Creek. As you might be able to see in the picture, the water is extremely transparent. The water is supposedly clean enough to drink, but we didn’t test that theory because we enjoy healthy bowels. Nevertheless, we walked to a point where you could basically walk or float back down to the mouth of the creek.



The second stop was at the shipwreck. The story tells that the ship, called Maheno, was built in Scotland around the early 1900s. The ship was both fast and luxurious. Ultimately, the ship’s captains tried to test the speed with an attempted jump over Fraser Island resulting in the ship being wrecked on the beach. Sorry, the last part is completely made up. It sounds interesting though. I don’t remember how the ship was wrecked. There it stays though. Undisturbed.



We also stopped by the Colored Sands area of Fraser Island. This wasn’t as appealing as the other parts. I believe the sands were colored by mineralization. Not much here. Let’s move on.



Champagne Pools was a little more interesting. Rock formations created this set of pools, which are filled by the ocean’s waves. Some visitors swam in the pools. Karl warned against going in the pools because of jellyfish. And what Karl says goes; he’s lived on the island or visited the island for over 25 years. One interesting aspect to the pools: the island was formed by volcanic upheavals long ago, and you can see some very linear and thin lines of rock formations that was, basically, lava flowing up throw cracks in the rock surface and cooling.




Ah, Lake McKenzie. This is main draw of Fraser Island, which says something because the island contains so many beautiful areas. Lake Mac, as they say, is a fresh water lake. As you can see, the lake’s color is amazing clear, blue, and all around amazing. The sands don’t disappoint either, they’re as white as a baby’s bum. We definitely enjoyed swimming in the lake because it wasn’t too cold. Plus there were no threats. The sand was refreshing too because it felt like walking in sugar.




Because we traveled on the two day trip with the same group of people we were able to befriend two nice lasses from Dublin. One girl was truly Irish and the other was an Italiana. They had only began their trip, which was a three month round-the-world journey. We were jealous.



Our small group also included the aforementioned Karl. What a character he was. He was a guy who had seen and done a lot in his lifetime. But he seems to truly love what he does and that showed in his enthusiasm for guiding the tour. He was so enthusiastic about the job that he even put on his boardshorts to relax on the beach and swim with us. As he said, he really hates his job.



We’ve traveled with many guides both for this trip and other parts of the world, and I think it’s safe to say that Karl was one of the best we’ve experienced.