Posts in Category: Fraser Island

Fraser Island – Cool Dingo

Due to the rough sea and low visibility as well as time constraints, I decided to skip Tow of 1770 / Agnes Water and the diving trip to Lady Musgrave Island. After returning from the sailing trip midday, I had to make arrangements for my next stop. The bus-ride further south from Airlie beach turned out to be a 13h overnight trip to Hervey bay. Thanks to the travel-agent at BASE in Airlie, I could book the 2D-Cool Dingo Fraser-adventure for the next morning, 30min after my greyhound was bound to arrive. The buy was perfectly on time but somehow my pick up didn’t show. After spending 10 precious minutes on the hotline, a taxi drove me to the ferry which waited 3min (just for me =) ). After reaching Fraser Island at Kingfisher bay resort, our funny bus driver put us in a pink 4WD off-road bus and we began our trip to lake McKenzie. Luckily we could hide in the crystal-clear lake during the short rain-shower and the weather didn’t disturb our lunch afterwards. Of course it rained it the rainforest during our walks before returning to our lodge-style accommodation at the resort. After the amazing dinner buffet, my new friends and me went to the ‘heated jacuzzi’ at the hotel. After getting excited as we saw the pool, starry sky and jacuzzi, the cold water was a slight disappointment 😀 but we found a solution: Getting out, into the even colder (‘heated’) pool or the fresh air and returning to the jacuzzi made it feel warm for a few minutes ^^. After some pool, jugs of beer and an amazing live-performance to a few tenacious D songs, we recovered for what was to come the next morning: A bumpy ride through the forest to the eastern coast of Fraser Island, the 75 mile beach. We visited the Maheno shipwreck and learned about it’s stunning history and embarrassing end: The conversion from luxury liner to a hospital ship transporting ~~18000 patients, holding the record of the fastest round-the-world-trip for 25 years and it being sold to Japan (wanting the metal) who dismounted the propellers and tried to tow it to Japan, hitting a cyclone and stranding the powerless Maheno on the sands of Fraser island about 79 years ago. We also drove all the way up to the Indian head and the champagne pools, where we spotted a few whales and saw pristine beaches. Later on we floated down the Eli-creek in tyres before our coffee-break. Best of all, I did a 15min scenic flight with air-fraser, starting from the beach and landing further up the beach to rejoin the bus (they claimed this to be the oly place where planes land on the beach apart from a single place in Scotland).