Fraser Island, getting there is half the challenge

Writing this during a rest day after tackling Fraser Island and before launching towards Bundaberg, heading ever northward. No phone or internet on Fraser, it is soon to be declared a Wilderness area and is gradually getting stricter about access and driving. Not a moment too soon, it has a vulnerable-to-exploitation look about it, and its terrible history of being plundered by us white folks in the last 150 years is sad to read about. Currently it is something of a free-for-all for the 4WD drive set.  The eastern beach is the main highway, and carries a lot of traffic, mostly in the couple of hours either side of low tide.  There are no bitumen roads on Fraser. The inland is criss-crossed with sand roads. Lots of fun to drive on, in a reckless kind of way, they throw the vehicle all over the place with their deep potholes, ridges, bumps, roots, sand ladders and slidey bits. Rover was up to the challenge. We felt fairly sure we would not contribute to the statistics of 500 accidents on the Island annually, including fatalities. This kind of driving is what our vehicle was made for, and goes some way to justify all the hard-earned we have spent.  

Getting onto Fraser was half the challenge. From Burrum Beach where we stayed for the whale watching expedition, we travelled back south to Rainbow Beach, via the Great Sandy National Park, Cooloola section.  This I mention because we stopped to admire the xanthorrhoeas in flower in the pretty coastal paperbark and heath landscape.

On the other side of the road was a contrastingly bleak landscape featuring a monoculture of radiata pine. But this side was alive with critters and thousands of these white stalks of tiny flowers oozing nectar droplets.

Of course, they had to be tasted.

Delicious, fragrant, sweet, sort of spicy.

A barge from Inskip Point delivers you and your vehicle onto the soft sand of Seventy Five Mile Beach on Fraser Island in about 10 minutes flat. The helpful chap on board lets down your tyres and gives some quick sand driving instruction: Just turn right, mate, head up the beach, stay near the water, no worries!

And off we went, like startled rabbits. Driving on sand. With the Coral Sea splashing onto our wheels on the starboard side, and sand dunes and heathland to the left. Heading north to Eurong, with the hairy negotiation of the gluggy bits around Hook Point soon to be behind us...

The Fraser Island adventure has begun.