Rainbow beach
The 120km drive from Noosa to Rainbow beach was a pretty uneventful one, other than the usual me belting out tunes in the privacy (and soundproof-ness) of my car of course. And the last 53km are even less eventful and will make the 2hour drive feel like 5 if you ask me. Mind you I always love and will never pass up on the chance to drive through a national park, but the part through the Toolara State Forest is just mainly straight and quite frankly will make just about anyone’s eyes droop if you ask me. The Great Sandy National Park is pretty cool, but as you’re driving about 100km/h you don’t have much chance of seeing shit. So the drive is a long ass one but the reward is great because at the end you’ll find yourself in the charming town of Rainbow beach. It’s not big but it’s got all the comforts you need, especially to head off to K’gari, more commonly known as Fraser Island.
Fraser Island
From 1992 this 123km long island has been listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site and rightly so.
I won’t forgot soon how this biggest sand island in the world was featured on some kind of documentary my dad happened to stumble upon on a school night over 6 years ago. I remember how he called me down from my room to come see this extraordinary natural phenomenon that had formed on the other side of the world.
So when I finally had (and took) the chance to go and actually visit this awe-inspiring place I was more than grateful for life.
Major tip to get the most out of your east coast trip is to make friends with someone working at a travel agency to get the best deals and inside information on the best tours!
I was lucky enough to have a friend who works at Peterpans adventure travel agency in Byron Bay so I was absolutely sure that I got the best deals which brings me to the tour I did for Fraser Island.
Initially, me being me, I didn’t want to do the silly tourist tours and experience the north east coast by my self but I’m actually really glad I did do the tours I did. Some things are just best explored with a professional and good people around you. Which is exactly what I got with Dingo’s and Rainbow beach adventure company.
The 3 day 3 night tour was everything and more you could want or expect! It certainly was for me anyway.
Day 1 asphalt to sand
A(nother) safety and general information briefing done, cars assigned, stuff sorted and packed in before folding ourselves in the cars later we were on the road !
With 8 of us to a car and 4 cars in total per group things got snug and friendly pretty quickly. When you put 3 Irish lads, a French, Swedish, North Korean, English and Belgian chick in a 4WD things are bound to get fun.
Ten minutes of asphalt, a couple 100meters through soft sand and a ferry ride later I managed to get us safely onto Fraser Island. Woooooo!
It was low tide that morning which makes driving on the beach just about the same as driving on a hard packed dirt road (minus the dust lol). Quite easy in other words, still super exciting as I had never driven on a beach before but not the more difficult thing to do.
So AUX cable plugged in, stereo on full volume, a car full of strangers, a big ass sand island and the sun shining bright we were off to a great start already.
Two hours driving along the eastern highway beach later we reached Eurong, one of the three settlements on Fraser Island where we took a short break to switch drivers before we headed land inward toward lake McKenzie.
Lake McKenzie is yet another one of those stunning natural phenomenons found in Australia. Being one of the over 100 freshwater lakes on the island, Lake McKenzie is quite famous for it’s clear water. It is, in fact one of the clearest lakes in the world. We spent a great afternoon swimming in the warm clear water, making new friends and using the silica sand as a natural body scrub.
After a long drive to camp in the rain (including rain leaking into the car) we all gladly cooked dinner together and get to know each other and the rest of the group (all 32 of us) better over drinks, games and music.
Day 2 headlands, pools, creeks, shipwrecks and sunsets
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| Indian Head to the south |
That pretty much sums up day two for ya haha. With the sun out all day it was the perfect day to take a hike up Indian Head for some panoramic views of the island. After that morning stroll up the hill we drove across the beach to relax at the champagne pools for the rest of the morning.
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| Champagne pools |
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| highway cruising |
Another beach lunch later we headed back down the highway to visit the SS Maheno shipwreck.
This once 120m long dream liner (cruise) ship got washed ashore with a cyclone in July 1935 while being towed from Sydney to shipwrecks in Osaka, Japan. As all the attempts to reflect her had failed, for the past 84 years the wreck has been slowly corroding away on the eastern beach of Fraser Island. Right on the highway.
We got there in the early afternoon as the tide was coming in so the waves were quite spectacularly crashing into and going through the ships remains.
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| Fraser crew |
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| Happy (floating) days |
Our last stop of the day would be Eli Creek. This fresh water creek has a year round temperature of about 18degrees thanks to the constant flow of about 80 minion litres of fresh spring water flowing through everyday.
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Jenny and I floating
around
(RIP that bikini :( ) |
With the black tubes we brought with us from camp we spent the rest of the afternoon floating down the stream, playing volleyball and chilling on the beach.
Once back at camp we all headed down to the beach for some sunset drinks. Meeting a couple locals on the way. The dingoes that live on Fraser Island are quite unique as they are the last remaining ‘pure’ dingoes in Eastern Australia. Though these guys may look very like ordinary (domestic) dogs, they are quite the opposite, they are, in fact, just as wild as the shark swimming just off shore or the kangaroo’s hopping cross the mainland. My point being that they are dangerous and not to be taken lightly. There have been plenty of cases where people get attacked by these wild dingoes and people have even died at their “hands”. Dingo fences have been placed around the townships on the island and when camping outside fines apply concerning leaving food and rubbish out as they may (and will) attract dingoes which can have potential dreadful consequences.
Common sense rules are widely spread as well, like don’t go wandering about at night, don’t go wandering about alone (at any time of day), don’t approach wildlife, don’t make eye contact ect.
Anyway, we had a banging sunset on the beach with the entire group before heading back to camp for dinner and more (drinking)games that went well into the night :p
Day 3 Green, blue, sandy and asphalt again
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| Lake Wabby |
Admittedly waking up early the next morning was pretty painful but was well worth it once we were back to cruising on the beach again. This time we were heading for Lake Wabby! Which is, incidentally, again one of those extraordinary features of Fraser Island. It so happens that this lake is actually slowly disappearing, it’s quite literally being swallowed by a massive sand dune to the east. The two kilometre walk through bush is easy enough though the last couple hundred meters across the sand dune may provide magnificent views it also slows you down by 300% lol.
So after the famously blue lake (McKenzie) we were all pretty stoked for this green lake. No idea why it’s so green but it’s the deepest (12m) and least acidic lake on the island thus permitting several fish-types to inhabit the lake. One of those are the tiny ones that munch away on your dead skin. Anyway, once it began to rain we all skidded back up the dune to the walking track back to the trucks for lunch.
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| waving Fraser Island goodbye! |
Luckily, by the time we all got off the track the sun had come back out and was drying us all up nicely so we had lunch before packing everything back up again to head all the way back down the island toward the ferry that would put us back on solid (asphalted) ground.
Once back at the hostel, everyone got all their stuff back, got their rooms allocated, clothes washed and had a shower we headed out with a big bunch of our group for dinner. It was a great ending to another great adventure as the following day we would (almost) all split up again and go our own ways on our travels.
Agnes water
Friday the 19th of April I headed out of Rainbow beach with Helena, one of the girls I met on Fraser Island. It was so good to have a travel mate even for the day. We drove the 322km (+about a 100km of wrong turns and not the shortest route ideas lol) up to Agnes Water in one go. Agnes Water is known (among backpackers mostly) for it’s cheap surf lessons and chilled small town vibes. It’s the last stop on the east coast heading north where you can swim in the ocean (without risking dying/getting hurt from jell fish and other marine life), as well as being the last stop you can actually surf because of the great barrier reef that limits waves forming to the north. This also makes it the most southern access point to the Great Barrier Reef.
I had set myself a good week between my Fraser Island tour and my snorkel day out on the Reef in Cairns (approx 1,500km straight up the highway). In the past couple weeks though, I had made up a decent little map of all the things I wanted too see in-between, which was about 98% rainforest and waterfalls. Anyhow, as I only had a week to see all that beauty I wanted to (and because it was pissing down rain the following morning in Agnes Water) I only stayed the night and headed off further north on Saturday morning.
Although I still made a slight detour to Seventeen Seventy. Which simply intrigued me. There was absolutely nothing there really but it was one of those weird sights in Australia that you get drawn too. The town of Seventeen Seventy (1770) has simply been named so because James Cook had his second landing on Aussie land in May of 1770. Other than the Marker commemorating the landing there really isn’t much else to do. So it wasn’t a very lengthy detour but the rain had stoped and the sun was doing it’s best to come through too.
Rockhampton
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| roo garden |
Off to Rocky. A good 3hours later I was wandering through the free zoo right next to the Rockhampton botanical gardens. I was very pleasantly surprised by this little zoo. It had all the great Aussie animals all as well as some very ‘typical’ zoo animals. Needless to say I was extremely happy with this unexpected find (as I was originally heading for the botanical gardens which I always love doing). I fuelled up on scones after a lovely walk through the botanical gardens too before heading back into to to officially cross the Tropic of Capricorn.
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| Rocky's beautiful botanical gardens |
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| Koala chills |
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| made some friends |
WELCOME TO THE TROPICS
Lunch was a buffet of beautiful Queensland prawns, taste salmon, mutiple salads, meat platter and breads. The perfect break before heading to the next destination which was the outer Upolo reef. This reef was much swallower and close to a sandbank which meant we were able to get closer views of the corals but that we also had to be more careful not to touch anything. 
