It’s the largest sand island in the world (120km x 15km), and was formed by sand from the coast and estuaries that has been swept north by the wind and waves. It forms the northern part of the Great Sandy National Park. It’s only just an island rather than connected to the mainland – in fact Captain Cook and his cronies didn’t notice that it wasn’t and mapped it as a headland. Despite the fact that it’s sand Fraser has some remarkable forest, with surprising variety, and impressive wildlife, including the purest Dingoes (pure because they haven’t bred with domestic dogs) in Australia.
We set off from Brisbane on the Wednesday morning on a four-hour drive north to catch a ferry for a half hour hop to Fraser. It’s strictly 4WD territory so we left the car and travelled by foot. Arriving at Kingfisher resort with our packs we headed south down the coast to McKenzie’s Jetty (see photo). This is where the loggers of the early twentieth century used to send the timber back to the mainland. It’s been left to the elements for 70 years.
Having arrived rather later than planned at Fraser we had to make tracks to get to our campsite at Lake McKenzie before dark (it’s not so easy to see snakes in the dark!). 14km from Kingfisher with heavy packs was a good start to the week. Approaching the campsite parallel to the lake gave us a twilight glimpse of a truly fantastic place. The camping ground is for walkers only and therefore deserted of the “Terrourists” who frequent the lake by day coming from the resort at Kingfisher by 4x4. In the morning we had a swim before breakfast and had the entire place to ourselves! The freshwater in the lake is held in by the impermeable soil beneath the sand (it’s called a perched lake, and almost all of the world’s perched lakes are found on Fraser).
We then did the biggest walk of the week – 28km return to Lake Wabby. This took us over to the eastern side of the island, past loads of Goannas. When they see/hear you coming they scuttle up a tree … like this one:
Lake Wabby is another amazing lake. Seen from above it looks like the ‘sandblow’ is level with the lake, but the freshwater is actually held in place by the sand ‘barrage’- look at the second picture and you can see Ella standing on the sand slope.
We were thoroughly tired by the days walk in the heat, and had a final swim of the day when we got back to our campsite – 3 swims in total for the day!
The next morning we had our breakfast down at the lake on our own again. Paradise!
This day’s walk was a little less strenuous, across to Central Station (where the loggers and their families used to live) via amazing forest, 40 metre trees, and the clearest stream I’ve ever seen – Wangoolba Creek. The water is actually so clear because the sand is leached of all its nutrients by rain and vegetation.
We saw a rare Kingfisher on the creek, just as we neared Central Station. There was a good display of the history of the island, and we had our lunch before heading back down the track to our camp. The route back took us via another superb and deserted lake – inspirationally called Basin Lake.
After the previous day’s walk 18km was fairly restful, and we had loads of spare time in the evening to hang around the camp … unfortunately in the daytime there are lots of people at the lake beach though, making lots of noise. After having the tracks almost exclusively to ourselves this was very strange.
We saw a Dingo that paid a visit to the beach and wandered around looking for food. People are warned not to feed them, as they are wild animals, and giving food encourages them to approach humans. In 2001 a nine year old was killed by a pack of Dingoes. The campsites have Dingo-proof fencing to keep them out now.
On the final day we had a farewell breakfast on the lakeside and tramped the 14km back to Kingfisher to get our ferry back to the mainland. Ella had a nasty cold by this time, unfortunately, but having walked 75km in four days means we’re feeling quite fit now!
Here we are waiting for the ferry … exhausted but very happy.
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