Fraser Island back to Rainbow Beach

Friday 2^nd September

This has been another packed day.

After a delicious buffet breakfast provided by Eurong Resort, where we were staying, we started by driving through the forest on wild switchback roads to Central Station, which used to be the location of the original logging camp. There are some replica houses and some interesting photographs on information boards. The satiney trees were cut down and exported all over the world, reputedly even to help with the building of the Suez and Panama canals. The forest giants are mostly gone now, though there are a few big trees left.

We then walked along Wangboolga Creek to see some of the original rainforest. The rainforest is maintained partly by the humidity of the creek water. The creek is hard to photograph because the water is crystal clear and just looks like a ribbon of sand in the photographs. Nevertheless, it is between 6 inches and a foot deep, and runs reasonably fast.

The rainforest walk was interesting, walking through the green gloom seeing the variety of trees and other plants, and appreciating the almost total silence. There did not seem to be many birds, or they were all still asleep. We walked through to Pile Valley, so called because it was a source of marine piles, having trees which were very resistant to sea water.

We got back into the 4WD and set off for a series of ‘perched lakes’. These lakes are all found in sand dunes and are only filled with rainwater. They have a layer of decaying vegetation at the bottom, and this layer stops the water leaking away into the sand. The first one we visited was Lake Mckenzie. We had intended to swim, but a very cold wind had started, so we ended up just wading again. The sand is beautifully white and the water is very clear. The lake is surrounded by forest which in some cases comes right down to the water’s edge, so there isn’t a beach all round the lake – or at least, not today.

We hadn’t appreciated that there has been an unprecedented amount of rain, and the lakes are flooded, which in some cases means there is little or no beach left at the moment. The next lake, Lake Birrabeen, had some beach but we had to wade to get to it. The wind had died and it was warm, so it was very pleasant in the water, and the beach had not a single person on it! We had lunch at the next lake, Boomanjin Lake, which is the largest. It is 10 metres higher than normal, and as a result, has no beach at all that we could see. The water had drowned the lower slopes of the forest all round the lake.

We were booked onto a Dolphin spotting tour at 3.30 at Rainbow Beach, so we set off for the ferry, thankfully driving along the beach this time. We had found the switchback roads quite wearing after some hours, and were glad not to be heaved up and down and have our heads banged on the ceiling and windows. There was quite a queue for the ferry, but most of the people in the queue were too timid to drive through the creek to get to the ferry. Our drivers just went straight through the creek without pausing and straight to the front of the queue, so we were soon on the ferry – leaving quite a few annoyed people behind us, I think.

Unfortunately, our trip to view dolphins was cancelled because of bad weather, so we were re-united with our baggage and had time for laundry instead. We will see the dolphins at 6.30 a.m. tomorrow instead, weather permitting, which means getting up at 5.30!

This will probably be my last post for 4 days. We have 2 nights on a cattle station and two nights on a boat cruising round the Whitsundays, and there is no internet in either place. I would post something if I could get a 3G signal on the iPad, but for the last 2 days I just have ‘No Signal’. People have told me since I arrived that Vodafone don’t have good coverage in parts of Australia, but it’s a bit late now!