Episode 27 - Fraser Island
Our most exciting news of the week is that we have a new grandson!!! My younger daughter, Krissi, gave birth to her first baby, Jacob "Rowdy" Lee Tucker on November 23, 1999 at 2:00 in the afternoon! Now, for you Yanks, "tucker" in ‘strine means food, so Rowdy Tucker is liable to have an entirely different meaning here in Oz than back home in the states! Probably on par with naming your kid "Chile Pepper", or "Sichuan Beef". I’ll bet he turns out to be a spicy little devil! By all reports, Momma, Rowdy, and proud Pappa Bob are all doing well, and, when we get photos, they’ll be posted here. Thanks Krissi and Bob for our new Grandson! And thanks to Grandma Shelly and Aunty Andee for keeping us posted on the details.
We finally decided: "damn the weather - we’re going to Fraser Island, regardless!!". It’s not like we didn’t bring enough equipment to make do in any kind of weather, and the forecasters here are every bit as accurate as those in the states (that is to say, not at all!). So, since the sun was out and we couldn’t believe the forecasts for rain with the possibility of a cyclone developing, we packed our stuff for a Troopy camp, and bid farewell to Primo and our trailer for a few days.
Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It lies just off of the east coast some 100 km north of Eumundi and was formed when sand, moving northward with the ocean currents, piled up against a small continental island rock formation. It’s about 15 km wide, 125 km long, and is just a kilometer or so from the mainland at the south end. The east coast of the island is distinguished with a wide, firm beach which can be driven at freeway speeds during low tide! The interior is covered with temperate rainforests and freshwater lakes, while the west coast is mostly mangrove swamps.
For anyone planning a similar trip the following information may be useful. If taking your own vehicle, it is necessary to get a vehicle permit at a ranger station on the mainland (we got ours at the Rainbow Beach station). It costs $30 and is good for a month. The ferry, or barge as it is called here, cost us $57 return (cash only) and the return trip can be made from any of the other departure points on the island. Camping in the park sites or on the beaches is $3.50/person/night and there are hotel accommodations at the various resorts. The resort locations have a decent, if expensive, selection of groceries, grog, bait/tackle, telephone access and restaurants. There is even an internet cafe machine at the pub in Eurong! We did see some caravans on the island, but the interior roads are single lane and in deep sand, so we wouldn’t recommend them unless you time it just right and run on the eastern beach only. Even then, it could get exciting in the deep sand at the ferry landings and especially at the Indian Head’s bypass road! In any case, engage 4 WD and lower tire pressures to 20 psi before moving onto the beach at the ferry crossing.
Ferries run to the island at several points and are equipped to carry vehicles as well as passengers. Our friends recommended that we start from the south end at low tide. Well, we did catch the ferry at the south end near Rainbow Beach, but managed to get the tide times screwed up and arrived at high tide! This is the trusty Troopy disembarking and the loose sand that must be driven at the high tide.
Because of our bad timing, we were condemned to drive the rough and sandy interior roads all the way to our first night’s stay at Boomajin Lake. This is a typical interior, "perched" lake and is the largest lake of this type in the world! Even at that, it’s not very big and can be walked around in a couple of hours. A "perched" lake is one that is formed when vegetation accumulates in a depression to produce an impermeable layer over otherwise porous sand. Rainwater fills the lake, but, due to the decaying vegetation, the water is usually tea colored, although clean. The other type of freshwater lakes on the island are the "mirror" type, which are just depressions in the sand which are lower than the freshwater table and fill with clear, fresh water directly form the water table. All of these lakes are home to small freshwater turtles like these:
Small fresh water creeks like this one (Wanggoolba Creek - say that three times quickly without biting your tongue!) drain the considerable annual rainfall into these lakes and the ocean.
We spent our first full day on the island visiting these various interior lakes, walking through the rainforests and getting used to plowing along on the deep, sandy roads of the interior. It got quite interesting on those occasions when we’d meet another vehicle going the other way on one of these sandy, single lane roads while we were both desperately trying to maintain our momentum and make room for the other vehicle to pass when there just wasn’t any room!! Definitely got the adrenalin going! When we finally got out on to the beach at low tide, it was a relief. The high tide compacts the beach sand to a hardness approaching that of pavement, so driving is easy and fast. Too fast, sometimes. The most common accident on the island occurs when someone is going to fast, hits some soft sand or a spot where a freshwater creeks flows across the beach to the ocean, and rolls over. Many injuries occur this way every year. The problem is, when the tide comes back in, the hard, compacted beach margin disappears, leaving only very soft sand above the high tide marks to drive in. This loose sand is difficult or impossible to drive in, and, if you get stuck there as the tide is coming in, there’s a chance that the high tide will wash your vehicle away! People caught driving on the beach as the high tide is coming in are often hurrying to get to the nearest exit from the beach and make a mistake. It’s important to carry a tide chart (available from any ranger station or store on the island) and plan beach travel for only around the low tide.
We found a nice beach camp site just north of the Eurong resort with a great view of the ocean as well as good tree cover from the prevailing sea breeze. Someone had stocked the site with firewood and even left behind some Girl Scout water (kerosene), so we built one of our rare campfires. In the morning we were rewarded with this beautiful sunrise and the sight of a dingo running along the beach!
Now, we had heard quite a bit about how the Dingos were a hazard on the island, but only rarely did we see one, and even then they were scurrying away. However, some of our camp neighbors made the mistake of leaving shoes and food out during the night, or when they were away from camp, and came back to find them gone or destroyed by the wild dogs.
When the tide went out, we drove up the beach to the wreck of the Maheno which is an old retired Tasmanian liner that has been beached here in deep sand since the ‘30's. It’s slowly rusting away, but, in the meantime, forms an attractive tourist stop and fishing spot.
We continued on the beach road visiting the various resorts along the way and eventually settled in this nice little campsite just north of Cathedral Beach where there are some striking sandstone formations. The palms in the background provided me with the opportunity to construct a hanging shower- it sure felt good!!
These little Ghost Crabs were all over the place - I collected a few to use as bait. Karen said "No wonder he looks so crabby!"
The next morning when the tide receded, we continued on up the beach to Indian Head (named so by Captain Cook in 1770), which is the rock formation that originally started the sand pile. The beach does not continue around the headland and it is necessary to take an interior bypass road. Before leaving the beach, however, I collected some cunji on the headland rock. This is a marine animal that grows in a leathery shell attached to the rocks between the high and low tide lines. It’s supposed to be good bait for fishing from the rocks.
When we went to tackle the bypass road, we found that there were no less than two other vehicles stuck in the sand! Since I couldn’t drive around them, we pitched in to help them out. The most common cause for getting stuck here is over inflated tires and losing momentum. I always carry a stout, long handled shovel and a tire pressure gage, so, with the help of other passers by and those tools, we soon had the road cleared. The Troopy went through without a problem.
This is what Indian Head looks like from the north.
After walking into some rock pools at the point of Indian Head and fishing (unsuccessfully)on the north side, we moved further north to Waddy Point. This is very nice camp ground and beach with some reportedly excellent fishing rocks and sandy beaches in a somewhat sheltered cove. The park ranger assured me that it would be easy to catch a feed of bream from the rocks. We set up camp and headed off to the point to collect our dinner. Karen walked around the rocks and guarded the Troopy while I went in to have a fish. There were several other fisherman working the area that the Ranger had indicated dinner was waiting, but they weren’t catching anything - they must be using the wrong bait, or not holding their tongues just right. I tossed in some of my hard earned cunji on a nice big 2/0 hook and was rewarded with lots of nibbles and a bare hook in return! Hummm. Pipis (sand clams), then - same result. Sand worm and squid followed, but still no sight of what I was feeding, so I went to a smaller hook. #2, then finally #6! What I was feeding were a bunch of undersized bream and darts, which are too small and bony to eat!
Dart
Bream
I tied one on to a 2/0 hook to see if I could land a nice, big predatory fish, like a tailor, or something, but no luck. It was dinner out of the grub box that night! I eventually found that, if I fished the rising tide with small hooks and tough bait like squid, I could catch just legal, edible bream, but that’s all. We had the bream and a another similar fish, a luderick, one evening and they were, OK, but not great. The beach fishing yielded all darts, but gave me lots of practice with the equipment. I haven’t yet mastered the Aussie sidecast reel, so most of the time I used the large "egg beater" surf casting reel that I’d brought from the states. The camping was excellent and there were even hot showers! A family of Butcher birds tried to talk us out of our breakfast crumbs on a few occasions, but we resisted "feeding the animals". This little guy was manning the information booth at the campground!
After several days, we packed up and headed back down the coast to do some more beach fishing along the way. There were more vehicles to pull out of the sand at the Indian Heads bypass and we stopped for a fish at the Maheno wreck.
I was able to catch and release some nice bream a few cm over the minimum size around the wreck and that was fun. It was a common occurrence to have small planes like this one land on the beach, so we had to keep an eye open for them to avoid a conflict of time and space!
What I really wanted was to catch some whiting. I’d heard that they were good eating, but, as yet, I hadn’t seen one. We continued down to what was supposed to be another good fishing spot at Poyungan Rocks and encountered a resident fishing there. He reported catching tailor near those very rocks several days before! Tailor are a fairly large predatory fish that run in Sept and Oct when there is a very large annual fishing competition on the island. It is rare to hear of them being caught in Dec, so I was stoked! We found this wonderful campground nearby and set up camp.
Over the next couple of days I fished the channel just offshore of the rocks and did manage to catch this one legal whiting, but no tailor.
We had it with breakfast, and it did taste great, what there was of it. Sigh, that’s why they call it fishing instead of catching, I guess. I did, however, catch and release lots of legal bream which were great fun! There were also many more dart caught and released as well, so the fishing was really good even if I didn’t get any nice, big fish. Karen spent her time reading, walking the beach, taking photos, and putting up with my smelly fishing stuff. We spent many magical hours walking along the beach and inventorying the flotsam and jetsam which included several types of jellyfish, seahorses, even some capsicums (bell peppers, to you Yanks) that had apparently been washed overboard from some freighter.
The weather could be best described as changeable. In Nevada we used to say "If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and it’ll change". On Fraser you don’t have to wait that long! I could have the bait stripped from my hook in the bright sunshine, and get rained on before I could get it baited again and back into the water! That’s the ocean for you! For the most part, it looked like this.
To us!!
Warm, but seldom hot; cool, but never cold. Just right, I’d say. A subtropical paradise in summer.
Finally, it was time to pack up and head back. We ran all the way down the beach (at low tide, this time) to Hook Point where the ferry had dropped us off. Then it was back across the water on the ferry and home to Eumundi. After a day of clean up and organization, we bid another temporary farewell to Primo and rolled on down to Southport where we will be staying through the Christmas holidays. The next item on our agenda is a trip to Lamington National Park, which is just a short drive from Southport. Stay tuned, same bat channel, same bat time....next week!!