Fraser Island

On ferry to Fraser Island

Line up of cars waiting to come back off the island

Driving around Hook Point

Bogged! even draw bar is covered by sand

We then headed for the ferry from Inskip Point, let our tyres down and made the quick trip over which felt pretty gold plated - $150 for 10 minutes each way! It really felt like we were on a (semi) deserted island though when the ferry barge pulled in – there’s no road or landing at either end, it literally just stops on the beach, and it comes in with its own ramp lowered down which it then rams into the beach, engines full throttle, pauses for a moment while you all drive on and off and then leaves again. There was a sign in the Parks & Wildlife office at Rainbow Beach advising people about the ferry, that you should lower your tyres before you get on the barge, and when you land drive straight onto the beach ‘and then floor it’, which pretty much says it all about sand driving – to stop is to sink.

It was kind of surreal driving up the Eastern coast of the island straight on the beach, as the dunes on the side mean that you don’t really see much of the island at first, it’s just like you’re on a road except that you’re dodging a few trees and bumping through inlets coming down to the sea. We turned in at the main town, Eurong, which has a bit of an alpine ski town feel about it (it’s tiny and everything is twice the normal price), and then headed inland to our campsite. The roads inland are much worse really than the beach because if you’re going at the right time tide-wise on the beach, you can drive on the firm sand, but the inland roads are just deep sand the whole time. Going inland we were also going uphill a bit too, on narrow roads, parts of which are two-way, and it only took one car to be stopped in the middle of the road forcing us to try and go around it…. and we sunk.

The first car that came past kindly offered to help but at that stage we thought we could drive out of it, but… there was no driving out of it, and then we started getting annoyed at all the cars and tour buses that just kept driving past! Just as we were getting out the air jack with very little memory of what to do with it, a little convoy of NSW people stopped and offered to help which we gladly accepted. They suggested our winch, which is when we found that it wouldn’t work! It did when Nick tested it 6 months ago, but not now, not sure why. The rescuers’ winch did work though luckily and they pulled us up the hill which was a relief – by this time quite a queue of cars were waiting in both directions. I videoed it and Nick noticed later that our trailers’ tyres weren’t even turning for half of it so they were just pulling a dead weight, perhaps we didn’t lower the tyres enough…. Not sure.

I wasn’t quite so enthusiastic about Fraser Island that afternoon – not easy to get around, but once that was sorted we got onto the one way roads which are much easier, and the campsite is beautiful, set amongst these hugely tall Satinay trees. Everything is covered in moss and shaded with a real rainforesty feel about it (since it is), lots of huge old tree stumps as well, as it used to be a forestry camp apparently. You can tell that this place is ruled by tides as the campsite was empty when we arrived, then everyone suddenly turned up at the same time later in the afternoon, obviously you have to finish driving on the beach by a certain time.