Year 2 – 16 March 2025 - Frazer Island Trip -in one word “Amazing”

If anyone reading this and is free from late June to mid July 2025 to come to Australia then do contact me as I am short of crew during this period at present.

We woke at 5.50am and it was still getting light. We had a quick breakfast and headed into Tin Can and left the dinghy on the pontoon as we were going to Fraser Island on a tour for the day. Our taxi was on time and off we went to go to Rainbow Beach which is where we were being picked up to go on our tour. I understand this is the main place that the tours start from south of Fraser Island. It took us half an hour to get there and we went through Tin Can and various other residential areas which looked quite spacious with each house having a large plot.  It was mostly forested and I wondered whether there were Koala Bears and Kangaroos around which I think there were but we did not see any.

We got to the rendezvous point and had a coffee and were picked up in a 4x4 large minibus which had large wheels and was used to going on sand and mud. There were quite a lot of other nationalities on our tour including French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and American and only about 18 of us. We drove out of Rainbow Beach and went to the sandspit where we saw the ferry when we came through the bar a couple of days ago. We got on the ferry and were transported from the sand on the mainland to the sand on Fraser Island and this ferry had a platform each end which it could just lower on to the beach at any point. There were a number of 4x4 vehicles with us on the ferry.

Once we landed on the beach we drove on it for a little bit but the tide was in and there was not much room for us. The driver explained that due to the tide we will have to go inland on an old logging route over to the other side of the Island so we could go to Lake Mackenzie. Apparently they used to export sand from here and also logged for many years with their being a logging station called Central Station. Initially they tried using horses to drag the trees but that did not work well. They then tried buffalo and they eventually they made rail lines and transported the trees to the coast and floated the trees to the mainland. The old road was quite rutted and we had a juddery drive for about 45 minutes.  

The Island itself was created probably about a million years ago with the depositing of sand which built up and became more permanent and grass and foliage began to grow. Although the Island is about 120km long and 22km wide it is still growing and about 500,000 tonnes of sand is deposited a week on the Island. What was clear when we were driving on the beach is that a lot had been swept away as a result of Alfred and rock which had been covered for years had been uncovered as a result of Alfred.

We drove though in the old mining road Oz bush – trees, shrubs, thickets etc and then once we were off the old mining road we came into more like rain forest with palms and canopy trees etc. There are no roads on the Island and it is only sand tracks. These tracks criss-cross the Island and go through the bush and rain forest. After about an hour we came to Lake Mackenzie (named after an old logger) which was a stunning freshwater lake with a sandy surround. The sand was very fine and white and like a lovely pure sandy beach. The water was crystal clear and we were about 80m above sea level and the highest parts of the Island are 200m above sea level. On our approach there were signs about dingoes and how we needed to watch out for them and not feed them or leave any food out. There are apparently some 300 wild dingoes on the Island and we needed to be mindful of them. We walked down to the lake with a dingo stick (a branch to fend them off if attached) and came to this beautiful beach with the lake. We went for a swim and it was a perfect temperature and clean. Its ph. levels are very good and leaves your skin feeling soft. We enjoyed the swim in this lovely location and then they gave us a picnic lunch.  

We then left the lake and returned to the beach on the east side and as the tide had gone out some we were able to use the beach like a road. It was so lovely and smooth and yellow yet the sea and the waves were sweeping in on our right some 30-50 meters away. It was so beautiful.

We drove on for some time to see a rusting wreck in the sand. This was a former famous luxury steam cruise ship called Maheno (a NZ name) which was built in Scotland in 1905 and sold to the Union Ship Company in New Zealand. She was 400 foot long and some 233 tons and steam driven with three triple bladed propellers which meant it could cruise at 17.5 kts. She could accommodate 234 first class passengers and 116 second class. She did the Wellington – Sydney route and set a number of record runs and was able to do it in 3 days. The ship was commissioned 5 times as a hospital ship by the NZ government and helped and rescued soldiers from Gallipoli, the Somme and Africa. By 1935 she was outdared and sold for scrap to the Japanese. It was when she was being towed back to Japan that she met a cyclone which broke her tow line and she ended up on Fraser Island where she has been since.

We drove back down the beach and came to a freshwater creek which flows 5 million lts of water a day into the ocean and you can sort of swim paddle in it. It was a lot colder than the lake we had swum in. We then got into the truck and had a long drive south down the east side of the island to the ferry. This was a beautiful drive where we came across several wild dingoes eating the fish which had been washed up on the beach. The picture of the day is one such dingo in front of the waves coming in on the beach. We saw a number of white eagles and other birds of prey -flying and looking healthy. It is quite exhilarating going along a pristine beach at about 50mpm and it is totally smooth with the waves coming in and sand dunes on your right. This is raw nature and beautiful in its wildest pure state. It was just an amazing experience.

We drove and eventually got to the ferry and retraced our steps. We both felt it had been a fantastic day and well worth the effort. When we got back to Tin Can Bay we had a beer in the yacht club as the sun set and saw wild pigs on the other side of the creek to cap off the day. We had a lovely day and been lucky in what we saw.  

Need/Opportunity Year Two

I am in need of more crew from late June to Mid-July so if of interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com