Fraser Island – Day 2
Woke up at 5am (ew) and quickly got ready, though everyone else putsed and we didn’t leave til 6:30. The tides are clearly not with us this weekend, as the tide is only low enough from 6-8:45 for us to drive on the beach. This means we’d be stuck on our beachside camp literally all day with little to do (even though somehow cars were driving up and down the beach all day…?).
We drove up 75 Mile Beach and stopped at Happy Valley for dish cleaning… unfortunately the shop wasn’t open yet. I also don’t get why we wasted time washing dishes when we only had a few hours available to drive. Stupid!
A short ways up the beach, we encountered the Maheno shipwreck. It’s a really old rusted ship on the beach that you can see at low tide. We walked around it a bit – really cool to see the wrecked interior all rusted away, with crashing waves just behind it. Lots of people were fishing around it also.
By this time, we had to get to our camp for tonight… and it was only 8:30! We found a spot and waited for the other group to find us there. They did, and also said they’d passed the sign denoting the place we were meant to camp at tonight a ways back. So we turned around and drove 10 minutes back down the beach, just because there was supposed to be a trail leading to a lake from the camp.
For lack of anything better to do, we walked from our camp to the start of the hiking trail at the campground entrance. It was a nice walk along the beach, with golden sand so clean it actually squeaks when you walk on it. We’re not allowed to swim in the ocean through due to the current and threat of sharks. Too bad, because it was so hot and sunny!
We set off on a hiking trail – 22km roundtrip to some lake – which sounded a bit daunting to me, especially in this heat. I figured I’d go at least part of the way and then turn around if I felt like I’d had enough. The walk was boring and hilly, save for little gnome-like bushes (yes really). We carried on, rushing to find this lake that “was only 2 hours away”, and then stumbled upon the Wungul Sandblow, which was quite literally a desert in the middle of a rainforest. It was freaking amazing!! We slid down the side of it, then watched as the Canadian boys climbed up the big sand dune and then rolled down. Climbing up the sand was a little tough when it was especially steep. It was all so gorgeous though – nothing but golden/white sand with ridges in it from the wind, virtually untouched. It felt like we were trekking across the desert, and it was so hot – I was covered in sweat, trying to conserve my water supply. The best part was that after climbing some of the dunes, we could see the deep blue ocean just beyond the sand and forest. Seriously, it was an amazing sight. After realizing we’d gone off the pole-marked track, we turned around and started hiking up the dunes toward the beach.
Eventually we reached the end of the desert and start of the forest, and the path led to the campground where we discovered that we had gone in a big loop rather than heading straight to the lake. Somehow we all missed the turnoff to the lake, just like we all missed the sign to our camping area this morning. Apparently the lake is closed off anyway and is much further away than the indicated 11km. Good thing we missed the turnoff! Instead, we all just chilled in the campground and enjoyed the luxury of picnic tables, since we’ve been traveling without any chairs. We’ve been having to sit in sand or in the vans!
Blah blah… got back to camp, chilled, and had pasta for dinner. I actually helped with it, mainly by draining the disgusting blood from the meat that we ended up not using with the meal. And then we just hung around and I killed time before going to bed.
