We just completed our 3day/2night camping trip on Fraser Island, the most protected World Heritage listed place on earth. Speaking of World Heritage places...I had no idea such places existed until coming here. I still have to google it but apparently there is a committee called UNESCO (not sure what it stands for) that protects certain areas of cultural and biological significance and determines guidelines for who can visit, how much electricity can be used, where you can camp, rules for protecting the animals...all sorts of things. I'm sure there are places back home that are protected by UNESCO but I guess I never noticed.
Anyways, google it. Fraser Island is ranked number one on earth according to UNESCO for importance and need for protection. The waters surrounding Frasier provide an excellent steady food source and so ocean animals (turtles, whales, sharks) come here from all over the world when its time to mate because its the only place they know they are guaranteed food. So if you see a sea turtle anywhere you know its been to frasier! If this ecosystem was lost everything in the ocean would get messed up then everything on land would get messed up and life would end. Don't worry we didn't litter! Here are some facts but I highly suggest googling more information...this is the coolest place ever!
~ 7,200 species of insects are found on the island...600 are poisonous
~ 28 species of snakes on Fraser, 27 are poisonous, including the top 7 deadliest snakes in the world (most have no antivenin cure!)
~ Deadliest spider on earth is the Fraser funnel web spider which is found only on Fraser. It has the deadliest neurotoxin known to man and there is no antidote! 138 people have been killed by spider bites in the past 7 years. Kills you in 25 minutes. We were taught about this once we were on the island, made us very nervous for our lives, literally! Thank god it's not aggressive and stays in its burrow.
~ The only pure dingoes (wolves) on earth are found here. All the others in Oz have mated with dogs so they're not purebred anymore. They grow to be twice as big as an adult German Shepard! The adults stay inland and the pups have to stay by the ocean or else the adults will eat the them. Last year a 22yo man was decapitated bc he fed the dingos and then ran from them...bad idea! Don't feed the dingos!!
~ Its the biggest sand island on earth...more sand than the Sahara!
~ The lakes are filled with tea tree oil...free spa treatments!
~ They have exploding trees that will explode every now and then when lightning strikes and burn down everything around them so everything starts fresh again
~ Only rainforest where everything grows from the sand! No dirt and grass and whatever else plants usually grow from
~ Home to the oilyest and oldest trees in the world
~ Speaking of trees...something we forgot from our trip to the Daintree Rainforest: you know the glow in the dark trees they have in the movie Avatar? They're inspired by trees in the Daintree that glow because of the bacteria living on them. So cool!!
~ ok back to Fraser...its home to the biggest bird in the world, I forget what its called but its some type of sea eagle and it has a 15 ft wingspan!
~ It's home to 30 of the oldest plants on earth...the BBC filmed their Walking with Dinosaurs documentary here because it's the only place on earth that has remained unchanged since the dinosaur days. Looks like something out of Jurassic Park! Only 12% of the trees can be seen above ground the rest of the tree is a complex rooting system underground!
Ok enough facts. We thought you guys might be sick of hearing our writing so here's a special cameo from our new friend Minty! She loves fashion and sandwiches and is great! She's Brittish...check out all the fun words and phrases we've been learning :-)
<<"So the last fews days have been awesome. After it pissed down with rain in the morning, we caught the ferry over to Fraser (biggest sand island in the world). Our ring leader was a guy named Ian, an ex army man with tattoos who smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish. He had such a passion for the island and we soon found out how amazing and special it was.
The island has a huge amount of history behind it that I personally had no idea about...that term 'never judge a book by its cover' springs to mind as I thought it was just pretty beaches. First day in our four 4 by 4s, we drove down 75 mile beach, the view was unbelievably surreal and we were driving along the sand with the ocean only meters away.
Our first stop - the Mehano shipwreck. It was used in the first world war, carrying 90 percent of Australians ad New Zealanders to war. The ship was built to compete with the titanic and succeeded in being the most luxurious ship and fastest ship in the world for 30 years. Many years later, the Japs bought the ship and while tagging it to Japan the rope snapped in a storm and she came to be stuck on Fraser, perfectly preserved. It was during this time in 1929 that the Great Depression hit and due to the exquisite living conditions in Australia, the now beached ship became home to people from around the island and country. The community became so large that teachers were put on board and they had their own post code.
What we saw of the ship was just one tenth, the rest being submerged beneath the sand. An idea as to how big it was - it used three times the amount of steel than the titanic!
We went to some sand dunes that were just huge. Imagine rolling hills but made of sand. We just managed to climb to the top, after what felt like walking up a vertical wall of sand. The view was something else, all these different colours of sand. We actually rolled down it, although I have to say Alexa was a bit behind the rest of us (but we can keep that on the DL). Sand was everywhere, I still think I'm leaking it from my ears, but it was the most amazing thing!
We also went to Lake Wabby, you come out of the forest into what feels like a desert and coming over the top of the hill you look down to see a beautiful freshwater lake, it was a view you imagine on postcards!">>
Thanks Minty!!
Needless to say, our experience was incredible. We grocery shopped in small groups before we left for the island and prepared to rough it in tents for three days. Our orientation included a bunch of facts on the poisonous animals on the island, what to do if you encounter a snake or dingo, and how much rain was in the forecast for the next few days...great way to start our vacation.
We hopped a ferry over to Fraser and the sun came out! We broke ourselves into 4 groups of six and tagged along with the British crew. Karina and i couldnt drive because it was a manual so we entrusted our lives with an ex army-man to drive us safely through the dunes. We off roaded through crazy rainforest and jungle (which I finally learned are the same thing!) and spent the day driving around to different lakes. We drove along the beach...unreal! Not only is the beach a highway (with a speed limit and everything!) but its also a landing strip for planes! There are 181 freshwater lakes on the island. They're all surrounded by tea trees and the tea tree oil keeps the insects away. Pretty wild, people pay lots of money for products with tea tree oil and here it was just flowing freely around us! So we scrubbed our hair, bodies, teeth and even our jewelry and had a nice afternoon at the "spa."
We also went to another lake where we had to trek through a rainforest and then a desert and at the bottom of a huge hill was a gorgeous lake...desert meets rainforest meets lake...so cool! We rolled down the hill into the lake, great fun!
Later that night we made it to our campsite. Palace (the tour company) is the only company with a permit to leave their camping gear set up so we arrived to find our tents pitched and cooking gear ready to go. Unfortunately, no toilets or showers. Yup, we had to dig holes to pee! Luckily we were right on the ocean so we could have a "poo with a view" if you will. Oh, there were dingos so we had to go in pairs with flashlights and sticks...let's just say Karina and I got real close this weekend!
After cooking dinner, we spent the night drinking wine (and by wine I mean goon...were not that classy) and dancing and singing on the beach. Karina made a nice little playlist on Ian's iPod and got to be dj for the night- the crowd loved it! So fun!
The next morning we were awakened by the soothing sounds of Ian banging pots and pans yelling "good morning possums!!!! Time to get up!!! Bang bang bang!!!" talk about an obnoxious alarm. Our backs were pretty sore from sleeping on the ground but at least we didn't die by spider bite! We saw 8 sets of dingo prints around the campsite and a bunch of snake tracks...crazy!
We spent the day driving along the beach to various spots, including the shipwreck Minty mentioned, climbing really high rocks that look out over the ocean, a beach with sand that squeaks when you walk on it, and floating down a place called Eli Creek. Eli Creek has some of the finest sand in the world so you can drink from the mouth of the river (the part where no one swims!). The goon was flowing and we just floated along and hung out in the water for the afternoon! We had ourselves a nice Lady Gaga singalong in the car. Saw our first dingo!! They're not afraid of humans, pretty scary. He was real close to us while we were swimming and walked alongside the car when we drove away. Then We went to a huge sand dune...like a Sahara Desert style dune...and rolled down the hill. So amaZing! Scariest thing ever! We were so dizzy the world was spinning for a while after we stopped! But it was incredible and so freeing :-) (again Alexa was just "a bit" behind the group). There's a video of this somewhere too! (Alexa -- I was just enjoying the moment!!)
Unfortunately thanks to the hill we spent the rest of the day covered in sand but oh well, definitely worth it!
We cooked again and had ourselves another party on the beach. Karina had a bit of a dramatic meltdown with mother nature. It went something like this: we were sitting cooking dinner and all of a sudden I felt something was missing. I looked around realized my other half was gone!! I went back to the tent and found karina lying on her suitcase lamenting about sand in her eyes and how she thought she would never see again. (eye pain is serious people!!) Since I'm such a good Boyfriend, I put drops in her eyes and since she was temporarily blind, went off to cook her her very own vegetarian dinner. Half hour later, the rest our crew and I were eating and all of a sudden we hear yelling and swearing and looked up to see karina running up from the tents tripping and falling over all the tent poles. (lesson learned: dont run in a campsite-it's hard to see rope going across the path in the pitch dark!!) Apparently in the half hour since I left her, kar managed to have an eye crisis, battle a frog that hopped into our tent before blindly stumbling back to dinner and tripping on the poles holding up the other tents. Thankfully nothing tipped over! A few bruises were made but nothing goon and a good dance party couldn't fix! A little while later, one of the big manly guys who was staying in our tent came running out yelling about a spider in the tent and that he refused to sleep there, suggesting that we should take care of the spider for him. What a baby! Obviously we weren't about to battle a poisonous spider so he and another manly guy armed themselves with sticks and shoes and set off to find the intruder. Even though there was no sign of any spiders, he wouldn't sleep in the tent and left us girls to brave the spider alone. Men! And we're supposed to be the girly ones!
Then we had ourselves another nice dance party that included a great rendition of Hey Soul Sister. It was great!
Fortunately we survived the night without any more nature encounters (although we did see a dingo run through camp in the morning!) and were sad to pack up the next day. Our final stop was Lake Mackenzie which is a lake with sand composition comparable to Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays...96% silicone or something like that. Actually I don't think it's silicone but that's what it sounds like every time they told us...I'll have to look it up. We swam and frolicked in the lake and had ourselves a great afternoon, and then it began to rain. But the rain held off for most of the trip so we can't complain too much!
The cars all managed to survive the trip as well, save for a mirror that was lost to the jungle. We'll blame the dingos. We left Fraser later that afternoon and had the world's best shower back at the hostel. Well actually the shower was terrible but after showering in sand for the past three days it was heavenly! We headed to the pub to celebrate our surviving the island and said goodbye to our friends. We had a great time and I think I'll actually consider going camping again when we get back home!!
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