I arrived in Hervey Bay and met Martin and The Girls at our hostel. While we were in Cairns we had discussed going out to Fraser Island together, and true to their word, they hung around Hervey Bay long enough for me to get back off of Solway Lass.
The next morning we had an early start, as we had to met the rest of our group (2 Irish girls, Annie and Mary, 2 Swedish girls, Sarah and Emily, a Frenchman and his German “Cameraman”), go food shopping, beer shopping and pack all the camping gear onto the car before the morning ferry at 10:30!
My first impression of The Frenchman was not great! He politely informed us that he was filming a travel documentary and that he would use his credit card for the deposit on the car. Fine so far. He then, quite aggressively, informed us that he was “in charge” of the car, and that nobody would drive unless he said so. This did not go over very well with the group! Sadly, relations went downhill from there.
Having assured us that he had driven off-road before, our Frenchman had decided that he would drive the first leg, which took us across the Island from the Western ferry dock to the Eastern beach via a series of deeply-rutted, soft sand tracks.
I’m no expert off-roader, but having grown up driving country roads during horrible Winters I’m well acquainted with four-wheel-drive, and it was becoming obvious that our Frenchman had absolutely no idea what he was doing. After getting stuck for the third time, I discovered that the front hubs were unlocked. He had essentially been driving a rear-wheel drive car and not noticed.
A couple of hours later we reached the Eastern beach, which is the “main road” (and airstrip!) on the Island. We stopped after a few kilometres, and set off on the 45 minute walk inland to the freshwater Lake Wabi, which is surrounded by a mixture of forest and mountainous sand dunes.
It was shortly after this photo was taken that the fine sand which the Island is made from played havoc with the mechanism in my camera. Thankfully the photos were safe on the memory card, but it looks like I’m going to have to buy a new camera!
After returning to the car, we had our next disagreement with The Frenchman. He had insisted on doing his own food shopping, rather than put $20 in the kitty before we left, and had forgotten to buy bread. After failing to convince him of the existence of the shop at the campground, and as we were running out of time to get up the beach before the tide came in and stranded us, we reached a compromise. We would go back to the town to get his bread on the condition that I drive the rest of the way. What followed was later (somewhat drunkenly) described as an “epic display of driving” by one of the girls, beating the tide while leaving us with enough time for a quick stop at the wreck of the S.S. Maheno.
Due to the tides, we set off early again the next morning, heading North to Indian Head (where we sat for a few hours watching the marine life below), then walked along the coast to the Champagne Pools, one of the few places to swim on the coast and once used by the aboriginal tribes as a fish-trap. The second day was far more relaxed than the first, with Martin taking on most of the driving and myself stepping in on the few occasions we got stuck.
On the third day we had to make our way back across the Island to catch the afternoon ferry back to Hervey Bay, but on the way there we headed to Lake McKenzie, the largest of the Island’s 100 or so freshwater lakes. The group decided that I should drive on the inland sections and having seen some of the tracks on our first day, I was really looking forward to getting to them.
The drive inland was some of the most challenging driving I’ve ever done, and I enjoyed every minute of it! Along the way we decided to quickly check out one of the smaller lakes nearby, but were told by a driver coming the other way that the track was pretty rough up ahead and that it was probably best to turn back. Pressed for time we did, but if I had been driving on my own and not in a huge Landcruiser weighed down with 9 other people, I would have liked to have had a go at it!
Lake McKenzie was worth the trip alone. We definetly made the right decision to go straight there! After a swim and a picnic lunch, we started heading toward the ferry dock. We timed our departure well. The track got easier the closer we got, and we made the ferry with about 20 minutes to spare.
