Fraser Island

Fraser Island is the size of "Mishor haChof" (for the non Israeli readers it's a part of Israel, come and see) and it is largest sand island in the world. Since there are no roads, only sandy trails, you can only access it by a 4WD vehicle. Most of the time the paths are so narrow that only one car can pass at a time. The drivers on the island have a special game. The first to give way to the car in front of him is the winner. So if you see a vehicle 1km away coming in your direction, you should quickly jump into the bushes or climb on a tree so the other car will pass safely (defeated, but safely). It took us some time but at the end we got pretty good at this game. The important thing we need to remember is not to bring those silly games back home to Israel. People will not understand.

A lot of the tourists take an organized tour to visit the island. Which means jumping up and down with another 20 party people inside a huge 4X4 bus. At the same price you can rent a regular 4WD and drive it yourself. That's what we did.

So we left our 1st hired car on the mainland and drove our 2nd hired car (Toyota Land Cruiser) to the ferry. After about 40 minutes we got to the island. There are two different parts of the island: the beaches and the inland. You can drive on the beaches only few hours a day during the low tide. That's why you should plan the route carefully.

We spent our first afternoon driving inland and visiting lake Wabby. At night we stayed in tents on the beach. While preparing our dinner a nice dingo came to visit. If we weren't in Australia we would've thought that that was a regular dog. There are a lot of dingoes on the island. Once they had a great relationship with the humans, who were more than happy to feed them. But then the dingo population grew extensively and eventually one dingo killed a child. Since then the dingoes are the outlaws of the island. There are scary signs with their faces on them every place you go. Another example of humans irresponsible behaviour that leads to the punishment of the animals.

On the following day we got up before sunrise and started driving north on the beach with the first light (more or less). On the way we stopped near a beatiful shipwreck and took few dozens of pictures. After about 60km we reached the northern point we could reach with our rented vehicle - Indian Head. A strange name for something in Australia. Indian Head is a hill from which you can see a great deal of the ocean. In the ocean we spotted few small sharks, few Manta-Reys and a large sea turtle. Now you can understand why swimming in the ocean is prohibited. On our way back we also saw few whales and dolphins deep in the sea.

After the tide became high again we returned to the inland and visited few more lakes. The famous Lake McKenzie was closed so we went to swim in lake Birrabeen which is supposed to be as beautiful. We spent the second night in the central camping ground surrounded by lots of goannas, just like the one we saw in Noosa, only much smaller.

Since we already visited most of the planned attractions and we still had half a day until the ferry we tried to explore the western side of the island. But sometimes there is a reason why some places are less popular than the other. We spent most of the time trying to walk on the very rocky beach. While doing that we spotted several huge colonies of tiny crabs hiding between the rocks.

Fraser Island is one of the popular tourist destinations in Australia, famous mostly for its lakes. After spending 2 days there we though that the lakes are not that impressive and that the beaches are much nicer. We also enjoyed the sometimes challenging driving. So if you don't like that part, maybe you should reconsider your visit there, or if you don't mind the jumping while someone else is driving check the organized tour option.

Tip 1: If you are into the self driving tour (sort of car rental) check the "Safari 4WD hire", 102 Boat Harbour drive, Hervey Bay. Together with the car you also get a full camping equipment.

Tip 2: Things on the island are much more expensive that what you would imagine. Buy all you need on the mainland