fraser island – One Chance to See the World

Travel Diaries: There’s a WW2 shipwreck on Fraser Island!

We continued up 75 Mile Beach. This next bit is by far the coolest spot on the beach for me.

I love this next shot. The day suddenly became a little gloomy, which really added eeriness to the experience. Ahead, the wreck of the SS Maheno slowly appeared from the mist.

Thankfully though the skies cleared up and I got the chance to take some good shots. Here she is laying in all her wrecked glory.

I really didn’t know which pictures to add here, so I just wacked them all in. Due to the way she sits on the sand, she looks completely different depending on angle. SS Maheno was an ocean liner that was being towed by another ship during a cyclone in 1935. It only had a skeleton crew of eight on board when the tow snapped in rough seas and she ran aground. The crew set up camp and were found days later during a search.

I find shipwrecks fascinating. It is the same fascination I have with abandoned buildings, or even towns. What was once full of life and activity in a different time is now silent. It makes me stop and think about what it would have been like in it’s glory days, trying to envision the sight and hear the sounds.

How long will she remain I wonder? I am pleased I got to see the wreck whilst it is still here on the island.

Part One: The Largest Sand Island in the World

Part Two: Lake Mckenzie

Part Three: 75 Mile Beach

Travel Diaries: 75 Mile Beach (Fraser Island trip)

This beach is 75 miles long. It is a registered highway with speed limits.

During my tour (I was on a guided coach tour, although it is possible to take your own off road vehicles onto the island) we stopped off at a handful of places that you can see in my recent and upcoming posts that I will link to the bottom off each post. However the road itself is worth the drive, with constantly changing landscapes on one side and whales swimming near shore on the other.

Our driver, ‘Waz Man’ according to his name badge, was a funny guy.

During the drive we stopped at a small on-beach airfield. This was part of the package, it seems like the tour have made an agreement with the flight company to offer a flight for a cost of $80. It isn’t a bad deal, but I opted not to. Four people got off the bus and flew, circling the beach and then overtaking the coach and landing about twenty minutes later. We met the plane, they got back on the bus and on we went.

The colour of the sands and rock vary here too, there is a lovely footpath we stopped at to take a closer look.

Look at the traffic!

The view below gives away what my next post will be.

Can you see what it is? See you again soon…

Part One: The Largest Sand Island in the World

Part Two: Lake Mckenzie

Travel Diaries: Lake McKenzie (Fraser Island Trip)

For any eagle eyed readers of my blog, you may have noticed a slight resemblance between Lake Mckenzie and Whitehaven beach that I blogged about here in my Whitsundays post. The sand on this beach is the same sand that makes Whitehaven so unique. I was under the impression that Whitehaven was the only beach to have this 98% silica beneath my feet, but here I am standing on it once again!

The depth increases rather quickly in this lake, the reason for the change in colour seen in the images above and below.

I really cannot get over how clear the water is in Australia…

Lake Mckenzie! What did you think? Have you been? Let me know and as always, thanks for reading and I will see you in the comments 🙂

Click here for Fraser Island Part One: Lake Wabby

Travel Diaries: This is the largest sand island in the world

This is Fraser Island. A World Heritage site and so large that it contains rainforests, over 100 freshwater lakes and its own registered highway on a beach 75 miles long. Oh, and a pretty cool shipwreck.

Because there are a good few things to do on this island, I have split this post into parts. This post shows you Lake Wabby, reachable after a long uphill walk through forests. The walk is a good one however, the incline only gradual over a distance.

The walk to the lake itself is a fairly long one too, especially over sand. It is reachable with a walk (or fall) down a very steep dune, which can be pretty tiring when trying to get back up.

Have you ever visited this island? Hopefully my upcoming posts from here will convince you to!!

There is plenty to be found here with a little exploration…

Stay tuned.

This is why you should stick to speed limits…

We had a very close call yesterday as we landed on Fraser Island. We were on a coach driving on the very narrow and winding sand roads through wooded area and as the driver was giving us information, a guy on a dirt bike ploughed into the front of us.

He was doing about 50kph but the corner was just far enough away for him to see us coming and to brake sharply. This wasn’t enough for him to stop, resulting in a loud thud that could be heard in the coach. I had a front seat view and it was a little nerve racking as we had to reverse to let him and his bike out from underneath us.

He was fine, I could tell the way his friends caught up to him, looked under the coach and signalled for us to back up.

So, I took some shots. The coach has a television above the windscreen so passengers at the back can see the view. This was not a view we were expecting…

Now our coach is huge and has a lot of room underneath for a speeding biker. It needs to be for the large quantity of sand on the island. Luckily, the biker was able to get up, spoke to our driver and they both laughed it off, shook hands and went our seperate ways.