Fraser Island, (Day 10), Part 2

The tramp from central station was along a boarded walkway. It was along here that we got to see what the Aborigines called "silent streams" in recognition of the fact that an island made out of sand has no stones, and therefore nothing to babble the brook, so to speak.

The sand is not completely white throughout the island as it has grey Titanium minerals running through it, so much so that there was a Titanium mine on the island at one point.

From Central Station it was back into the 4WD, and onto our next stop Lake McKenzie. Enroute we passed a part of the forest which had been burnt down a couple of months previously when another tour companies' bus caught fire.

We had a picnic at the lake, again inside a fenced off area. While our guides were preparing our food it was off for our first swim in a natural body of water without fear of stings, bites or otherwise. Most of the lakes are above sea level and manage to hold the water over time due to the formation of "coffee rock" on top of the sand dunes. This impenetrable layer is jet black so although the lake in question was only 8 meters deep, depth perception was almost impossible.

You would be forgiven for thinking that the next pic is from a snowy woodland lake but it's not, the sand is just brilliant white even on a bad day!

As mentioned previously you just do not get to enjoy these places in isolation and there are many tour buses here on any given day, but it is still a remarkable place and well worth visiting. There are plenty of lakes on the island. Click here for an interactive map of the island and lakes. Here's a few more pics around Lake McKenzie.

After the picnic we got picked up by a 4WD taxi, to take us to the King Fisher Hotel where we would be spending the next two nights. The hotel has won countless awards for being environmentally friendly and has a very good restaurant. Unfortunately they seem to be "coasting" on these facts and letting other aspects of the hotel suffer as a consequence. We felt we had to be blunt about it, and we were, when we wrote in their comment card that we would not stay there again. The fact that they never acknowledged our comments, by way of a letter, only proves the point.

It's only redeeming factor, as mentioned above, was a very good restaurant. It had three in total but we will not mention the others! It specialised in bush tucker food, which made for some very interesting ingredients and presentations as the pics below will show.

The starter was smoked Wallaby and the main course was Barramundi. You can't get much more Australian than that!

Cathal