Fraser Island to Sydney (Day 12)

Day 12 was departure day from Fraser island and involved a catamaran, a four hour drive, a two hour flight from Brisbane Airport and a taxi to arrive at our next abode, the Pensione Hotel on George's St., in Sydney. (I'm getting tired just thinking about how tiring and long a day it was!).

But before we left, we left at 10.00 am which was the afternoon relative to our other departure times on the trip to date, we took some close up pics of the local flora. The fern might be the symbol of NZ but Australia has its fair share too, as the next photo's show.

OK the last pic above is of a palm tree and the next two pics are extreme close ups of the same tree. (I can't remember whether the pic above and below are of a fern or a type of palm tree, I think it's a type of palm tree?). The second one is a close up of its flower. If you look closely towards the centre of the pic you will spot two ants.

The other common flower you see all over the place is the Banksia Flower which has these amazing flowers which change colour and texture as they go to seed.

We really enjoyed our time on Fraser although admittedly I think I enjoyed it more than Sharon. (Then again there were no yarn shops so that might explain a thing or two!) We are home a few weeks now and I think about that part of the trip, and in particular Lake McKenzie, more than all our other destinations.

The Pensione Hotel in Sydney proved to be a real find and a great base to explore the city. It was definitely the best value for money accommodation of the trip. It's situated in a refurbished building and although the rooms are small, and the en-suite only has a shower, the character of the place and the fact that it's pretty new more than makes up for the lack of space. I guess you could call it a boutique hotel with all the feel of the best of its Italian counterparts.

If you click here you'll see that even the web site is tastefully done.

Cathal

Fraser Island (Day 11) Lake McKenzie Walking Trail

Day 11 saw us head off on our first tramp, on Fraser Island. The trail is called the Lake McKenzie Trail and is 11.5 km long. However there is a shorter tramp that brings you as far as a place called McKenzie's Jetty which is only 3.5km long and was therefore far more appealing. (Well we were on our holidays!)

The shorter tramp starts off with about a 2 km walk through a forest which ends at the Jetty and from there you have the option of returning on the same route or complete a loop via the beach. The beach option is only possible if the tide is out far enough, something the receptionist at the hotel failed to mention!

Here's some pics taken as we walked through the forest.




As we walked through the forest we came across a lot of Gum trees, that's Eucalyptus trees to the rest of us, which were shedding their bark. Some of the bark was a vibrant red colour like in the pics below.

We were to learn during our stay in Australia that there are many types of Gum trees like the one below which is called a Squiggle Gum Tree because of the marks an insect leaves behind. The picture below that seems to be some sort of fungus that grows on the trees and the last is a pic of two tree trunks that have been painted, presumably by Aborigines?

After the walk through the forest we arrived at McKenzie's Jetty. Which, you can see by the pics, is not exactly in mint condition.

After a short stop and rest at the jetty, we headed off down the beach back to the hotel. The picture below is of coffee rock which is some of the rare rock found on the island

When you are on holidays the tendency is to lie by the pool and generally take life easy. When you have travelled such a distance and spent so much money there's more incentive to get out and see the place. We have only started tramping since we went to NZ and have found it a really brilliant way to experience the various landscapes in the various countries. You are more or less guaranteed to have most of the time in isolation, away from traffic and noise pollution generally, and you get to see and experience nature in its purest form. The nicest thing to do is to sit down, shut up, and just listen.

Sharon has to remind me every so often on our walks that shutting up doesn't come that naturally to me!

Cathal

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

Fraser Island (Day 10)

Anyway back to Australia.

Those of you who are good at arithmetic will notice that I have skipped a day, Day 9. The reason for this is because we spent most of the day travelling to our destination Noosa. Noosa being the departure point for our visit to the third World Heritage Site of our trip, Fraser Island. Take a look at the sign post below, it will give you an idea of just how far we had travelled from our first destination Cairns. (1700km). Although we were still in Queensland we were now in the Subtropics having passed the Tropic of Capricorn.

Although we have no photo's of Noosa we really enjoyed the evening we spent there and wished that we had a bit more time to explore the area. It is surfer's paradise by all accounts and it is not unusual to see people walking down the street, or maybe that should be dripping down the street, donning a surf board instead of a hand bag. We would learn later on, during our tour of Fraser Island, that you can even get camel rides on the beach, I kid you not!

Contrary to popular belief the next pic is not of New Zealand's South Island but Fraser Island, but to the unfamiliar eye they do look pretty similar. Fraser Island , with an area of 184,000 hectares, is the largest sand island in the world.

As if we hadn't had enough early starts in Cairns we got picked up in Noosa at 6.30 am! It was beginning to become a recurring theme. The tour was due to bring us along rainbow beach to the ferry at Inskip Point, but the tide was unfortunately not permitting. Here's a pic of us outside one of the two 4WD's, that were part of our tour group, waiting for the ferry and one from the ferry coming into Fraser Island.

We disembarked the ferry at 75 mile beach, actually 63 miles long, and headed up its length to the village of Eurong. Again depending on the tides, weather etc. the journey on the beach can be curtailed but, fortunately for us, it wasn't the case this time. The beach is officially a highway and a speed limit of 80 kmh applies. When meeting oncoming 4WD's you head for the left hand side of the "road." Unfortunately the weather was not great the day we arrived, it was raining. Here's a pic of the beach and the off road terrain that we used to head to our next destination, Central Station.




Central Station used to be just that, a central train station when lumbering was popular and allowed. The Satinay Tree was felled extensively on the island due to its properties in water, and was used in the building of the Suez Canal and the London Docks. The station is abandoned now but there are some interesting sights none the less, like the ephiphytes pictured below. (That's a plant that grows on another plant, we were to learn!).



Fraser Island is also home to another interesting animal, the Dingo. In fact due to its isolated nature Fraser Island can boast, if that's the right word, the purest form of Dingo in the world. Unfortunately due to people feeding them they have become quite aggressive and picnic areas and holiday resorts all over the island are fenced in. Here's a picture of the sign for the dingo, apparently you do the same thing as you do when you meet a Cassowary, scream your head off and flay your arms about, and again hope for the best! (Actually you stand back to back, make non aggressive gestures and slowly walk away, if that doesn't work then you scream your head off!).


From Central Station we headed on a short tramp but before we did I took a few more abstract photos.

The day was full of interesting things to see and do on the island and for that reason I will finish the post here and continue with pics from the short tramp in the next post. In case your wondering the best, in my opinion is yet to come.

Cathal