Hervey Bay, Fruit bats and Fraser Island

Hervey Bey was known to me as the fisherman's paradise and people I'd people met told me it was just "..a beach with shops.." they never mentioned it was the gateway to stunning Fraser Island. This gem of the Australia was idle curiosity but now I had the taste for exploring it albeit as a tourist/trekkie after seeing the south end from Sarawak Beach a few days earlier.

Before I start on Fraser Island (FI) may I mention the most eerie experience while arriving at dusk in Hervey Bay. The directions to the camping ground were clear but it did not mention the street was separated by a forest with wetlands. Somehow I found the connector but had to pass through the forest. There were no lights but my night vision is good enough and the dirt road was OK. As I moved on I as greeted by a view of several hundred flying shapes silently above me that at first I thought were parrots or cockatoos. But there was no sound and then I finally recognized these creatures as fruit bats. Countless waves of them passing overhead again and again but in absolute silence. What a shame I did not have the video recorder in the camera setup for night work.

I decided to stay on for another day so I could do the organized full-day exploration tour of FI. People that know me, know I would never do the touristy thing and go to Sea World or Disney World or any other Worlds of any description because quite frankly I think they're tacky and expensive rip offs and I'm not into holiday maker/family entertainment scenarios anyway. Hate crowds! This was a tour with a difference and I'd prefer to let someone as skilled as Craig the driver navigate the four-wheel-drive only sand tracks of the Island.

Native Boronia

This is probably the only island in the world with an identity crisis. The amazing geological fact of FI being one of the largest sand islands of fhe world and in Queensland, is that the sand comes from the Great Dividing Range in neighboring New South Wales.It started 2 million years ago through erosion of the mountains where the sand flowed out to the Pacific Ocean and travelled North to be met by a barrier in the Continental Shelf just NE of Hervey Bay. 750,000 years later the island sand stabilized to form what we see today.

Pure clean fresh water

The weather this day was perfect as our small group caught the ferry across from Hervey Bay to FI. At FI We got on the huge four-wheel-drive transporter and started our journey East only to be stopped by a stuck (bogged) vehicle. It really is four-wheel-drive only but the young family in their Rav4 may have been a little ambitious. Craig has five years experience on this island so he knew what to do and went to help them. After several minutes they got moving again only to get stuck a second time.In the end they were pushed aside to let all the four-wheel-drives and us through.

Hoop Pine

We eventually checked off our itinerary with morning tea, lunch, visits to stunning beaches, fresh water creeks, the long beach and fresh water lake. We learnt about the hoop pine and other timbers used to build the Suez Canal and London Dockyards, native dingo (90 per cent pure breed) and the country's decision to preserve this stunning wilderness. The fresh water is so pure you can safely drink it and the volume FI is equivalent to 5-7 times the volume of Sydney Harbour.The sand is carbon dated to around 85 million years.

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