Fraser Island

FI leans out from the southern coast of Queensland and sweeps north towards the Great Barrier Reef. Not only is it the largest island off the eastern coastline it is also the world’s largest sand island complete with tropical rainforests. I can now understand the term “magical paradise”. Its curvy mass is one of the most diverse on the planet with dazzling lakes and spectacular coloured sands, immense sandblows and lush rainforests, forest giants and abundant wildlife and a turbulent history brimming with high adventure, idyllic times, battles victorious and futile, destruction and conservation! It has been a World Heritage-listed site since 1992 because of:

• an outstanding example representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the development of terrestrial fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals.
• an example of superlative natural phenomena
•  

A basic statement here is so simple but one which I think captures all that it stands for,

“Help protect Fraser Island. Take only memories and photos and leave only footprints”.

There are only about 100 people who live permanently on FI. Most hotel staff and rangers travel backwards and forwards over on the 45 minute ferry from River Heads.  There are only a few holiday homes and travel around the island is restricted due to the intense tropical vegetation.Staff in the Eurong resort must have to stay as it is too long a "commute" to the west coast unless they are helicoptered in?

This is our "Resort", Kingfisher Bay Resort. The “main roads” are few and Jim,  make forestry commission roads look like advanced motorway systems!   To say it is like riding on a dodgy rollercoaster doesn’t begin to describe parts of the tracks! The “main highway” on the east coast is in fact the beach complete with speed limits!  Care does have to be taken of the tides as it is easy to be cut off.

The whole island is sand and over hundreds of thousands of years a few cms of  topsoil has developed in parts when the vegetation has died and with natural processes has “composted” into mulch  sinking the nutrients down into the sand.

It is much larger than either Blair and I anticipated stretching 123 km from Hook Point in the south to Sandy cape in the north. Average width is 15km and covers an area of 1840 sq kms.

Original inhabitants were the Butchulla people who called the island K’Gari (pronounced Gurrie) and meaning Paradise. The 6 clans numbered around 700 but during winter the population increased into the thousands when other tribes would visit to feast on the large shoals of fish mainly tailor and mullet , which ran at that time of the year. The aboriginal population were healthy and well fed due to an excellent sea food diet married with the fauna of the rainforest.  Please note that no swimming is allowed anywhere along the west coast because of strong ocean currents and the natural predator, the shark, lots of them!

Captain Cook first sighted the island in 1770. He mistakenly thought it was a peninsula but it was Matthew Flinders in 1799 who discovered it was an island.

In 1836 Captain James Fraser on the brig “Stirling Castle” was wrecked just north of the island. He and his wife managed to find themselves marooned.  There are several stories about James Fraser and the dislike of his crew for him but it appears that Eliza his wife was the sole survivor, living with the Butchulla People for a few months. The island was subsequently named after James Fraser.

View of the "Primary Ecosystem" from our room deck. Most of FI’s animals are nocturnal and rarely seen. The most obvious of the animals is the dingo, an estimated 150-200 living in all habitats. The dingo population on the island is amongst the most genetically pure  in Australia. Although looking like a domestic dog they are closely related to the Asian wolf and much emphasis is placed on human safety  and how you deal with them if faced with one – or more than one – at any given time. The level of advice is akin to that given in the Rockies of USA and Canada regarding bears! 

Guess what ……..we were lucky enough to see a young pup chasing a car along the beach highway. The ranger sped up out “tank” and we managed to catch up with it and take photos through the windows - details in later post.

There are 47 species of mammals including swamp wallaby, mountain possums and sugar gliders! 354 species of birds have been recorded and again  the Ranger and our driver spotted a white bellied sea eagle proudly perched at the edge of the beach highway!

FI is also the home to 79 species of reptiles including 19 species of snakes (4 of which are very venomous) and guess what? On Thursday evening around 6.30pm it was just getting dark (darkness drops like a stone here- no twilight) and Blair and I were busy chatting as we walked through the bush to one of the restaurants for dinner when…. one metre in front of my feet ……….was a long black snake slithering down into the undergrowth.  Needless to say there was an abrupt stop as we watched it move away. About 1 and a half metres long and its diameter maybe only the size of a middle digit finger it was a little scary to say the least!

Blair's gross understatement was "Good call mum"! By our description to the Ranger it could have been an eastern  brown snake, a venomous one?


If interested you can find out more here:    http://www.tourfraserisland.com.au/index.php