Day 38 - There's no place like home

Each night on our trip we talked about the three best things that had happened today, and during our drive home today we talked about the three best things that have happened on the trip.



For Jim the three best things are:

• going to the tip of Cape York

• Fraser Island’s beautiful beaches and isolation

• the drive and seeing so many amazing places we haven't seen before

• the fishing at Weipa (yes I know there are 4 things, but I couldn’t get him to narrow it down any further).




For Helen the three best things are:

• the natural beauty and wildlife at Fraser Island

• making it to the tip of Cape York

• the spirit of Paronella Park – the idea that if you have a dream, even an impossible dream, anything can be achieved with hardwork, determination and persistence

• and also the spirits at Bundy Rum distillery (well if Jim can have 4 so can I!)

It's great to be home.

Day 37: Deniliquin

It is 8 hours drive to home, and there was much discussion about whether we could make it in the one day or not. Of course, we can drive for 8 hours, but do we really want to?

We stopped for lunch in Griffith (see the plane on a stick in Griffith) and had lunch with my friend Jackie. Jackie lives in Adelaide now, but was home in Griffith for the week, and it was great to catch up. As it turned out, it was at the Conargo Pub that we realised that we weren’t going to make it home before dark, so we might as well stop for the night! We settled on Deniliquin for our last night away and reminisced about our holiday.

Day 36: Dubbo

We were relieved to have decided to stay in a toasty warm cabin with the heater on all night, and we got an earlier start, planning a long day in the car and aiming for dinner in Dubbo. Not far out of Goondiwindi, Jim spotted a mate for his mudflap, and this ignited a series of stops to inspect mud flaps that had fallen from trucks. I'm not really sure why, but we stopped another 4 times to collect mud flaps. Please see Jim if you are interested in looking at his mud flap collection!


Lunch was in Moree and we were very entertained by the latest technology in automated public toilets. It was a ‘hands free’ toilet (well not entirely) and you waved your hand over a button to open and shut the door, then a voice tells you that you have 10 minutes and the door will automatically open to expose you to the whole world, so hurry up ( well not quite those words, but you get the idea), then soothing toilet music starts. Today, there was an instrumental version of ‘walking on sunshine’ to get things moving! There is automatic flushing, soap, water and handrying, then you start looking for a button to get out. Overall, one of my most memorable toiletting experiences.

Our stop for the night was in Dubbo, and opted for a motel room. The motel was lovely, and we had nachos for tea in the bar next to the open fire, very nice and toasty. We were thinking of stopping at the Western Plains Zoo, but we decided not to, presuming that if the animals had a cave they would surely be staying in it today, so we will hope to get back here another time.

Day 35: Fraser Island to Dalby

We were happy to be heading home after a really enjoyable visit to Fraser Island. Helen is homesick and missing her puppies, but Jim is happy to stay on the road forever. Jim got chatting with the campers next to us and found out they live near Bendigo (at Strathfieldsaye). It’s crazy that you can go so far away and still meet up with people from home!  It was an early start as we headed off to see the sun rise at the wreck of the Maheno. Actually, we got there at about 8 am and the sun was already up, but it was still spectacular, and as it was low tide we could get around the sea side of the ship.

 It was interesting to see the beach at low tide, and there was much discussion about how wide exactly it was, until Jim stopped the car and paced it out. It turns out that it is just on 100 metres, which means we were both wrong! Soon after it widened out to 150 m (another controversial measurement!)

All the roads on Fraser Island are sand, with various textures from soft and sandy (where the car groans along in first gear and you know that getting bogged is imminent), to firm and hard packed and you can zoom along at the speed limit of 80km per hour. As the tide goes out, there is another type of sand and that is the soft, slushy sand that makes you wonder if quick sand is real and could a car and camper trailer really be swallowed up without a trace?

This morning, we zoomed along the hard packed sand, and soon found ourselves back at the trees that held us up when we first arrived. Today, at low tide, there was at least 20m (??) of sand to drive on. It was only a short wait and we were back on the ferry and on our way to the mainland.

Getting off the ferry can be a challenge due to the soft sand, but we didn't have any problems. That is, until the car in front of us got bogged. We stopped to help them, but as we had the trailer on the back we could really only offer moral support. All the other cars from the ferry drove past, and left them there. It took a few attempts but we managed to flag down another 4wd to pull the car out, and then we were on our way, and of course we got bogged in the same spot. The car we stopped to help came back to offer moral support, which actually isn't all that helpful, then 3 blokes from Sri Lanka came along with their max trax (plastic sleds that sit under the wheel, on top of the sand you use to get traction and get moving). It took 3 goes before we were on our way, but we made it out of there and on to the bitumen road in Rainbow Beach for petrol, air in the tyres, and an under car wash. We even had time for lunch at a beachside cafe before heading to Gympie and on to Dalby for the night. The weather forecast was for minus 5 overnight, so we decided it was too cold for camping and booked into a cabin for the night. Somehow we managed to go from 25 degrees at Fraser Island to -5 in Dalby, all in the space of just a couple of hours.

Day 34: Fraser Island

It was too cold to get up early and we enjoyed a sleep in and another late start which included bacon and eggs for brekky. We saw a dingo wander through the park looking for his breakfast too. The kookaburras were out and came quite close to our camp looking for scraps, but of course there are no scraps as you are not allowed to feed any animals on Fraser Island.

We headed south to Woralie Road, then to knife blade sand blow, where we walked up to the lookout and saw the massive sand dune. Here we noticed the scribbly gums, which are huge curious gum trees, with scribbly markings on the bark.

We continued on to Lake Allom and saw a lace monitor (huge lizardy thing), yellow robins in the picnic ground and turtles in the lake. The drive through the rainforest was spectacular - the kauri trees were huge, up to 2 metres across at the base, and the satinay trees were 3 metres across at the base.

After all this, we headed back towards Eli Creek and met up with John and Helen, who we met on the first day when we got off the barge. They have set up camp along the beach and were fishing for tailor – it was nice to catch up with them and we have enjoyed the company of many interesting people on our travels. There are many freshwater creeks on Fraser Island, and Eli Creek is the largest, pouring 4 million litres of fresh water into the ocean per hour. Eli Creek can be a big challenge to cross at high tide. There is a boardwalk along the edge of the creek, and it seems to be the place to jump on a LILO and float along the creek to the ocean. It was a bit cold for swimming for us today (although there were plenty of people swimming). We enjoyed a paddle along the creek to the ocean where we these fish called jungle perch, very rare and endangered and scientists don't understand how they got to be here, and how they survive in these conditions.

This is the Eli Creek crossing at high tide.
As we headed back to camp and drove past John and Helen’s camp, Helen came running out to offer us some fish. ‘You can't go home from Fraser Island without trying the local fish!’ she said, and so we had the fish (tailor) for tea and it was delicious.

Helen loves sunsets and we parked on the beach to watch the sunset, and it was Helen’s turn to drive back to camp. The sunset was spectacular, but Helen got bogged in the sand on the exit road to the camping ground. It was a good place to get bogged and luckily, three car load of back packers were behind us, and there were soon 12 people trying to push us out. that didn't work, so a quick snatch backwards and we were soon on our way. So far, Helen is the only person to get the car bogged and it is a badge I wear with pride!

Day 33: Fraser Island

We slept in and had a late start, and it was nice to take our time. Frasers at Cathedral Beach it is a lovely camping ground and we enjoyed the birds, and kept eye out for dingos. We started the day with a drive north to Indian Head and there was a blockage on the road while a couple of cars got bogged – Jim went to help because you never know when you need good unbogging karma. Eventually they got it sorted out and we made it through. By this time, the tide was high and we couldn't get any further north without serious water driving, so we decided to head back south.  Helen was very excited when the mobile phone chimed. I got a message - Yay. I managed to send one back, and had to stand on the car with my arm in the air, but I got it sent. Happy birthday Dad.

Fraser Island is a sand island, and that means that there is sand everywhere. Lots of different colours, consistency, softness and hardness but it is all sand. This is a place called The Pinnacles, and it is a big cliff of beautifully coloured sands.
We drove along the beach to Happy Valley resort and saw this small plane and commented on how low in the sky it was. It went past, and I lost sight of it. I was asking Jim if he could see the plane because I couldn’t see it on the left or right or behind us. Where did that plane go? Just then, brrrrr and the plane appears just over the bonnet and landed on the beach in front of us!

We travelled along the rough sandy inland road to Lake Garawongera, where we stopped for lunch. It was a pretty lake, but much too cold to swim (well too cold for us, but there were some kids who jumped in). We continued through the rainforest to Poyungan Valley, which was a lovely drive. The inland track was very challenging, but Jim was in his element. There were rocks, uneven sand dunes, offset holes in the road, soft sandy patches and corrugations. It was a slow drive and we averaged 14 km per hour over about 2 hours, but it was spectacular rainforest that was drove into, through and above.

As we drove back along the beach we saw a dingo annoying some fisherman, trying to get the bait or maybe even a fish. We got some great photos of the dingo and enjoyed just watching him – he was very persistent, but there are very clear warnings not to feed or interact with the dingos and there are big fines if you get caught. We saw many dingos, but didn’t ever feel threatened or notice any aggressive behaviour.

The weather at Fraser Island during the day is lovely at around 22 degrees, with a clear sunny blue sky, but the nights are cold and we did huddle around the citronella candle for an hour before going to bed very early because it was too cold to stay up.

Day 32: Fraser Island

We left Bundaberg and headed south - our destination today is Fraser Island and we are both very excited and looking forward to it. We have wanted to get to Fraser Island for a long time. We stopped for smoko in Maryborough, and headed towards Rainbow Beach. It sounds like such a pretty place. We decided to get onto the island at Inskip Point because we have our camper trailer and we are worried about the inland roads and we are more confident that we will be able to get through along the beach road. We got our permits and barge tickets and waited for the barge to come back and get us. Luckily we didn't get bogged getting onto or off the barge! I know Jim loves sand driving, but there has been a tendency for this to end up with being bogged in the sand!

The deckhand on the barge told us to drive around the headland, get out our chairs and have some lunch while we waited for the tide to go out. It sounded like a great idea, and as we drove around the headland we realized that we couldn't actually go any further until the tide went out and there was dry sand for us to drive on.

 We had some lunch and wandered along the beach - it was so beautiful.

We saw a dugong that had been washed up on the beach and died, and then noticed a sleepy dingo nearby. The dingo kept one eye on us as we wandered past, but didn't seem too interested in us. I think we were safe as long as we left his dugong alone!

After about an hour, we decided to brave the receding tide and continue along our way. It was a spectacular drive, as we crossed freshwater creeks, rocks and the wreck of the Maheno - a ship wrecked in 1930s. As the tide slipped away, we were able to zoom along the beach at around 70 km per hour, and soon we were at our campground: Frasers at Cathedral Beach. We set up camp and settled in. It gets dark early here, because we are the eastern side if the island and very low behind a huge sand dune. The camping ground is behind the first row of sand dunes on the eastern side of Fraser Island and it’s a sandy camp. Actually there is salt and sand everywhere and it makes an interesting pattern with the red dust from Cape York, and the soft white local sand.

Lizard update: The gecko was found today, squished between the canvas of the camper.



Problem: There is no mobile phone or Internet access. For 4 whole days!!