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.
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