Today we took a ferry to Fraser Island, which is the "largest sand island in the world." I'm still not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds cool. Since the island is all sand, we had to rent a 4 wheel drive vehicle. Adam got up early and picked up our Toyota Land Cruiser for the next two days, and then we loaded up all our gear and hopped in. It was a cozy ride. We then caught the 45 minute ferry to Fraser Island. It was insanely hot outside. Here are a couple pictures from the ferry.
When we started driving on the island, it was immediately apparent why 4 wheel drive vehicles are required. The roads were pretty good, but it was a bit bumpy.
We drove to a freshwater lake called Lake McKenzie. While walking to the lake, I saw this goanna (I think) on a tree. These lizards are pretty common in Australia.
Lake McKenzie was incredibly beautiful with it white sandy beach and clear blue water. There were a lot of people there, and I suspect many of them were Americans based on their voices, youth, drinking, and frivolous conversation (sorry, but it's true). A group of us swam to the opposite beach and back, which was good exercise. My swimming skills have definitely deteriorated from my prime in elementary school P.E.
After lunch at Lake McKenzie, we drove to the beach and checked out the Maheno shipwreck, which was pretty cool. Fraser Island is fairly large, so it takes a while to drive from place to place. We could only stay at the Maheno for a few minutes before we had to find a campsite on the beach. The rental company does not allow the vehicles to be driven in salt water, so we were not allowed to be on the beach at high tide, which today was at 4:30 pm. We found a campsite and got everything set up. There were these large, green march flies all over the place, and their bites actually hurt. I may have had limited immunity to the sandflies in NZ, but not these guys. I quickly lathered up with some DEET. I may get cancer eventually, but it feels good now. However, I still got a few bites through my shirt!
The next morning we hung out for a while until the tide went out at 10:30 am. You could swim in the ocean, but only if you want to get bit by a shark. That's one of the drawbacks at Fraser Island. I didn't have any desire to take that risk. When we finally were able to drive on the beach, we went to another freshwater lake called Lake Wobby. We had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the lake, and there were some great views on the walk. Check it out.
I enjoyed Lake McKenzie more than Lake Wobby, but Wobby was still nice. After a good swim we had to drive back to the main dock to catch the ferry. We were running a little late, so Adam put the pedal to the floor and drove like a madman to get us there on time. It was extremely bumpy. Adam seemed a bit crazy, but he knew what he was doing. I thought we definitely wouldn't make it once we got caught behind some slow drivers for a few minutes, but we barely made it as the last car on. It was a huge relief. We took the ferry back to Hervey Bay where we camped for another night.
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