Captain Fraser's Island

For those of you who don't know, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world.  It's a world heritage site and one of Australia's finest tourist spots. You are not allowed to take anything off the island.  

It's actually named after Captain Fraser, an Englishman who was resposible for transporting cargo by ship from England to the new settlers and convicts in Australia.  I won't bore you with the full story, but Captain Fraser and his wife ended up marooned on this island and living amongst the native Aborigines. Google it.....it's quite interesting.

The island was formed by sand building up over 1000s of years, with more and more sand being deposited from each high tide. Grain by grain, the island got larger and larger. Trees and plants started to grow there, establishing roots which held the sand together.  Eventualy, these tree and plants would get covered over by more sand deposited either by high winds or high tide.  These trees would then slowly breakdown, providing nutrients in the sand for more trees and plants to grow. 

As the island is all sand, it acts like a giant sponge when it rains.  And, like a when you wet a sponge and put it down, the water flows out of it, creating 100s of fresh water creeks, all flowing into the sea.  This water is clear, pure and completely drinkable.  

During our organised tour, we were offered the chance to see the island from above in a little plane....

Really glad we did this as we got to see how dense the forest here is, but also where all the creeks and sand blows are.

There is a shipwreck here called the Maheno....not Captian Fraser's, but a ship that owas origially used as a luxury cruise liner in the early 1900's, before being asked to be a medical ship during WW1.  After the war, the ship was bought by a Japanese company, and towed back to Japan for repairs.  During the towing, the rope that connected the 2 ships was ripped by a cyclone, resulting in this ship crashing into Fraser Island. 

The place is full of wildlife too, including fruit bats, snakes, spiders and the Fraser Island Dingo.

Overall a really fab, diverse island.  Full of beauty and danger.  If you swim on one side of the island, you will either get eaten by shark or pulled under by the huge currents, but the other side of the island are clear, clam waters.  

We could have stayed longer and swam in more of the fresh water lakes or driven a 4X4 on the really bumpy sandy roads, but 2 nights was almost perfect.

Love

Stuoobs