6 September - Hervey Bay / Fraser Island

We have spent the last few days in Hervey Bay, a small tourist town 300 kms north of Brisbane. Hervey Bay has the feel of an English sea side resort that has yet to be invaded by the cappuccino crowd. There is a mixture of caravan parks, B&Bs, backpacker places and small hotels and a seemingly endless number of fish and chip shops where the frying fat hangs heavy in the air. We turned up without having booked anywhere to stay and, as usual, we easily found a hotel within budget.


We have purchased a Greyhound travel pass which allowes us to use any Greyhound buss service along the east coast as long as we are travelling north. Greyhound busses in Australia are clean and have good seat pitch which make for a mostly comfortable journey. The journey from Brisbane to Hervey Bay took about 5 1/2 hours.


Yesterday we went on a guided tour to Fraser Island. Fraser Island is a 129 km long and 15 km wide sand island, making it the largest sand island in the world. In the centre is lush rain forest and the island is fringed by vast golden beaches, several pristine rivers run through it and there are also around 100 freshwater lakes dotted around. Fraser Island is one of several world heritage sites in Australia.

Mette at the crystal clear waters of Lake McKenzie

We took the ferry from Hervey Bay in the morning and spent the entire day at Fraser Island, in the pouring rain. Because it is a sand island the only transport allowed is 4WD, we were in a 4WD buss that had a 300bhp engine and 16 gears. The island is hilly because wind and weather has created sand dunes over time and the "roads" are barely passable sand tracks that weave and wind their way over sand dunes and through dense rain forest. No wonder 4WD is required. We saw one vehicle stuck on the beach as the tide was getting dangerously close.

Enjoying the rainforest in the rain

Our trip to Fraser was made all the more exciting by the wild weather. When we drove along State Highway 75 (this is the road along the beach which is designated an official highway, with a max speed of 80kph) the wind was lashing in from the sea covering one side of the bus with sea foam and the other side was buffeted by big waves. Our return trip along the beach was even more nail biting since we only had about 30mins to get off the beach before the tide would get in too far and would cause the bus to get stuck in the sand. We made it in time, but only just. Due to the bad weather all the trips to the island the following day were cancelled, so we were lucky to make the trip.

Board walk through the dense and dark rainforest at Central Station. Central station was one of the areas used by logging companies when the island was logged between 1865-1991.

The wreck of the Maheno cruise ship which ran ashore onto 75 mile beach in 1935. It was later used as target practise for the Australian bombing squad, which dropped 200 bombs on it, of which only 2 hit the target.