japanes tattoo Blogger: Day 12

Fraser Island is a World Hertiage listed site and the largest sandy island in the world, measuring 120 km by 15 km!

We were picked up at our hostels in Hervey Bay in the early morning and took a 45 minute ferry ride to get to Fraser Island.

Dutch Company

I was with a group of tourists from all over. I met a couple of PhD students named Johanna and Wim from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. We were all postgraduate students, so we got along well and stuck together for the rest of the day.

Hilarious Bus Driver

Our bus driver on the Island, Dave, was talkative and very entertaining. In between the stops he would share with us his amusing stories and funny ideas. For example, he explained that the world's increasing population is straining our natural resources to the limit, and so our problem isn't global warming, but "global bonking"! lol. His approach was very scientific and factual though, so he had obviously done a lot of reading.

Koala!

This is a picture of the koala Dave showed us. It was the first koala I'd seeing outside of a zoo, so naturally I got very excited. I looked closer and the koala was wearing a backpack! It didn't look very life-like either. It turned out to be a fake koala that was put there just to tease tourists like us! Hahaha... There are actually no koalas on Fraser Island.

Sand Dunes

This is a sand dune where the aboriginals used to live. The sand gradually moves sideways with the wind, killing the trees in the adjacent forest.

Sandy Highway

The beach on the eastern side of the Island (the side facing the Pacific Ocean) is very long and surprisingly straight. It's a 75 km stretch of sand about 20 m wide that serves as a sandy "highway" for the 4WDs and buses that drive up and down at high speeds.!

Eli Creek

This massive stream of water originates from the freshwater lakes on the island. The water slowly seeps through the surrounding banks and flows outwards, finally merging with salty seawater at the beach.

Flat Tyre

Mid-way, one of the bus's tires went flat. I helped replace it with the spare tyre.

Maheno Shipwreck

This ship was sold by Australia to Japan to be used as scrap metal. As it was being towed to Japan, the towing rope snapped and brought the ship to shore. Now it's a tourist attraction! I was impressed to see the steel structure of the ship was still in good condition after being hit by waves for all these years.

Lake McKenzie

This freshwater lake has crystal clear water with a beautiful blue colour. Johanna, Wim and I spent most of our time here swimming. We swam all the way to a different beach without a person in sight. On the way back, I raced Johanna and lost! :-( She does triathlons so my ego isn't crushed too badly.

Rainforest