A broad abroad: Fraser Island

Selfie! I'm embarrassed.

A brief record of my first minutes in my tent at Fraser Island, with some amendments, exaggerations, and other inaccuracies. But really, my train of thought was something like this.

Bed time! I’m exhausted. This tent has been sitting out here for a while. I’ll just do a quick spider check. Nothing in the corners, good. AH! What’s that on the ceiling? Oh, that’s a just a little dangling dongle. Who the hell would put that on the ceiling of a tent? Oh damn, I don’t know how long this blanket has been in here. I better shake it out. That means I have to touch it. I am a big strong woman, I am not afraid of a spider. This is ridiculous, just touch the blanket. But if there is a spider, I better shake it outside. Shit, what if there’s a snake outside? Better check outside first. No snakes, ok, grab the blanket and shake it like you’re trying to kill it. Nothing. Cool. Maybe I better smack the tent to make sure nothing is hiding between the sides and the over flap. Ok, I’m safe. God, I hope no one saw all that. Lay down, go to sleep. That is not a spider you feel on your foot. Not a spider. Oh my god what’s outside the tent?! It looks like a homicidal midget with an ax! Or maybe it’s just a post. Oh yeah, it’s just a post. No spiders, no spiders. Is that a mosquito? Shit.

Given the rocky start, I actually slept pretty well. I was a little confused at first as to why I could hear the soothing steady sound of highway traffic outside of my tent, given that I was on a sand island in the middle of the ocean, until I realized that it was the sound of the ocean. I was a little disappointed that the ocean sounded exactly like a highway. I can’t tell if this is the ocean’s fault, or mine.

Fraser Island, just to give you a quick run down, is the world’s largest sand island, and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s about 130 kilometers long and about 15 wide at it’s biggest point (I’ll let you figure that out in miles, I’ve given up). It’s the product of sand being blown and pulled off of the mainland over thousands of years and slowly accumulating against a few volcanic outcroppings in the ocean; over time, enough sand accumulated that an island was formed. But what makes Fraser so truly incredible is that there is fresh water, which has given rise to a rain forest. That’s right, this is a sand island, in the middle of the ocean, with a rainforest at it’s center. I’m still not totally clear on the mechanics that bring fresh water out there, but it’s something about a water table, and it soaking in on the mainland, traveling under the ocean, and then being forced back to the surface by the weight of the island. Or something like that. Regardless, the island is spectacular, a combination of big sweeping sand dunes that look like something out of Lawrence of Arabia, lots of desert scrub and eucalyptus, huge beautiful fresh water lakes, and then a giant bloody rainforest complete with towering Karri pines and prehistoric ferns and palm trees and a little creek with water so astonishingly clear that you can’t even tell it’s there.

The only way around the island is in 4wd vehicles, so I was with a little tour group of 7 people plus the guide in a Land Rover that made me feel like I was in some hybrid of Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park. Cruising down the beach, just above the surf line, at 80 kilometers an hour, is an experience that words cannot describe; similarly, words cannot describe the feeling of jostling down a sand track in the middle of a forest for an hour and half debating whether your head is going to go through the ceiling or your bum is going to break the seat first. It was like a naturally occurring roller coaster.

In spite of my fears, I did not see any giant spiders, although I did spend about 5 minutes in the shower examining the terrified little spider near the taps trying to determine whether it was a Redback or not (conclusion: it wasn’t). Nor did I see any snakes. I just saw a lot of lizards (called skinks, which I sadly find funny every time I say it), one giant cane toad (a pest that was introduced to the island, which gave the boys on the trip an excuse to try to hunt it down and kill it), a baby turtle, and some dingos. We were given extensive warnings about the dingos before going out, because they can be dangerous if they think you have food on you. Apparently tourists were frequently feeding them, which led them to associate humans with food, and then if and when food was not forthcoming, they could become aggressive. After seeing them, I understood the desire to feed them, although obviously I didn’t — they look just like small undernourished dogs. They also are solitary animals, which makes it even easier to feel sorry for them. Other than not trusting one with a baby, I think dingos have had a bad rap.

I could rhapsodize for pages about the beauty of Fraser Island, about the joy of coming over a huge sand blow and finding a lake, lined by eucalyptus forest, or about wandering out of the rain forest and finding the most impossibly blue lake lined with the most incredibly white sand. But I’ll just let a few amateur photos do the talking for me.

See that line of darker blue about 10 feet off shore? That is an underwater trough, and it's about 60 feet deep and filled with fish. Because of the fish, there are sharks and dolphins and other such giant sea creatures, just a few feet from shore. You definitely can't swim, but you can see shark fins and dolphins from shore. This is a long caption.