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| KEEP TO THE LEFT! |
This is our little tour bus halfway up 75 Mile Beach on Fraser Island. We were picked up at dawn outside our housesit at Hervey Bay on the Queensland coast to get down in time for the 40 minute ferry crossing to what is apparently the largest sand island in the world and is famous for its protected dingo population. Captain Cook didn't know it was an island and indicated in his maps that it was a peninsula - seen from a distance it looks just like the mainland, but it is covered with lush vegetation including trees of up to 300 feet high all just rooted in sand. All the way down the eastern coast of Fraser is a wide beach which serves as a highway, airport (at several locations) and campsite. Only 4WD vehicles are allowed but here regular road regulations still apply and 10 minutes into the drive northwards we were stopped by a pair of police officers who asked our driver to blow into the breathalyser! Muttered curses from the driver (who was clean of course) but, it being Easter holidays, they were stopping all drivers so fair's fair.
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| What a rustbucket this ship is! |
And here we are at our destination, the wreck of the Maheno. Doesn't look much now but it's been stranded on this beach for over 80 years. It was over 400 foot long and carried over 400 passengers but was not in service in 1935 when a huge cyclone hit the East coast of Australia. The 5000 ton Maheno was being towed to Japan by a boat that was clearly ill equipped for the task and only weighed 1700 tons itself. In the circumstances it was hardly surprising that the captain of the towing vessel decided to cut the rope and leave the Maheno to its sandy fate. This is a shot of the grounded ship shortly afterwards - not much left now but it's become a must-see for visitors to Fraser Island.
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| Land ahoy! |
Another essential stop for tourists is Lake McKenzie where the crystal clear waters tempt just about everyone to strip off and dive in (well it was in the mid 30's.) For the geographers among you this is a 'perched lake' sitting high up on the island and it's fed entirely by rain water. The clear azure waters reflecting the clear blue skies cast a spell on some of the bathers, and our coach driver was getting a bit fratchety when four of our number were late back for the next leg of the journey (not us I hasten to add.)
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| No Great Whites here! |
Final fuzzy photo of the day was taken from the ferry as it left Fraser's shores in the early evening. Fretting somewhat as I was being plagued by sandflies, I nevertheless spotted a pair of large raptor types wheeling over the mangroves. Bringing my new telephoto lens into play I deftly captured one as it landed on a branch. I would have assumed it was a sea eagle but the late evening light caught the chestnut brown of its rear end feathers beautifully and, consulting the book later on, we were able to confirm that this chap is a fine specimen of a Brahminy Kite
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| I'm an aquila pondicheriana - what about you? |
And we didn't see a single dingo!
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