Hervey Bay: Fraser Island

I was told to visit Fraser Island by just about everyone here. So I booked a day tour as soon as I arrived in Hervey Bay. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It is a very diverse island with rain forests, pine forests, as well as large sand dunes.

I was again picked up in the morning from the hostel and taken to the harbor to get a ferry to the island. Once on the island I found my tour bus. Now this isn't your normal bus this is a 4x4 bus that can offroad. Almost all the roads on the island are sand so you have to have a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get around.


Our first stop on the island was a small lake called Basin Lake. A few of us on the tour waded into the lake to check it out, it was quite pleasant. We were told the water was good for your skin. Essentially the water is just rain water, the lake isn't fed by any river.

After visiting the lake we headed back to the bus and drove to Central Station. Central Station used to be the main logging site on the island when logging was allowed. Now it is where you can start a hike through some of the rain forest on the island. We hiked through the forest and along a creek there. When I first saw the creek I thought why was the water so white but after looking closer I realized the water was so clear that I was seeing the sand below the surface.



When we finished our trek through the forest we headed to a hotel on the island for lunch. Following lunch we hopped on the freeway to the take us to our next location. The freeway on the island is the beach. It was quite fun to cruise on the beach.

We headed up to the Maheno ship wreck. The ship was wrecked when the Japanese were towing it back to be scrapped and it was hit by a cyclone. During WWII it was used as a bombing target as well, apparently they only hit it a few times because it was largely intact. After visiting the wreck we headed up to place that has colored sands. Our last stop was Eli Creek which is a creek that runs right into the ocean. The creek is shallow so we were able to wade down almost all the way to the ocean. I wanted to go swimming in the ocean but apparently you don't do that because there are a lot of sharks in the water. After leaving the creek we had one more stop. Our last stop was some of the great sand dunes on the island. These were an awesome sight because they essentially cut straight through the forest.

Fraser Island was a magnificent place and you definitely need more than one day there. If I get a chance to go back I would.

Hervey Bay: There Be Whales Here

Last night it rained heavily and today I woke up to a grey cloudy sky, not the greatest weather to go whale watching. I said a prayer asking for a great day and some great whales and got up out of bed and got ready to go. I was excited to be going out on the ocean whether or not I saw whales. The bus came and picked me up about 8:00 am and we made it to the harbour about 15 minutes later. I booked my tour on a ship called the Tasman Venture. It is a large catamaran. Everybody was aboard by about 8:30 and we were on our way.

It ended up being quite windy once we made it out into the open ocean so it wasn't the smoothest ride and it was cold. I sat up on the bow of the ship and just took in the view. At about 9:30 or so we spotted our first whale, whales actually. There were two out in front of us fin slapping. The captain of the ship moved us in closer to get a better look. They were both adult humpback whales. They were about 13m to 15m in length and dark grey. It was an amazing sight. After watching these two for a while the captain decided to move on see what else we could find.

A few minutes after leaving the two we spotted another whale. As we got closer the crew aboard the ship started to wave their arms and make noise. They encourage us to do the same. Apparently whales can be quite curious and lucky for us this one was. She wasn't quite an adult yet but still about 11m to 12m in length. She did have a lot of white coloring making her quite easy to see in the water. For whatever reason she really like our boat and put on a great show. She would poke her eyes out of the water and take a look, she would roll on her back and swim underneath the ship only to come up on the other side. She was such a gracefully creature. Another boat noticed all the attention the whale was giving us and moved in try to steal it away, however 2 other whales moved in and ended up taking our little white one away with them.


We headed out again and saw a few more whales from a distance but none as close as the little white one. With about a hour or so left on the tour we started to head back in. On the way back the little white whale met up with us again. However this time two other adult whales were with her and instead of taking her away all of them stayed around the boat. So now we had three whales we could watch. Pretty much where ever you were on the ship you could see a whale. We stayed here as long as we could but eventually the time came when we needed to leave, we all waved good bye and started back to the harbor. As we were heading back to the harbor I took a look back and as I did I saw two whales jump out of the water. That pretty much made my day. My prayer in the morning was definitely answered, I had a great day and we meant some great whales.

Hervey Bay: On the Way

Went up to Hervey Bay today aboard the Tilt Train. The Tilt Train runs from Brisbane all the way up to Cairns. It was supposed to take about 4 hours to get there but a train broke down in front of us, so we were stuck in town called Gympie (pronounced gimpy), appropriately :) Arrived in Hervey Bay and made a quick phone call to the hostel, the Aussie Woolshed, where I will be staying. They quickly came and picked up and after about a 10 min drive I was at my accomodations. The Aussie Woolshed is located in a neighboorhood with other homes and hostels and is about 10 min walk from the beach. Once there I got my room and proceeded to wander around the property. The property is quaint with cabin like buildings that contain dorm rooms and a woolshed that is used as a common room. I wandered over to the common room to meet some others but there was only one couple from Germany and they didn't speak much English. After walking around the hostel for a while I decided to walk to down to the shops and grab some dinner. It was about 7:oo pm and dark. As I was walking I could hear the waves crashing on the shore so I found a path down to the beach to take a look. Once on the beach I was presented with a great of view of the stars and the sand. After staring at the stars and watching the waves I headed back up to the shops. It was getting late so I walked back to the hostel because I had an early start in the morning, whale watching.

Riverfire

Every year in Brisbane they have a river festival and on of those days they have a huge fireworks display called Riverfire. Last night was Riverfire. It was an awesome display, there were 6 or 7 barges along the river that were used as platforms for the fireworks. It also looked like fireworks were set off from the tops of some of the skyscrapers nearby. What also was cool was they had a F-111 perform a dump & burn over the city. It pretty much flew over with full after burners on. There were few hundred thousand people on hand and we had to do a little creative parking to be able to get a good view. We ended up with a great view with one of the barges right in front of us. The fireworks display lasted for about half an hour. After the display we drove up to Mount Coot-tha. The lookout point on the top of the mountain offered a spectular view of the city at night.