Adventures against the grain on Fraser Island

JOHN ARMSTRONG falls for the wild charms of the world's largest sand island on the Queensland coast where the four-wheel-drive is king.

Never leave Australia without having a beer." Technically, we weren't. Leaving Australia, that is. But for the chap with the A-grade bushman's beard and de rigueur drover's hat, this was a moot point.

We were certainly leaving the Australian mainland as the Inskip Pt barge, laden with its cargo of four-wheel-drives, eased off the sand and pushed its nose slowly out into the channel towards Fraser Island, a journey lasting all of 10 minutes.

Long enough, though, for the chap under the hat to crack open a couple of bottles of Queensland's finest for him and his offsider. And long enough for us to gather some local savvy on Fraser, a stunning World Heritage-listed habitat where rainforest grows in sand and dingoes run free.

The barge dropped its ramp. He and his mate jumped into their weathered Hi-Lux and roared off down the beach.

We followed in his wake, immediately voiding the insurance clause in the rental car contract if we got stuck. But it was low tide, the sand was rock hard and we were soon round the point and on to the much wider main beach on the east coast, where it is deemed safe to drive except for two hours either side of high tide.

Some 120km long, the beach doubles as Fraser's main highway and a landing strip for small aircraft. Four-wheel-drives (the only vehicles allowed on the island) are required to observe standard keep-left rules and a speed limit of 80 km/h.

These traffic regulations are no joke. Fraser's semi-wilderness makes it a popular destination. The tents perched among the dunes and fishing-rods slung across bonnets bear testimony to the quality of the surfcasting.

But it is the relative isolation and a rating as the world's biggest sand island that draws everyone else.

Now incorporated into the Great Sandy National Park, Fraser's long beach dunes give way to seagrass meadows and mangrove swamps as you move inland. Within a few hundred metres, the flora can alter dramatically from stunted woodlands to a thick forest of eucalypts, satinays and kauri pines, amazingly growing out of a bed of sand.

Plants have survived on Fraser (named after shipwreck victim Eliza Fraser) by stripping the mineral coating from grains of beach sand while absorbing small amounts of atmospheric trace minerals washed into the sand by rain.

Decaying plants have then returned minerals to the sand, building up a nutrient layer over thousands of years.

Archeological evidence suggests Aboriginal people have lived in the Great Sandy for more than 5000 years. The arrival of Europeans brought the inevitable exploitation with logging of kauri pine (some of it ending up in pile walls in the Suez Canal) beginning in the 1860s. Sand-mining for minerals, such as zircon, took off in the 1940s and lasted until national park status was declared in the 1970s. Fraser received its World Heritage listing in 1992.

Some 200 people live on the island on pockets of private land around settlements like Eurong, Dilli Village and Happy Valley, an hour or so up the east coast where we stayed a couple of nights at the Fraser Island Retreat. Numerous eco-tourism operators run one and two-day tours to Fraser from Noosa and Hervey Bay. But you'll have more flexibility and fun hiring a four-wheel-drive.

From our base in Noosa , we drove to Rainbow Beach, a small but important settlement. Here you can fill the tank at mainland prices and pick up the $30 park permit required by vehicles visiting the island, before heading for Inskip Pt to wait for the barge.

By afternoon we were zooming up the beach towards Happy Valley and the retreat there run by Gayle Boyd and her daughter, Julie. Tucked away in the bush just up from the beach, the resort has nine self-contained, serviced lodges nestled into the hillside, a swimming pool, shop, petrol pumps, bar and bistro.

The next day, on Boyd's recommendation, we took an inland round-trip which would allow us to picnic by Lake Allom before heading back to the beach. With Lake McKenzie, Allom is one of Fraser's biggest crystal-clear freshwater lakes.

"Road" is a euphemism on Fraser. These inland routes are deeply rutted and the endless bumping seemed a quick way to induce labour in a pregnant partner.

In the afternoon, we drove further north to Indian Head, a rocky outcrop where it possible to see sharks and stingrays pass in the shallows below the cliffs. Further out to sea sat the whale-watching boats - and a group of English and German tourists claimed to have seen a pod of five humpbacks pass five minutes before. Them's the breaks. Nor did we see any dingoes, of which Fraser boasts a purebred variety. But they are common enough and dangerous enough for park rangers to have produced a "Be dingo-smart" brochure for visitors. As locals joke, the dingoes might not get your baby, but they'll take your shoes if you leave them outside your tent at night.

CASENOTES


GETTING THERE: Thrifty Car Rental hire for a Mitsubishi Pajero is $A185 a day; Mitsubishi Challenger, $165; Mitsubishi Io, $115. A seat on a four-wheel-drive, off-road tour bus leaving from Noosa or Hervey Bay for a (long) day-tour costs from about $A110 for adults and $A70 for children. Inskip Pt barge service, 7 am-4.30 pm, $A68 return for vehicle and two adults.

WHERE TO STAY:

Fraser Island Retreat, one-bedroom timber lodge (triple share) $A175 a night, ph (071) 279 144; campgrounds at Central Station, Lake Boomanjin, Lake McKenzie, Dundubara, Lake Allom, Waddy Pt and Wathumba.