Up early to checkout of the hostel and pack the cars. As the group is so small, we only have two cars – an 8 seat Land Trooper and a 6 seat Land Cruiser which our guide, Rango, will be driving. Louise took the first driving shift to the ferry (only 3 of us in the group are used to driving on the left, the others didn’t want to take their chances on the mainland). We had to reverse onto the ferry – quite fun in a fully loaded Land Trooper without a functioning handbrake!
Once on the island, we had our first experience of the sandy tracks that snake along the rainforest. Louise drove us to our first stop, Central Station, a logging facility and village that was abandoned when the logging ceased in the 1990s. It was really good to have Rango to show us around – not only to tell us about the history, but also about the interesting ferns (tree ferns and giant king ferns), trees and wildlife. While the others walked through the rainforest in Pile Valley, Rango and I drove the cars around to the end of the trail. The “roads” on Fraser are just sand tracks and often very rough, so it’s pretty slow going but a lot of fun! Apparently they are extra soft at the moment de to the lack of rainfall. We drove to Lake Birrabeen and had a welcome swim – lots of tea trees around the shore, and the sand is very fine (apparently it was used to polish the lens for the Hubble telescope).
Next stop was the Lake Wabby lookout where you get a great view over a sandblow and the lake. In the carpark we came across a dead “Death Viper” or “50 minute snake” – hopefully we won’t see a live one! From the east beach we walked the 35 minute track to Lake Wabby. It was getting late so we didn’t swim because we needed to get to the camp and set up. The camp is just off the beach near Eurong and the tents were already pitched, so it was just a case of unloading our bags and food and enjoying a late bbq.
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