One of our many excursions off the Queensland coast included an adventure to Fraser Island. The island is made completely of sand, and vegetation only grows because of a type of fungus that allows the sand to hold nutrients. In addition, there are several perched lakes, lakes of freshwater fed by an underground aquifer, pushed up by the different density of the surrounding sea water. Makes for some pretty fun territory to explore.
Here at Lake McKenzie, the pH of the water is slightly acidic which means not much lives in or grows in the lake, so it's incredibly clear for several meters
Lake Wabby, another perched lake, is in danger of being completely filled in by this sand blow, a massive moving dune.
This stretch of beach, called 75 mile beach, is designated as a national highway. You can drive on the island with 4wd vehicles only. Beach speed limit is 80kph
The is the shipwreck of the Maheno. At least another 10 meters of boat is underneath the sand. She was a retired navy vessel being towed to Japan when a cyclone hit and blew her ashore. All salvage efforts failed, and so here she still lies.
Check out the Champagne pools, essentially tide pools big enough for swimming.
Ohh, and Fraser Island is home to one of the only beach runways in the world. Whén else would we have the opportunity to fly in a Cesna, while taking off from, and landing on the beach. BTW,the runway is that highway I mentioned earlier, so sometimes the pilots have to swing around twice to avoid oncoming 4WDS. This was our pilot Fabian, doesn't he have the best socks?
View of 75 mile beach from the air
Lastly, we ended our Fraser tour with a relaxing float down Eli creek. Fraser was one of the trip's highlights for Jim, you know, all derivations of beach potato, lake potato and creek potato.
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