Hervey Bay - 3rd October 2008

Hervey Bay Car Kilometres: 181,683

Distance Travelled: 273km

Total Distance Travelled: 13,432km

Hervey Bay was our next real stop, but as the East Coast has more than one town every 650kms we decided to pause a couple of times on the way down in order to break up the journey. Our first stop was a Town called Yepoon. Unfortunately the only thing we really saw of Yepoon was the campsite. We did manage to go as far as a drive into the town and a stop at Coles for supplies but nothing more than that. The campsite was generally like any other apart from the giant inflatable cushion with about 10,000 kids on and the opportunity to hire pedal go karts. We toyed with the idea of a quick race around the site but the go karts weren't adult size so we decided that it would probably be frowned upon and gave it a miss. The only other memory of Yepoon will be the loud family next to us who obviously felt it was ok to hold loud group discussions until about 1am and then walk right between our tent and car during the night (the most direct route to the toilets) while continuing these discussions. We may not have realised at first but walking through other peoples pitches is bad camping etiquette and hopefully our looks of annoyance directed their way in the morning hopefully got that message across.

From there we made it to the towns of Agnes Water and 1770. There are two towns but realistically neither of them are really big enough for it to be considered a town in its own right. Handily if you put them together you can just about scrape together a small town. So that's what they do.I am not sure where the name Agnes Water comes from but 1770 comes as a direct result of the year Captain Cook first made it to Australia. Once again we didn't do much here, it was just a stopping point but this time we did have a drive round to the Marina and a walk along the beach. We have now come out of the Rain Forest area but so no more beaches with big palms and trees falling into the sea, but it was a nice beach with the interesting feature of Mangroves disappearing into the water.

It's not that we didn't like Yepoon, Agnes Water or 1770 but our budget is relatively tight and we have to pick and chose what we do. We have realised now that even though we both like a nice beach and a walk near the sea, neither of us are sunbathers so the attraction of lying on the beach for a few days never really appeals, despite the cheapness of this option. Both Yepoon and Agnes Water/1770 had a few things to do but they were all organised tours based on the holiday crowd rather than the travellers. By that I mean that anyone on holiday has a budget that includes for eating out, trips etc., and they know that within a couple of weeks they will be home and getting paid again. It's different for us as we don't know when our next pay-check will be or how long we actually will be on the road for, so we have to pick and choose the best of the attractions rather than sampling a number of them. Unfortunately for the tourist boards of Yepoon & Agnes Water/1770, we had chosen to save our money for a Fraser Island Tour in Hervey bay so these two places only got the 'look but don't touch' approach.

So, after another camp site and another loud family who thought it was fine to walk through our pitch and talk just outside our tent on their mobiles (are we sounding like grumpy old people or what), we got to Hervey Bay and investigated the options for visiting Fraser Island. As with the Great Barrier Reef there were loads of different choices but in this case possibly a few more. Without going into great detail (phew...) it was boiled down to Hire a 4x4 or go on a day trip. I really was tempted by the thought of driving over the world's biggest sand bar in a 4x4 but then had a nagging doubt about driving on this type of terrain for the first time without the company of someone with experience. Combine that with a higher price than the day trips and the fact that day trips had dinner included, the decision was made and a day trip with Fraser Island Tours was booked for the morning. The Lonely Planet says that the day trips on larger buses are less environmentally damaging. It would be nice to say that this was the reason we went for this but to be honest it wouldn't be strictly true, but it was in there somewhere, honest.

With that out of the way we found the nice indoors camp kitchen and hooked up to the (painfully slow) free Wi fi and spent a really nice evening sitting on proper chairs and watching a bit of TV. Jemma was especially happy to see how things had progressed in Neighbours over the last couple of months but if you asked me I would have said that it was just a repeat of one that she had watched anytime since we got to Perth!

We were picked up outside the campsite at 7.30am by a very enthusiastic tour guide called 'Richo' who was from Hertfordshire. As we drove round what appeared to be every other accommodation option for the entire town, he kept reassuring us that this was not the bus that would be taking us around the island. That one was a specially designed high clearance 4x4 bus that was kept on the island. Suitably reassured we got to the Marina and all boarded the small car ferry that took us to the island. The ferry was the traditional roll on -roll off car ferry but on a relatively small scale. It was also slow if the other boats speeding past us were anything to go by. Apparently there are frequent marine life sightings on the way across but not for us unfortunately. About one hour later we arrived at the Moon Point Ferry Port of Fraser Island.

By using the words Ferry Port I assume you have got visions of a big harbour or at least a platform and maybe a few buildings. Not for Fraser Island. The ferry port was a beach where the ferry could lower its ramp directly on to the sand with the disembark procedure being 'walk onto the beach, try not to get your feet wet'. The special 4x4 bus was waiting as promised and our bus, along with the 3 others on the ferry headed off in different directions across the island over very rough and rutted sand roads. It was about this time I decided that the trip was the right idea. This wasn't purely because of my lack of off road driving experience but more down to the type of 4x4 we could have afforded to hire. Our budget would just about stretch to the smallest cheapest thing available (i.e. a Suzuki Sierra). This would have handled normal off road or unleaded roads and even a fair bit of creek beds but the depth of the ridges, combined with the power needed to get through the patches of loose sand, would have meant driving the Suzuki would have been very hard if not impossible. Something like a land Cruiser would have been fine with the additional power and higher clearance - but the higher power and higher clearance resulted directly in a higher cost.

We bumped and bounced along the sand road passing Tina Turner (the 300 year old grass tree) and looking at the hills and forest all sitting on mounds of sand. Apparently there are desert areas on the island where the sand is more in the traditional dune style that we would recognise, but we weren't going to that area on the tour. Transferring from normal forest and grass lands we arrived in the Rain Forest area. This area was unlike any other Rain Forest areas we had seen so far. Not that the plants appeared any different in most ways, but the scale of these plants and trees was so much larger. The trees were around 40 metres tall with huge trunks. All in the rational rain forest style of straight up with no branches until you get to the canopy. For many years this island had been logged, using the timber for ships masts and long deck planks. Richo entertained us with stories of how they would drop the logs in the creek and float them to the edge of the island before lashing them into groups and towing them through the water over to the mainland. Considering how many years the logging took place I was amazed at the number of large trees still n the island and it was difficult to tell that this had taken place.

The next stop was to Happy Valley for lunch. Happy Valley consisted of a few houses, a hotel, backpacker hostel and bar/restaurant which was the place we were headed. To most people on the tour the lunch seemed to be taken like a light snack. To us it was the first meal in a while that at least 50% of hadn't come out of a tin or packet, so we enjoyed, or appreciated, the fresh cooked meat and salad a little more than a few of the others. On the way out of Happy Valley we were told about the Dingos of Fraser Island, and the problems that had led to the Dingo proof fence all the way around the village. They had been very prolific over recent years but after mauling which led to a tourist dying a few years ago they were kept under a lot more stringent control. This was to such an extent that we didn't get to see one on the trip so will have to make do with 'zoo sightings' of the dingo.

The next section was unforgettable for the reason that neither of us ever thought we would be driving along a beach, in a big 4x4 bus watching other drivers and even planes use the same beach as the main highway. There were a few stops along the beach. These were the coloured sand formations, known as the pinnacles but nowhere near as impressive as the WA pinnacles we had seen, and the Maheno shipwreck, a cruise liner beached at that point about 70 years ago. The shipwreck was impressive to see but over the years it had sunk into the sand and deteriorated and stood about 100m long and about 2m above the sand level. Richo passed round some pictures of when it had beached and it stood at least 25m high and about 200m long.

We had a brief stop and a paddle at Eli Creek, a freshwater creek coming from the rainwater that had fallen over the hills and been filtered through the compressed sand. It was a nice creek but was obviously one of the main stopping points of the island. Combine that with the Queensland school holidays and there were 3 tour busses and about 75 4x4's all parked up and all having the brief stop and paddle that we did.It must have been a beautiful spot when it was quiet but much as I like my cars the rows of 1990's Toyota pickups did not cut it over the rest of the heritage listed island and we were both ready to move on after about half an hour.

After some more the constant chattering of the ever informative Richo, (not sure how he does the talk and drive thing on those roads) a couple of stalls of the bus, an additional stop at Happy Valley to change a flat tire and spot of afternoon tea we arrived at our last stop Lake Garawongera. This was a Perch Lake which means that it has formed above sea level after rainwater has been collected and held in the compacted plants and sediment that had accumulated. Once again we never did find out how lakes like these formed a marine life or fish and turtles. One of the big features of this lake was the 'tea' colour of the water that was reputed to be good for your skin and hair and the silica sand that could be rubbed onto gold or silver jewellery and clean it without scratching.

After some more 4x4 bus fun we ended up back at Moon Point beach for the ferry ride home and the second tour of Hervey Bay accommodation spots. Being the first pick up mean that we were also the last drop off, and about 11 and half hours we arrived back at the campsite. Most unlike me, I managed to sleep through the last bit of Richo chat but according to Jemma I missed nothing interesting. We both slept really easily that night.

We didn't have anything planned for the last day in Hervey bay. Jemma read at the tent while I had a drive round and a walk on the beach. The afternoon was spend watching a combination of the Moto GP from Australia and the Rugby Grand final in the Camp Kitchen. We didn't have it to ourselves that time though and we shared the sofas with three non communicative blokes and managed to extract two words and one smile over the next 2 hours. Still, it was a nice comfortable way to end the few days and we were ready to get on the road again. This time heading to Noosa and the draw of a visit to the late Steve Irwin's (Crocodile Hunter off the TV) life's work, Australia Zoo.