Jucing in Australia, Part III: Islands

The plan for our roadtrip was to make it to Cairns and back, but we did not make it that far.  After leaving Wallaman Falls, we called both Cairns and Airlie Beach to get their respective weather forecasts to decide from which city to take a boat trip, and Cairns' weather did not look appealing.  So we turned around, 250 kms short of the planned endpoint, and made our way back south.  Cairns itself is not supposed to be overly exciting or beautiful, but it is the most common jumping point to the Great Barrier Reef, which I was disappointed to miss.  However, the three day/two night boat trip from Airlie Beach visits fringe reefs around the Whitsunday Islands that are part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), so I was somewhat appeased.

We boarded our catamaran in Airlie expecting to be surrounded by passengers our age looking to SCUBA dive and snorkel.  However, it was immediately apparent that most were younger than us and quite annoying.  This made us wonder whether we were that annoying at that age.  It also made us wonder if we are really getting that old.  While the three of us sometimes attempted to socialize, for the most part we kept to ourselves and focused on the scenery and the diving.

Looking at this picture, you might hate me, and I wouldn't blame you

The diving was a mixed bag.  I feel ungrateful finding any faults, given that the only other time I went diving was while getting certified, but the visibility was terrible.  Recent heavy winds, rains and a cyclone meant that visibility was two to four meters (six to thirteen feet).  This meant that fish were nearly impossible to see, but stationary objects like coral and clams could still be spotted.  We saw some coral while snorkeling in Tahiti, but it was nothing compared to what we saw around the Whitsundays.  Watching soft coral sway back and forth in the current made me wonder what took me so long to get SCUBA certified (oh wait, I remember - working too much and living in New York City).  Despite not seeing everything we would have liked to have seen, it was still fascinating and made us hungry for more dive trips down the road, especially around Thailand and Malaysia.

 Magge lets the clownfish know she's OK

Coral

 Liam, do these look enough like clownfish for you?

I forget what these are called (I heard too many new species' names to keep them straight)

When we weren't in the water, we were motoring around the tropical paradise that is the Whitsunday Islands.  The mountainous islands (which were actually mountains on the mainland until water levels rose following the last ice age) are covered in lush forests and are surrounded by sparkling aquamarine water.  The weather had been pretty miserable in the area for the preceding few weeks, but we got incredibly lucky and were blessed with plenty of sun.  Our one stop on land was to visit Whitehaven Beach, which is often ranked by various travel magazines and websites as one of the top beaches in the world.  We were able to get to the beach before the hordes of day trippers came across on their boats, so we were really able to enjoy it, despite having to wear a "stinger suit" due to the deadly box jellyfish in the water.  Even though the crowd on our boat and the diving did not quite meet our expectations, all three of us loved our time in the Whitsundays and it's a spot to revisit and take more time to explore.

Ladies man at Whitehaven Beach lookout

Stylin' in our stinger suits

 The clear water at Whitehaven

Magge taking another great shot

Back on firm ground, we made our way to the next island on the agenda, Fraser.  In doing research for our roadtrip, Fraser Island sounded nice but overrun with 19-year old Brits who were more interested in getting "pissed" than exploring the island.  As a result, we almost decided to skip it.  That would have been a huge mistake, because Fraser Island is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the trip so far.  The island does not have any paved roads, only sand tracks, so you either have to rent a 4x4 (expensive unless you group yourselves with 19-year old Brits) or go on a group tour.  We did the latter, and it turned out to be a great decision as we learned much more than we would have otherwise.  The following description and pictures do not capture the essence of the place, so I have to advise you to see it for yourself if you get the chance.

The Great Sandy Highway

Fraser Island is another one of Australia's UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the country has seventeen in total), and at 120 kms long, it is the world's largest sand island.  Rivers eroding Australia's Great Dividing Range mountains have carried sand into southern Queensland's and northern New South Wales' waters, and it all seems to have found its way here.

My favorite parts of the island were its bodies of water.  One of the major reasons for Fraser's listing as a World Heritage Site is its preponderance of perched dune lakes (approximately half of the world's lakes of this type are on the island).  Considered a "superlative natural phenomena", the lakes are formed when wind blows the tops off of sand dunes and then rain fills in the crater.  The lakes are sealed at their bottoms by compacted sand and decayed vegetable matter.  The result is an extremely clean lake sitting well above the water table surrounded by beautiful sandy beaches.  As Lorena put it when we were at Lake McKenzie, "This is my favorite beach.  It doesn't sting your eyes, you don't have to wear a stinger suit, and there's nothing in the water that can kill you."  The island also has a number of freshwater creeks that form from the excess pressure of the island's water table (which has forty times the water of Sydney Harbor) pushing water to the sandy surface.  This water is also very clean, but is home to more animals, including longfin eels.

The water at Lake McKenzie looks like the ocean, but tastes better

Lake Birrabeen, another impossibly clear lake

Wanggoolba Creek, set in a rainforest

Wading through Eli Creek, looking for eels...

... found only one

Eli Creek emptying into the ocean

Fraser Island is also home to 75 Mile Beach, a wide stretch of sand that seemingly goes on further than its name suggests. When 4x4 vehicles weren't racing by, we felt like we were the only people on the beach.  It was a far cry from the often crowded beaches in Sydney and the Sunshine Coast.  People are advised not to swim in the ocean from here because of man-eating sharks (Lorena saw seven within 150 feet from shore when she went on a short plane ride that took off and landed on the beach), but there's plenty of other things to do.  We checked out the rusting sands of the Pinnacles, views atop Indian Head, swam in the "Champagne Pools" (lava tubes that are now filled with water that bubbles as it crashes over the rocks - Magge didn't take pictures of this so we're waiting for Lorena to send us hers), and walked around the SS Maheno, a luxury liner turned World War I hospital ship that was forced ashore by a cyclone in 1935.

The colored sands of the Pinnacles

Lookouts from Indian Head

Just me and the 4x4 tracks on 75 Mile beach

The Maheno

Sand dunes, called sandblows by the locals, are another common feature of the island, which makes sense considering the whole island is made of sand.  They are usually formed when a forest fire or storm allows the sand from the beach to encroach inland.  The effect of sand dunes surrounded by forests is quite striking, and they are much different than the massive sand dunes we saw in Peru.

Petrified forest rising from the dune

Hammerstone Sandblow with Lake Wabby in the bottom right corner and the Pacific Ocean in the background

I look like an idiot, but hopping like a kangaroo is the easiest way down a sand dune

Lake Wabby, meet Hammerstone Sandblow

The one disappointment of our time on Fraser is that we didn't see that much wildlife.  That's a good thing in some ways, as Fraser Island, like much of Australia, has a plethora of animals that can kill you, but I was still hoping to see more dingos, snakes, echidnas, goannas and others.  Just another reason to come back.

We saw only one dingo and had to stay inside the bus, which explains the grainy picture quality

 

Yet another Australian sunset