FRASER ISLAND, Australia (dpa) – The bus shakes wildly and heads are quickly drawn back inside as the wheels dip into another pothole in the road.
The large all-terrain vehicle has been struggling along the narrow sandy strip for a good 30 minutes or so already, but is failing to get anywhere fast.“The speed limit for inland Fraser Island is actually 35 miles per hour, but you’ll be lucky to get above 20,” explains ranger David Laycock. He is sitting behind the steering wheel with a remarkably cheery expression on his face given that he has been subject to the same gruelling treatment as his passengers for the last half hour.Slowly and heavily, our vehicle manages to struggle its way across this island lying off Australia’s east coast. Today’s passengers are in luck, explains Laycock. It rained last night which makes the sand easier to drive on. When it has been dry for some time, passengers usually have to get out of their seats and push the vehicle out of the sand.Sand, sand and more sand – there is almost nothing else underfoot on Fraser Island: billions of tonnes of the stuff. However, those who imagine the largest sand island in the world to be something straight out of the Sahara, are sadly mistaken.There may well be sand dunes up to 230 metres high on the island, but a large part of this island – situated south of the Great Barrier Reef in the state of Queensland – is covered by permanently green rainforest.The other passengers and I are driven through miles of jungle. The annual rainfall of up to 1,600 millimetres ensures that the trees and grasses on the island grow at a tremendous rate. Parrots perch on branches here and there, watching wallabies bounce over the ridge.Fraser Island is around 120 kilometres long and up to 25 kilometres wide. There are no large settlements to speak of and, for each of the island’s 300 permanent residents, 1,000 tourists come to see the sights each year, says David.Many visitors use the fast ferry from Harvey Bay on the mainland and come for a daytrip, others stay a while. Those who plan to travel around the island must have access to an all-terrain, four-wheel- drive vehicle.There are a number of hotels available, including the highly- recommended Kingfisher Bay Resort on the west of the island – where, from August to October, there is also the chance to watch whales.David Laycock switches off the engine – we will have to walk over the summit of the next sand dune. And then it comes into view: “the largest swimming pool in the world” as the ranger calls it, Lake McKenzie it says on my map.It is the second biggest of the island’s circa 40 lakes and a regular stop on visitors’ tours of the island. The swimming conditions are almost perfect: the water is crystal clear, up to 12 metres deep and the current temperature is a pleasant 24 degrees.Nevertheless, best to dive in and enjoy it while we can because we are on a tight schedule. Day tours cost 90 Australian dollars (around 57 U.S. dollars) per adult – about 26 U.S. dollars per child – which means operators want to offer their customers as much as possible for their money.Our journey continues over bumpy summits, through dense rainforest, one pothole following the another. Our next destination is Central Station, formerly the largest settlement on the island. Formerly – this means at the time of the treefellers who arrived in 1856 to fell wood for construction. The last of them left in 1991 after nature conservationists finally won the argument. One year later UNESCO declared Fraser Island to be a world heritage site.“Central Station used to have a school with 12 kids,” says David – but that is now history. Today there is a campsite, a National Parks rangers’ station and Wanggoolba Creek: a stream which snakes its way along a gulley past ferns several metres tall as eels tumble and swim in the water.“The entire ecosystem is very sensitive and valuable,” David explains, if the lush vegetation were destroyed, nothing would be able to grow and the whole island would turn to sand.Our journey continues in the direction of the Pacific. When we reach the small village of Eurong, David leaves the rainforest, heads for the beach and steps on the gas. The speedometer leaps up to 75 as he explains, “It is only possible when the tide is out and the sand becomes hard.” He grins: “The beach is our motorway.” As waves crash on to the shore on our right, we charge along beneath an unimaginably blue sky. But nobody swims around here – too many sharks.There is almost nothing to speak of in the way of “other traffic” – every 10 minutes or so, a vehicle like ours or a small minibus comes into sight. The danger of collision is, more realistically, an airborne one since small, single-engine planes use the beach for takeoff and landing.A 15-minute round trip costs around 26 dollars allowing a birds- eye view not only of the 100-kilometre long Eastern Beach but the amazing expanse of the Coloured Sands – and of course, the “Maheno”.David Laycock pulls up at the Maheno too. The passenger ship was built in Scotland in 1904 but ran aground off Fraser Island in a heavy storm in 1935 – and refused to move.Time and the elements have taken their toll on the ship – the main feature of its decor is now rust. In the thin layer of mist thrown up by the crashing waves, the wreck strikes a mysterious and attractive figure, however, it is too unsafe to allow visitors on board.The Maheno is gradually sinking deeper and deeper into the sand. David jokes, “In a couple of years’ time, we’ll have to have another ship sunk so we still have a wreck to show the tourists.”On our return journey, we cover the same kind of bumpy terrain as we have done all day and pass through beautiful dense rainforest. When visitors finally return to the mainland, their lasting impression of Fraser Island is the eternal truth that everything passes, only sand will remain.
