A Wet Day in Fraer

Breakfast was very early this morning because we were expected to be waiting for our tour bus at 7.45am. Toast without marmalade! This s the very first place I have ever stayed in where there was no marmalade – everything spreadable was there EXCEPT marmalade! Shame! 

 The big four wheel drive coach on the beach

The disappointment of brekky was soon forgotten as Colin and I waited under dripping awnings for the tour bus. The other passengers arrived and we all stood separate from each other with no interaction at all. It wasn’t until 8,30 that our transport arrived, by which time we were ready to sit in comfort! It was cold outside! The coach was a big German constructed four wheel drive vehicle that proved to us why it had been chosen as the vehicle for this island by the end of the day. The roads on Fraser Island are narrow, loose sand tracks or else the road is the beach and the vehicle has to cope with the different conditions there.

 The fresh water creek and board walk at Eli Creek

A beautiful spot was Eli Creek and all of us enjoyed the chance to take a few photographs. Of course I took dozens! Oh how I love digital photography! You can shoot to your hearts content! I can honestly say that my heart is content!

It was so exciting bouncing along the rough, sandy tracks, scratching our way around bends with the trees whipping their branches against the windows and the passengers trying hard not to bang their heads on the windows – we were all grateful for the seat belts that kept us anchored to our seats!

 Erosion on the East coast beaches

Driving along the beach the damage caused by the high seas was pointed out to us, the cliffs have been eroded such a long way back by the exceptionally vicious seas that we have had in storms this year. Of course the beaches will change – they may increase in size or they may shrink further but a sand island is always at the mercy of the sea and the weather. As the sand has been taken away more and more of the coffee rocks have been exposed which makes some of the stretches of beach driving quite an adventure!

 Wonderful patina on the rusting hulk of the Maheno

Our tour stopped at the famous wreck of the Maheno – this once first class only passenger ship was on her way to the wrecking yards in Japan when it broke loose from the boat towing it and drifted on the currants until it finished up on the sandy shore of Fraser Island. Many attempts were made to re-float her but all failed so the sea is gradually reclaiming her by encouraging rust to erode the iron. The wreck is now totally unsafe for anyone to climb on and anyone attempting to stands to be whacked with a very heavy fine for their trouble.

 Our vehicle at the coloured sands

Not far from the wreck of the Maheno stand the amazing coloured sands. Once upon a time people would clamber over the cliffs and fill containers with the different colours to later fill glass shapes with different coloured stripes of the grains. I bought one sand filled bottle myself, years and years ago! Today I found that there is a very strong fence that prevents anyone from going more than twenty paces into the valley between the cliffs of sand – but that is obviously very necessary so that the cliffs will be there a few years longer. Again I took more than one photograph! However you can breathe a sigh of relief since I am only sharing one!

 The rain was falling as we were given a talk on the trees at Central Station

One of the stops that we had was at a place called “Central Station” in the centre of the island and there we walked along a fresh water creek and saw the most  beautiful rainforest – The walk through was at almost breakneck speed so I found it very difficult to take as many photographs as I would have liked – it was so dark that each shutter click was two second in length or longer. I did not take my tripod with me but was able to rest the camera on the wooden hand rail of the walkway. No way would I have been able to hold the camera still free hand – even by resting on the railing, I still have had to delete more than half of what I took. When you take plenty of picture, deleting means you still have a good collection of “keepers”!

We were fortunate on our drive around the beauty spots of Fraser Island to have two tour guides and we learned so much about the plants the animals, the island and its history from them both. I have so much to remember! It rained almost all day - but that did not stop anyone from enjoying the day.

AJ

Tent city to rich city

Before leaving Swan Hill and our beautiful and gaudy purple motel There just had to be a few photos of the Town.

 The purple motel

We wanted to see the Pioneer Settlement down by the river, the entrance used to be through the old paddle-steamer “Gem”. The entrance has been moved – and as a result the old timber vessel may last a bit longer – but the Gem is such an unusual water craft by the standard of today that I enjoyed the opportunity to take a few shots of it while there were no people around.

 a former Murray River paddlesteamer

Unfortunately the cost of entering this tourist village was rather exorbitant and since we only had an hour in which we could take a look through we decided that we would rather drive on to Bendigo and spend a bit of time there instead. It was a little disappointing at the time (not to go around the Pioneer Settlement) but as it turned out we were able to take a tram tour around Bendigo and still not be too late getting to my brother’s home near Melbourne.

I asked our tram driver to pose beside the 1914 tram that he was going to drive.

 Our tram driver in authentic uniform

We started out in a tram that was much younger than this and when we pulled into the tram depot all the passengers were asked to dismount and transfer to this timber lined tram.

 The timber interior of the 1914 tram

Our trip on the tram took us past a few of the things we had walked around on foot. We passed the Golden Dragon Museum that houses the Chinese dragons that are used in parades for Chinese New Year.

We saw the wonderful ornately decorated roofs of the temples and pagodas in the grounds of the Golden Dragon Museum.

The tram journey took us past many early timber buildings and it was slow enough to stand up and take photographs out of the open windows.

Bendigo grew because of the gold fields of the 1850’s, many of the poppet heads from those days have been preserved and some of the mines are open for tourists.

The Deborah Mine, which is also the start of the tram tour, has many levels of mine underground and it is possible to spend half a day on a tour with an experienced guide, exploring the nine levels of tunnels and shafts.

I think a quick look into one tunnel might be interesting, I am not sure if I could get pleasure from spending several hours in a tunnel!

AJ