Fraser Island September 2011

[an000 Member Find all posts View Profile Close an000]

After 15 days and 5000km we made it to Fraser Island and back with our Prado!
It was an awesome trip!

First day on Fraser, we were running late, but made it on the barge at 5:10pm (last barge was 5:30pm).
The sand was soft on Rainbow beach, there was already a car getting bogged when we arrived. I aired down to 21PSI, disabled active traction and stability control, put on center diff lock, and just went for it! My first time on sand that soft so it was quite an experience. The kids were cheering, the wife was holding onto the handrail, and the 150 was roaring toward the barge. It was a confident booster (which I would pay for later!) to see the Prado handle soft sand very well.
I thought about helping the other car out with my Maxtrax, but the barge left for the island as soon as we got on.
One thing we couldn't do was having a pre-beach wash at the Rainbow Beach car wash where they sprays some rust protector under the car before going on the island. Would be nice to have some time to stock up the fishing baits and get some cash out of the ATM (not a big issue as most of the island took EFPOS).



Had to take the inland route due to high tide. This was a 18km gravel road which rocked the car a bit.
After the inland route, we got onto the beach driving.



Prado at sunrise. It was high tide at around the same time (5:30am) so perfect for early fishing as well.

[an000 Member Find all posts View Profile Close an000]

Maheno wreck:





And Eli Creek:

[an000 Member Find all posts View Profile Close an000]

Lake McKenzie:



Lake Birrabeen:



The "highway":



Fishing "village" at the Pinnacle:
I had never seen that many people fishing in one spot before, there were sharks circling a few meters from people!
We went back there at low tide and saw a perfect gutter at the place. We got a few darts from here.

[an000 Member Find all posts View Profile Close an000]

After two days on the island, I was getting a good feel of the driving on the beach. Sand at most of the places at low tide was very compact, it got a bit soft at high tide when you had to drive at the high end of the beach.

That was when I got stuck when we headed back to the inland route out of Eurong to Central Station again. It was soft but we went through OK last time, this time I stopped right on the soft patch and lost momentum. 2 minutes with the Maxtrax and I could reversed out, just to see another three cars got bogged down in the same spot. I helped them out with the Maxtrax, which worked very well. This is the shot of one of them, a Nissan Pathfinder with a trailer and a bunch of helpers!




Indian Head



View from Champagne pool



Champagne pool

[an000 Member Find all posts View Profile Close an000]

Northern Beaches



Planes at Pinnacle



Sail boat



After 5 nights on Fraser, we left early in the morning and headed home. Stopped at the Rainbow Beach car wash to do the underbody wash and clean out the car. The underbody wash was not bad, but there was plenty of sand left and had to be cleaned out with a hose. When we got home I had to clean the engine bay with a garden hose to flush out the sand in there.

The Sandgrabba mats we had were great, I just tipped the sand out every now and then, and only had to vacuum the edges at home.

There was a timer-based water hose at the back of Eurong resort that I used to wash off the salt at the end of each day. $2 for 3 minutes.

The petrol and diesel price on the island was $2.03/L at Eurong.

[Hutch Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hutch]

Nice one, love Fraser, beautiful one day, perfect the next.

[kav Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close kav]

lovely spot . must go back there . thanks for the report

[Prado BB Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Prado BB]

Good report and great photos, need to get back there one day.....

[QbnPrado Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close QbnPrado]

Thanks for the update. I will be on Fraser Island in 13days time and counting. Will be going with a few friends. I will include my update on here when i get back if that is ok.

[BigDog816 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BigDog816]

Got back from Fraser Yesterday, had a long weekend up there, got the last barge Friday drove up to indian, met up with a few people then came back early Yesterday.

Great time, very windy and could see the smoke and smell the bush fires near Kingfisher Resort from 75mile beach. Spent Saturday Arvo sat on top of the dunes watching everyone try and get through Indian Head - so many near misses with people coming screaming through while others were bogged.

Saw a 200 series cruiser get bogged about 15m in, no momentum and running 45psi when we asked what pressure he was at - mate told him to throw in another 5psi and give it another go. After letting em down to 16 he went through no worries.

Also saw a couple of blokes in patrols with massive lifts, tyres, lockers trying to tow another blokes trailer through - we thought it was going to go bang he was reving it that hard in low range. Someone yelled out for him to put it in High after his 5th attempt - then went through first go. Heard him later saying he got paid $100 to tow the camper through - reckon he would have used that much in diesel alone. - Camera battery went flat so didn't get any photo's.

Headed to the Cape on Sunday - great drive - only difficult part were the two bypasses had some quite rough bits that you needed to take slowly, followed by some really soft stuff.

[Brett1979 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Brett1979]

Nice trip report and photos. Funny you came across bogs between Central Station & Eurong. That longish uphill section is notorious for people getting bogged heading towards Central Station. Sometimes dozens of cars can get backed up there in both directions. Makes it interesting when some people can't seem to wait 5 minutes until it's all sorted Did you see a broken down car on the back of a tow truck on the eastern beach once or twice while you were there or maybe an unattended car on it's roof at any stage? You'd be amazed with some of the pickles people get themselves into. It's great to sit near the Indian Head bypass track for an hour and watch people get stuck one after the other and like you mentioned, the lead foots who scream past bogged vehicles narrowly missing them. Awesome place though. I like to go there every year and it never lets you down.

[QLD4505 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close QLD4505]

Hi an000 great report and pictures. Fraser Island is amazing. I'm heading over at the end of the month around 27th October. If anyone else is heading over around this time it would be great to catch up for a beer or 2.