Fraser Island March 2013 - Trip Report

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

Well the Prado is packed to the sills and we are looking forward to some time on Fraser Island with the kids.
We willl be on the eastern side for the week, if any others are up there next week, stop by and say hello.

Cheers

[Brains Find all posts View Profile Close Brains]

Hope the Cleanskin Cold Press Latte's meet the coffee fix, and have a great time on Fraser.

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

Have good one, hope the houses live up to your expectations.


Hutch- 2012 Prado 150, some TJM Kit.

[mackayvx Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close mackayvx]

You should have a great week.
We are heading down to Fraser in late July...
Im looking to here a bit of a report from ya Gumboot!

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

Macca VX we are their early July so I will be able to give u a real live update.


Hutch- 2012 Prado 150, some TJM Kit.

[prado2004 Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close prado2004]

I am off there this Friday very early to try and beat the crowds, looking forward to it! Hoping conditions are not too eroded

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

Live update coming to you from the eastern beach, sitting on a beach chair with ice cold stubby in hand.....
no crowds
ice cold beer
sun is shinning
lots of sand gone with the recent weather and exposed rocks
kids having a ball. they are living at eli creek almost everyday.....
full report when I get back , off to get another beer now

[mackayvx Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close mackayvx]

Macca VX we are their early July so I will be able to give u a real live update.


Hutch- 2012 Prado 150, some TJM Kit.

That would be absolutely choice Hutch!

[Rogerthatv2 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Rogerthatv2]

Enjoy mate, the beach houses are great. Happy Easter to you and your family.

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

Trip Report – Fraser Island March 2013

It was holiday time and Fraser Island was calling. This year we wanted to take all the kids so we decided on the week before Easter to avoid some of the crowds and relax a bit more. It was an enlightened decision...

Once we add all the kids and their associated stuff , the recovery gear, tools, fridge ,chairs, food, water, beer, toys, rods, beer there isn’t a whole lot of spare room in the Prado. Thats where the ARB roof rack is a god send for us. What works for us, is those 52 litre storage boxes from officeworks. A full length space case and four of those fit perfectly on my rack, with beer, water , rod and chairs in front of them . Makes loading and unloading super quick, throw a tarp over it and ratchet it down and bazinga you are good to go.

Day 1 We were all loaded the night before, so a hot coffee in the morning and we hit the road for the two and a half hour drive up to Rainbow beach.

There are several barge options to get to middle/ southern end of Fraser Island , including
-Manta Ray from Inskip point. 10 mins and drops you at the bottom of fraser on the beach and you drive up the eastern beach. You dont have to book as they run constantly
- Kingfisher Bay Ferry departs River Heads and arrives at the pier on Kingfisher bay on the Western side.
- Fraser Venture departs River Heads and arrives at Wanggoolba Creek on the western side. About 7 kms south of Kingfisher.
Both Kingfisher and Venture mean you have to cross the island to get to Eurong. No big issue but add 45min to an hour to cross depending on traffic.

If your getting the Manta ray you can pick up a barge ticket and permit at the office or on the barge and you don’t have to pre book. They run constantly all day. We took the Mantra ray and it cost us $100 return. We aired down to 22psi just before getting to inskip point as you have to cross the beach to get on the ferry, then it’s just a 10 minute trip, so nice and fast.




Here a pic of us fully loaded, 180 litres of fuel and packed to the roof in the rear on the barge.





They dropped us over on the bottom of hook point. We had timed the tides so we were on low tide and it is a straight run up to south of Eurong. A great view and not another vehicle to be seen






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

This time we stayed at Fraser island beach houses. Thanks for the heads up Hutch.
As we had our little baby with us, so we didn’t want to camp this time. It was a great base for us as its about 400 metres south of Eurong but nice and quiet. You can park right outside your house and it has a terrific pool for the kids, 24 hour power, gas BBQs, hot showers , a car wash area which I used at the end of every day, a full kitchen and a killer view. Importantly it is also dingo fenced as well.
Eurong has a general store, fresh bakery, bistro, bait ice, fuel etc if you need it. Usual island mark – ups applys though, so bring the things you need.




Day 2 and the kids were already in the pool first up…




After a relaxing morning it was up to Eli creek. Since the last big storms , a lot of sand has been washed away from the beach, which has exposed a lot of the coffee rocks. We had to use all the bypass tracks at Poyungan rocks, Yidney rocks, and Happy valley. Some of the tracks were also pretty chopped up with a lot of very exposed rocks but I didn’t get any photos of the really rocky sections. But a fair few sections like the black rock below.







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The photo below is two hours after morning high tide and it was just enough space to drive up the beach!. You can see the erosion against the banks the recent bad weather has done.




We were told the bar/ bistro at happy valley had been recently renovated and reopened in December and the locals were raving about it. So we rocked up for lunch and were the only people there.






The fish and chips were just outstanding. I would go as far as to say the best I have had in recent times. Cool breezes, very clean amenities and a nice place to chill. Then after lunch , ice creams for the kids and coffee for mum and dad. Their cappuccinos were also a stand out and a great way to finish off lunch. Highly recommended.

Speaking of coffee, Brains put me on to these Cleanskin Cold pressed Lattes.



These are pre made with milk and you have to keep them refrigerated. We took 8 bottles up in the fridge and it was fantastic for early morning coffee and a lifersaver... Thanks Mate.
You can get them here http://cleanskincoffeeco.com.au/ in Brisbane.

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Next stop was Eli creek. Eli Creek is the largest creek on the east coast of the island with a flow of 80 million litres per day. They have built a board walk to talk you up to the top where you can get into the creek and walk/ float down the creak to the mouth at the beach. Eli is just great for kids, as it is only about knee deep and crystal clear creek that flows out to the beach. There weren’t that many people there, the advantage of the week before Easter, but still a fair few european backpackers..

Another tip is to take some tubes or blow up rings for the kids, inflate them with the compressor and then they float down and repeat for hours. That scored me many Dad brownie points..




Boys can dig in sand for hours and they did.…




After Eli it was up to the Maheno shipwreck.
The Maheno was a 5000 ton ocean liner that used to travel between Australia and New Zealand. In 1935 she was being towed to be scraped in japan and the wire rope snapped in a cyclone and she washed up on Fraser island.
She used to look like this




Now she looks like this.



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While we were there the plane service which lands on the beach, arrived much to the kids amazement and excitement. Pretty impressive how short a take-off runway it needs as it can take up to 8 people.




Day 3 – Indian head, Waddy point, Orchard beach, fishing and Champagne pools. This day was to push up north away from any other people and introduce my little boys to fishing.
Indian head was very cut up and soft. But no issues for us in the Prado. We went straight through without a hint of having a problem. High 4, centre diff locked, 22psi and momentum was our technique and not once anywhere on the island did we have an issue. Even from dead stops in the soft stuff, it was all good.
Some of the coloured sands.







Looking back south to Indian head



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Some of the inland northern tracks where the vegetation changes




There is a great lunch spot up near waddy point , that is fenced with gas BBQS and well looked after. We were the only people there.




Speaking of dingo fences and dingos. We came across 7 dingos during our stay. None of them were afraid of human contact and were very forward and came quite close to us . You have to remember these are wild dogs , so keep the kids close by as it better to be safe than sorry. There is a very sad story up on a waddy point sign about a child being killed there many years ago.




Regarding maps, I used Androzic on my Google Nexus 7 Android tablet with the Fraser Map. It was perfect for us and spot on. I have the memory maps as well but tended to use this more. I got a 2 amp USB plug off ebay as the 1 amp versions for most phones won’t run the tablets and charge them fast enough if they are being used. It then mount to the windscreen via a ram mount and the bottom lip rests on the dash mat. Held nice and securely.
I recently spoke to the Hema rep and their Hema Android App bundled with their maps will be out soon apparently, which is very similar to their ipad version where you get all their main maps, so I will probably migrate over to that when it is released for all the additional maps I don’t have like Cape York etc



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