Elad’s blog

Sand.
Sand is created when the soil is grounded by wind and rivers into tiny
particles. Then they are carried into the ocean, mingle there, and
arrive, being carried by the currents, to the seashores. From there
the sand is driven to the deserts, and forms huge dunes where almost
no vegetation grows, because of the poor soil and the harsh
environment - or so we were told as kids.
Fraser island stretches some 123 k”m, and is made entirely of sand
(The locals claim is hosts more sand than the Sahara desert). The only
thing is, that it is so packed with vegetation, including rainforests,
lakes, and an abundance of plant *species*, that I just don’t believe
anymore that the sand is a fruitless soil that needs constant help of
fertrilizers. Our nature conversation activists will have to make up a
new legend to explain to me why our sandy areas in Israel have so
little vegetation.

We arrived at Fraser from a small town called Rainbow-Beach, which
holds some colored sand cliffs (An ancient aboriginal legend says that
in this place *Yinigie*, the spirit god of the rainbow, fell down and
spread its colors after having died in a heavenly combat. The Dream
Serpent brought it back to life, but the cliffs remained full of
colors) - not very impressive, just cliffs of
black-brown-grey-red-blue-orange-yellow-green-white sandstone, pretty
much like in Israel’s MACHTESHIM. Before Rainbow we went to a small
park at Noosa, and so some Koalas in the wild (Cute bear-like
creatuers, living on Eucaliptuses an excellent life - 20 hours
sleeping, four hours eating).
At Rainbow we formed a group of nine - there were Dash and Sheena, a
cute couple from Canada; there was Marian from France; Hiroshi from
Japan; Alfredo from Spain; Thomas from Germany; and us three
Israelies. We got a 4WD Toyota Landcruiser, some camping equiptment
(tents, food, etc.), and headed to Fraser by Ferry.
As I mentioned above, the island is full of vegetation - totally not
what I expected from a sand island. There are no asfalt roads there,
and we drove on the beach and in forest routes - Yevgeny and Yosi
would absolutely love this three-day drive (it was entirely 4WD,
excelent that I had this army driving practice, and even better that
Dash happens to be a professional truck-driver, so we all felt very
secure having a pro with us).
After a small beach drive we headed through the forest to Lake McKenzy
- an amazing cristal-blue lake, surounded by white sands and the trees
just over them - a truely caribean atmosphere. We had a nice swim
there (the water whetre extremely cold) and continued driving the
sands. At the night we set out tents on the beach, had a fine dinner,
drank some of our beers (Marian drank, of course, wine), and had some
very nice time.

It is a common knowledge, I think, that the stars have colors. They
look white to us because of our poor sight, but using a binocular or a
small telescope it is evident that there are all colored in different
flavors - bluewish, reddish, orange and even yellow stars.
At Fraser moonless night I was able to see the colors of some bright
stars, Though I didn’t recognize any of them (it is the southern
hemisphere, you know…) I also got an excellent grab of the Milky
Way, which was very clear.

What also was very clear was the presence of Dingoes - Australia’s big
wild dogs, somewhat similar to Kna’anite dogs only with golden nice
fur, which went all around our camp (in the morning we even found
footprints just over our tents - they were sniffing us at night!)

It was a really nice day, one of the highlights of my travel thus far.

The second morning there was rain. It arrived at night, and remained
with us the entire they. Worse than that, I caught a cold (probably
the lake from the day before, it was really freezing) and didn’t feel
very well. We spent most of the day just driving in the island, and
having small walks when it was not raining - we saw some colored dunes
and cliffs, some more forests, an abvundant of bird-life, and of
course - the ship wreck.
The ship wreck was swept to the Fraser shore by a cyclone at 1935, and
was left there probably because it was too expensive to do anything
else with it. Nowadays it is slowly dissolving, eaten by the waves and
the wind, located just above the sealevel so at high tide the water
penetrate the ship skeleton and at low tide it is just stuck on the
beach. It is a very unique place, and looking at the beautifully
dissolving ship could raise some philosophical issues (if we hadn’t
been so busy taking photos of it).

Between our walks we got time to pay a visit to the info center. There
was a small shop there, and as I was not feeling very good I invited
myself a cup of tea. They offered me some milk in the tea, and when I
asked for a lemon they replied that there are no such “exotic fruits”
on the island. It was very funny, and when we came back I checked it -
indeed, both in the vegetable store and in the supermarket here
pineapples are cheaper than tomatoes!

Just before sunset we climbed a cliff there, and had a really good
look on the bay and the island. They promised we could see white
sharks on the bay, but we didn’t see any - probably they dove because
of the storm.
We made a camp at the hills, this time, and I admired Hiroshi’s way of
cooking (he made us an asian dinner - he kept washing the rice until
it was totally clean, and then he closed it in a pot and said when it
was ready only by its smell. Most impressive. Moreover, he has a way
of slicing vegetables so fast into the thiniest slices that I can only
envy and admire).
We camped this night at a declared campsite, so we had facilities -
water, toilets, etc. There were so many insects, spiders, mosquitoes
and other friends at the facilities, that it was a reall exploration
using them .

The third day we went to another freshwater lake, less impressive that
the first one, and than we had to return. Over all, Fraser is a real
beauty - don’t miss it when in Australia!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2005 at 12:53 and is filed under Travels, Australia East Coast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.