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Fraser Island



The largest sand island in the world, Fraser Island was inscribed on the World Heritage listing in 1992. The island has a wide variety of natural features including freshwater sand dune lakes, quiet streams, white beaches, rainforest, eucalypt forest, cliffs with remarkable coloured sand horizons and rugged headlands, making it a perfect back-to-nature destination.

Where is it?: Burnett/Fraser Coast, off the coast from Hervey Bay, some 300 km north of Brisbane and 37 km east of Maryborough.

Getting There: Fraser Island is not connected to the mainland, so the only way to reach the island is by ferry, unless you have your own water craft. It is possible to take vehicles to Fraser Island by vehicular ferry, but vehicle must be 4-wheel drive as there are no made roads on the island. 4-wheel drive vehicles can be hired in the island.

Fraser Island Barges and Ferry provides a range of vehicle barge and ferry access Fraser Island. Barges and ferry services run daily via Rainbow Beach from Inskip Point, from River Heads, south of Hervey Bay, and from Urangan Boat Harbour in Hervey Bay.

Kingfisher Ferry operates 6 services to the resort each day from River Heads, Hervey Bay, and return. This ferry has seating for 220 passengers on two decks with a fully licensed bar and snack food available. The journey takes approximately 50 minutes.



See And Do

Unless you have brought or hired a 4-wheel drive vehicle, the best way to explore and enjoy Fraser Island is on its walking tracks. Choose from short walks through rainforests, strolls around a lake or longer walks across a sandblow. Long distance walkers will enjoy the 90km Fraser Island Great Walk for that special wilderness experience.

Attractions on Fraser Island include Lake Boomanjin (the largest perched lake in the world; the crystal clear water of Wanggoolba Creek at Central Station; the dazzling white shores of Lake McKenzie; Wongi, Hammerstone and Badjala Sandblows; the island’s giant rainforest trees, particularly within Valley of the Giants; the historic areas of Bogimbah Creek, McKenzies Jetty and Mill and Fraser Island Commando School.



Fraser Island Great Walk: A long-distance trail on which hikers must be fully self-sufficient and carry water. The walk is rated easy to moderate on a difficulty scale being mostly at sea level and is traversed in one direction. The landscape during the walk changes between coastal heathland, mangrove forest, woodland and subtropical rainforest. The crystal-clear lakes and sand dunes are the highlights of this track. Due to the rain season it is better not to do this hike from January to March. The entire 90 km walk, which includes numerous smaller walks branching off the main trail, can be completed in 6 to 8 days. The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) provides 8 walkers’ camps for which a booking is essential.



Shipwrecks: Fraser Island has a number of shipwrecks, the Maheno on Orchard Beach being the most well known and a major island landmark. The Maheno was built in Scotland in 1905 as a luxury passenger ship for the trans-Tasman crossing. By 1935 the ship had been taken out of service and was sold to a ship-breaker in Japan. On 25 June 1935, while being towed to Osaka to be broken up, she was caught in a strong cyclone about 80 kilometres off the coast of Queensland. The towline parted, and on 9 July 1935 the Maheno became beached on the east coast of Fraser Island.

During the Second World War the wreck served as target bombing practice for the RAAF and was used as an explosives demolition target by special forces from the Fraser Commando School. The remains of the ship are now severely rusted, with almost three and a half storeys buried under the sand. Because of the danger it poses, climbing on the wreck is not permitted.

About Fraser Island

Fraser Island is 123 km long and varies from 7 km to 22 km wide. It covers an area of 184 000 sq. km and has sand dunes which rise to a height of 240 m. It is estimated that the sands which make up Fraser Island reach over 600 m below the sea.

The native plant communities support a significantly diverse fauna, due to the variety and specialisation of a large number of habitats, although diversity within habitats is low. The island is noted for its low number and abundance of introduced species, presence of false water-rat Xeromys myoides and high genetic purity of the dingo relative to other areas in eastern Australia. Over 300 bird species have been recorded including red goshawk Erythrotriochis radiatus, black breasted button quail Turnix melanogaster, beach stone curlew Esacus neglectus and ground parrot Pezoporus wallicus. Fraser Island is also rich in reptile fauna.

The forests of the island have been subject to logging for around 130 years. The mainland rain forests were largely cleared for timber and then agriculture, but the forests of the sand masses have fared considerably better. Many of the largest and oldest trees were removed, and the resource of scrub timber declined to unsustainable levels in some instances after less than 30 years of logging.

Several towns, settlements and resorts, as well as camping areas, forestry camps, roads, jetties, and airstrips lie within the nominated area. Similar developments border the area to the south and west. There are additional development proposals both within and adjacent to the nominated area, several of which have already received approval.

Fraser Island is currently estimated to receive around 300,000 visitors a year, this number having increased rapidly since 1975. A network of roads and tracks exists, comprised of approximately 1,000km of unsealed sand tracks and 44km of gravel roads, most of which are ungazetted and established originally for forestry purposes. These roads are suitable only for four wheel drive vehicles. There is a continuing and serious problem with the control of four-wheel-drive traffic on the island.

Brief history

Archaeological research and evidence shows that Aboriginal Australians occupied Fraser Island at least 5,000 years ago. There was a permanent population of 400 600 that grew to 2,000 3,000 in the winter months due to abundant seafood resources. The arrival of European settlers in the area was an overwhelming disaster for the Butchulla people. European settlement in the 1840s overwhelmed the Aboriginal lifestyle with weapons, disease and lack of food.[9] By the year 1890, Butchulla numbers had been reduced to only 300 people. Most of the remaining Butchulla were taken off the island in 1904 and relocated to missions in Yarrabah and Durundur, Queensland. It is estimated that up to 500 indigenous archaeological sites are located on the island.

In October 2014, Native title rights were granted to the Badtjala people by the Federal Court. This essentially enabled the indigenous people to hunt, fish and take water for domestic purposes; and could open the island up to economic opportunities for current and future generations of Butchulla people through ecotourism and related business development.

British pastoralists started to enter the area in 1847 and local Aboriginals initially displayed their resistance by stealing cargoes and small boats from them.[55] They also tried to prevent the formation of the nearby township of Maryborough by attacking George Furber as he was constructing the first sheds there. By 1850, in response to their lands being occupied, Aboriginals in the Mary River area were killing shepherds, rounding up hundreds of sheep and taking them to their stronghold of Fraser Island.

Fraser Island continued to be a safe haven for the Badtjala in the 1850s and reports from British commissioners stationed in Maryborough convey the threat settlers felt. After the murder of George Furber and his associate near Tinana in 1855, a large punitive force of armed settlers and general police was organised to inflict summary justice upon people on Fraser Island. The close proximity of this force eliminated most Aboriginal resistance by 1860. In 1897, as part of the implementation of the Aboriginal Protection Act, the Government of Queensland removed 51 economically unproductive Aboriginals from the Maryborough district to an isolation camp on the west coast of Fraser Island.

Logging on the island began in 1863, initiated by American Jack Piggott. The geological wealth of the island lay in its rich deposits of rutile, ilmenite, zircon and monazite. Sand mining leases were first granted in 1950, and mining continued until 1977.[47] Without public knowledge the Queensland Government granted mining leases to the American mining company Dillingham-Murphyores in the 1960s.

The name Fraser Island comes from Eliza Fraser and her story of survival from a shipwreck on the island. Captain James Fraser and his wife, Eliza Fraser, were shipwrecked on the island in 1836. Their ship, the Stirling Castle, set sail from Sydney to Singapore with 18 crew and passengers. The ship was holed on coral while travelling through the Great Barrier Reef north of the island.[8] Transferring to two lifeboats, the crew set a course south, attempting to reach the settlement at Moreton (now Brisbane).

During this trip in the lifeboats, Captain Fraser’s pregnant wife gave birth in the leaking lifeboat. The infant died soon after birth. The Captain’s lifeboat was becoming more and more unseaworthy and was soon left behind by the other lifeboat which continued on. The sinking boat and its crew was beached on what was then known as the Great Sandy Island. Whether the survivors died due to disease, hunger, exhaustion or battles with the native population will never be known for sure; most likely a little of all of the above. Captain Fraser died leaving Eliza living among the local peoples.

She was rescued 6 weeks later by a convict, John Graham, who had lived in the bush as an escapee and who spoke the Aboriginal language. He was sent from the settlement at Moreton by the authorities there who had heard about Eliza’s plight, and negotiated her return. Within 6 months, Eliza had married another sea captain. She moved to England and became a sideshow attraction in Hyde Park telling ever more lurid tales about her experiences with white slavery, cannibalism, torture and murder. As she is known to have told several versions of the story, it is unknown which version is the most accurate. She was killed in a carriage accident in Melbourne in 1858 during a visit.






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