Australian Time Out #12: Dingos Ate my Toothpaste

12: Dingos Ate my Toothpaste

Fraser Island Gang

Gutted to be leaving Gagaju, Dan and I were heartened by glowing reports about Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island. We were heading to Hervey Bay, which, along with Rainbow Beach, is one of the gateways to the island.

There are two main ways to explore Fraser – either by a guided tour or self-drive – but whatever it is you’ll need a 4×4 to get around. There are a few little resorts there but the majority of overnight visitors camp. Fraser Island tours dominate all East Coast backpacker packages.

We stayed at Beaches at Hervey Bay, who like every hostel there offers group self-drive tours of the island. After a safety briefing about the trip (don’t feed the dingos, don’t litter, keep on the tracks, etc) we were put in our groups and elected food and alcohol buyers. The hostel supplies the tents, camping supplies, all permits and 4×4 van. The next day Dan and I left with another eight backpackers to meet the ferry, to fend for ourselves for 3 days and 2 nights.

Maheno shipwreck

Arriving on the island is an experience in itself. The roads are sand and roots and make for a very bumpy ride! After collecting firewood at Central Station (main ranger area of Fraser) we were on our way to Indian Heads, a camping ground located at the very north of the island. Breaking out of the central wooded area, we were presented with a practically never-ending beach to drive on, avoiding the odd plane landing on the sand, of course! After a quick stop at the Maheno shipwreck, a former cruise liner caught in a cyclone and washed ashore, we made it to Indian Heads before the tide came in – and more importantly, before nightfall.

After we struggled to put up our tents and cook our food – roughing it was new to many of us – we sat down to a lecture by the resident ranger, who explained that Indian Heads is popular with backpackers as it doesn’t have a noise curfew (most of the campsites on Fraser don’t tolerate noise after 9pm) – and no facilities either, so if you needed the toilet bring a spade! He came to check if we were being ‘Dingo Safe’ – a big headache for all rangers on the island.

Fraser Island is home to the purest strain of dingos in Australia, being large enough to sustain a healthy population, but remote enough to avoid crossbreeding. Being natural scavengers, they often come into campsites, and dingos that have become dependent on humans for food can attack them. We were told repeatedly not to feed dingos, to lock up all our food in the van when we had finished, and not to keep food or toiletries in our tents (a girl had woken up a week before we arrived to find a dingo eating her toothpaste) – basically to make our campsite as boring to them as possible.

Fraser Island dingo

After dinner we strolled down to the beach, where the lack of light pollution allowed us a fantastic slight – the night sky littered with thousands of twinkling stars. Meanwhile one of our group had drunk too much and threw up outside one of our tents, so we had dingos milling around our campsite all night, attracted by the (heave) smell. Nice!

Next day we waited until 11am low tide (Indian Heads is only accessible by beach driving) and headed down the beach again to Lake Waby – parked the van on the beach and walked 40 minutes through the bush to get to it. Absolutely worth the effort! An extremely inviting lake surrounded by bush on one side, and a very steep sand dune on the other. We swam, messed around and climbed the dune to discover more golden dunes stretching as far as the eye could see.

Our second camping site was at Dilli Village, which I wouldn’t recommend, mainly because it housed hundreds of mozzies and sand flies, and the camping ground is uneven. There are facilities here however, and the resident ranger advised us that the advertised noise curfew wasn’t in force. Later we discovered that many backpackers had camped on the beach and had a better time.

Lake MacKenzie

Day three ended on a high – a visit to Lake MacKenzie, not to be missed by any means. White sand, crystal clear waters – lots of frolicking and relaxing to be done. Stunning views, warm water and great company.

Getting back to the mainland was a sobering experience, mainly as the island had been so beautiful and unique, but also because our group had become quite close – by roughing it! Simple tasks we took for granted like cooking, showering, running toilets and transport required us to work closely together as a team. Team spirit also manifested itself in regarding all other backpacker vans as ‘the enemy’ and over-using crappy in-jokes – great fun!

I would recommend using the self-guided tours for Fraser Island, but there are some very strict rules to abide by – such as not driving through salt water, using the correct gears at the correct areas, and making sure you drive on the beach only during low tide. If you get a group which aren’t interested in following these guidelines, or individuals who drive like maniacs, you may have to fork out a large amount of money for repairs. Another worry is getting a group that you don’t get along with, or don’t want to go where you wish. That can take a lot of diplomacy to work through. And this can also happen on a guided tour. Self-guided means you have more freedom to go where you want.

Back in Hervey Bay we had a shower (luxury!), a few drinks in the Beaches bar, and used our table as a dance floor – a great end to a great tour!