Some years ago, I had the chance to be driven in a 4x4 through the desert in Dubai, but I've never driven one myself. Nicki's birthday on Sunday was a good trigger to hire one here on Fraser Island.
The day before, the weather had been humid and overcast, so we made a short bushwalk. It is truly amazing that this sand island is home to such greenery and wildlife, and we followed the advice of walking with heavy steps to ensure any snakes or spiders would be frightened and run/slither away. (We didn't see anything on the walk, but we did see a tiny black snake late last night.) To finish, we came back along the coast with its odd collection of worn
dead wood on the beach. We puzzled over the weird patterns created by some animal or crab (yet to be identified) which digs holes in the sand and leaves small balls of it, resulting in random but fascinating shapes and swirls.Mosquitoes have been a serious problem for us. We have been plastering mosquito repellent on us but it seems these ones have genetically adjusted to become immune. It's the only explanation we can find, as our bite-count is around 25 for Nicki and 15 for me. They itch like hell!
Sunday brought finer weather and as we took over the 4x4 we decided
to head to Mackenzie lake. The drive was frightening to start off with, because coming out of the resort, there is a steep uphill and a testing amount of sand. The little Suzuki skated across the road and we bounced up and down in our seats as I got the hang of it. Once we got onto the flatter area, it turned out to be a great fun thing to do, but scary moments came every now and again when we met big empty spaces in the tracks – my face says it all (and so does Nicki's...)Arriving at Mackenzie Lake, we willed the clouds to leave. The sand is incredibly fine and white,
and as I mentioned before, this freshwater lake is 85m above sea level and settling inside a huge sand dune. There is an odd effect of the light, as the first few metres are quite shallow making the water appear very light due to the reflection from the sand. But it gets less shallow very quickly after that and the deeper water seems is a deep dark blue, almost as if there is coral beneath it. But as you go further out into the water, the water become light before your eyes.
It is truly like paradise – almost empty beach, white sand, blue sky, lovely warm water.When we got back to the car-park there was a
huge green lizard, over a metre long, wandering around happily among the people and cars. He looked like a baby crocodile, but nobody seemed too bothered with him and his slithery tongue made me realise it was just a lizard. I tried to get a picture of him, little realising that in the background there was a guy trying to get his swimsuit off with a towel round his waist. He saw the flash go off and sheepishly walked to the other side of his 4x4, avoiding the pervert in the Suzuki,,,We rushed back to the resort, and had some fun on the way – hopefully you can see this movie of us hitting a serious bump!
The hurry was in hope of catching the sunset - and what a sunset it was. It's the only place on the East Coast that you can watch the sun drop over the ocean, so we were incredibly lucky to experience it. Nicki's pictures are fantastic, and really capture its calm beauty, as we sat in the bay bar and took it all in.
