Time to hit the road and stay on it for a while!
Sometimes you just have to suck it up and spend a couple of long days on the highway in order to reach a great destination, and Fraser Island is one of those great destinations! We had our first taste of Fraser back in 2015, we loved it, but didn’t allow enough time to fully explore and appreciate the Island and all it had to offer, so the aim of this trip is to see and explore everything.
St Lawrence Recreation Grounds provided the first overnight stop – $12.50 a night with amenities, pick your own spot
St Lawrence is known for its wetlands, which you can see in the distance from the recreation grounds, there is a walk out to a viewing area and also a drive.
We camped in late August, not the best time of year to visit, but we did see snakes, goats and a few bird species on the short drive out to the Fitzroy River bridge.
There are a couple of good mates travelling with us and we all agreed that the local Pub looked like it needed a few patrons, so off to The Sportsman’s Arms for a pub feed we went, this is an interesting little country pub and is walking distance from the campgrounds.
Up early and on the road again, we had all booked the Kingfisher Bay Barge over to the Island early the next day, so needed to get down to Hervey Bay this afternoon having booked Hervey Bay Bush Escape via hip camp for a quick overnight stay. These young hip campers were very welcoming and their address is only 20 minutes from the ferry which is a bonus. We all sat around what was to be our last campfire for a week, enjoying the company.
What a beautiful day for a boat ride! We are all so excited, Danni and Errol met us at the Barge, and there are now 4 cars in our group, two with tents and two of us with camper trailers. We needed to go across the island to get to Cornwall’s Campground where we had booked to stay for the first week. Traffic came to a standstill at the junction of Eurong and Central Station due to a large tree having fallen across the road completely blocking it. We waited about an hour for a Ranger to show up, the local cop turned up instead, having no idea why there was such a large gathering assembled. Steve had a chainsaw onboard and with full approval of the police he jumped in the police vehicle with them and headed off to clear the track for everyone.
We had a slight delay about 1km before Eurong where the soft sand proved too soft to pull the Hybrid van through – long story short – we got bogged! Hooking up the winch to a tree enabled us to get out and get going again fairly quickly, heading north up the beach and into Cornwall’s Campground to make ourselves comfortable for the week. Can’t wait to get amongst it all – whales breaching right outside our campsite – does it get any better than this!
Billy Tea & Backroads 