Fraser Island is absolutely stunning. It is a must-see when you visit Australia.

My Marine and Costal Ecology course planned this 3 day field trip to Fraser as our field work, so I can’t complain about going to the world’s largest sand island (stretching over 120 km) for free! Bright and early Thursday morning (as my professor would say, “yes life exists at this time”) Erin and I walked across campus to the carpark and loaded our bags into the Ute to began our journey!

Thursday

Our vehicle consisted of Sonny (our tutor and driver), Lauren (from NDSU), Brianna (from Australia), Christine (from Norway), Erin and myself. As the trip proceeded we all became quite close and had a great time getting to know each other. We drove almost an hour north up the coast to Rainbow Beach where we stopped to fuel the cars and our stomaches. After everyone was happily fed and the cars were full, we drove another 10 more minutes to the coast and our convoy of 11 Utes loaded onto the barge. It was a quick 15 minute ride across the ocean and onto Fraser Island. After getting a bit of fresh air, we piled back into the Utes and started our drive on Fraser. As the world’s largest sand island, it is only fitting to have solely sandy roads. Driving on the beach with sand dunes on your left and the ocean on your right was absolutely amazing. There was even an “airport” on Fraser which consisted of a sign and a few cones over a stretch of sand. We made frequent stops to see the Dingos walking on the beach, and we saw a total of 7 Dingos on our 3 days there.

Driving on the beach

Airport on Fraser

Dingo

Utes on the barge

After driving for a while, we stopped and had our first lecture from our professor. He talked about sandy beaches and the ocean (the waves were particularly rough due to a cyclone), and then he discussed what the plan was for the rest of the day. Next on tap was driving about 45 km of the beach and bird watching for about 2 hours, the purpose of our field work. Unfortunately because of the cyclone weather, many birds were still hiding, but we still saw a handful. After that, our school work was done for the day! And onto a little adventure. We changed into our swim suits and hiked about 30 minutes up sand dunes (yeah, hiking in loose sand is actually quite difficult in hiking boots. Pro tip: go barefoot). The last bit of sand dunes, which you ran down super fast and was so fun, brought us to Lake Wabby, a freshwater lake on Fraser. (Click on the images to enlarge and see the pretty sights) It was so refreshing after a long and hot hike to jump in the cool lake. I honestly felt a bit homesick for Minnesota after jumping in the lake because it felt like I was back at the lake. Don’t get me wrong, I love the salty ocean… but there’s just something about a freshwater lake that I love! So we enjoyed a nice, cool swim for about 20 minutes until it was time to pack up and trek back to the Utes.

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After an already long day, we were all quite happy to get to Dilli Village (or as we called it: Dilli Dilli). This is an educational site run by University of the Sunshine Coast, thus why we stayed here. It was a form of “glamping” and pairs of people shared small dorm rooms with 2 beds, some shelves and electricity. In the middle of the village there were showers, toilets and a large kitchen area. We quickly and easily came to the decision to make dinner. We happily shoveled down our dinner, met some few friends, and talked for a while until we all couldn’t keep our eyes open. After a quick shower to wash the sand off, we were in bed by 9:00 pm and happily asleep.

Friday

As we quickly learned Friday morning, the trip leaders didn’t share the modified trip itinerary… The itinerary that we had, said we were leaving at 6:00 am to start the day, thus Erin & I woke up at 5:20 am to get ready and have breakfast. We were a bit mad when we found out that we wouldn’t be leaving until 9:00 am. Thankfully, we were able to take an hour and a half “nap” before it was actually time to leave. (As an American, we have learned after this trip how much we value plans and schedules. It was a bit frustrating to receive no instructions from the instructors whatsoever on the trip, but that was my only complaint).

We headed off to our first adventure of the day which began with an hour hike. But not before an hour car ride on the roads that ran through the jungle of Fraser. It was seriously like I was in a real life version of Mario Kart. There were so many bumps and turns that had us laughing the whole time, and of course making sure our heads didn’t hit the ceiling of the Ute was important! On our hike through the jungle, I actually saw my first wild snake since I’ve been here, but thankfully it was a very relaxed Carpet Python. After an easy hike we arrived at Basin Lake, another freshwater lake. We got to swim around for a while and cool off, and then had another lecture in the water. If all of my class lectures were in the lake, I’d be fine with that! One cool feature of nature was the bottom right picture (below) – it is a crystal clear stream that is actually quite deep although it doesn’t seem like it.

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Next on the list was more field work of birdwatching for about 2.5 hours. We saw quite a bit more birds this time. After this, we continued to one of the points of Fraser called Indian Head. It is called this because if you look at it from further away, it looks like a silhouette of an Indian’s head – eyebrows, nose, mouth and headpiece (can you see it?). We had a short hike/climb to the top of the point, and the view was stunning. I don’t say that lightly. See for yourself:

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After this amazing view, we were onto our next quick adventure before the tides got too high. We arrived at Eli Creek and had exactly 13 minutes, according to my professor, to explore. A boardwalk followed the creek and you can float down to the beginning. The water was the kind of “beginning of Minnesota summer water where it’s still chilly but you’re ready to jump in”… quite a contrast to the warmer waters we’d been in so far! We did enjoy our 13 minutes there, and soon we were headed back to Dilli Village for the night.

Much like the night before, we quickly made dinner to satisfy our hunger from an action-packed day. Surprisingly, we were wide awake and ended up sitting around and talking for most of the night! Around 11:00 pm it was just Erin, Christine and I talking, laughing, and learning Norwegian (I’m fluent in about 6 words haha). The only other people awake was the group of 11 tutors who decided to go for a late night ocean trip. Our professor walked over to us and asked if we wanted to join, so obviously we decided to tag along! After a short 5 minute walk to the beach we were rewarded with a gorgeous, star-filled sky and the sound of ocean waves crashing against the shore. I would say it was one of the most beautiful sights since I’ve been in Australia (and that’s saying something since it was 95% pitch black). Another amazing feature of the night beach that the tutors taught us was if you went down by the damp sand and scraped your foot quickly on the sand, you would see bioluminescences. The best way to describe them is fireflies but in the sand – it was so pretty! Around midnight we decided to head back to camp, but not without finding crabs scuttling around in the sand, seeing my first Huntsman Spider (ew.), watching tutors have flashlight competitions and cracking jokes. Hanging out with my professor and tutors turned out to be a surprisingly great end to a great day!

Saturday

We fortunately got to sleep in until 8:00 am Saturday morning! Our last day on Fraser Island started of with about a 2 km beach clean up to give back – it was surprising and a bit sad at how much liter was on the beach. After that we did any final packing back at Dilli Village and piled in the Utes for our trip back home. We saw more Dingos, loaded onto the barge to cross the ocean, and drove back to Rainbow Beach. We stopped for lunch there and I had the incredibly hard decision between a meat pie and croissant sandwich for lunch (I chose the latter, in case you were curious). The next 2 hour car ride consisted of sleepy eyes, getting to talk with Logan after having no services for 3 days, and making our way back home to showers and sleep.

Overall, Fraser Island was one of the best adventures I’ve experienced in the month I’ve been here. (Side note: yeah, I’ve already been here for a full month. Crazy how time flies, huh?) The views were gorgeous, I got a solid tan, much lighter hair color from the sun, lots of smiles, a great time meeting people, and a wonderful memory. I would not hesitate at the chance to go back here again. So grateful for the opportunity to spend 3 days on the world’s largest sand island!

I put together a video of the trip that you can watch here: https://youtu.be/XbNKTMgfBA8

Cheers!