Fraier Island

December 17, 2001-Multi-Tasking
(photo: Frasier Island Lodge)

I know that several of you have told us you enjoy reading about our escapades when searching for a laundromat. Well, this may not qualify as an adventure, but it is different. We got an early start this morning. The motel we’d pulled into last night turned out to be decent. It had a 4 star rating, but it was an Australian 4-stars. It would be a 3-star in the U.S. First thing we had to do this morning was email you all. That meant finding an Internet café. The woman in the motel office said we wouldn’t have any trouble getting online. There was Internet access at the local laundromat. It was called the Laundrynet. What a deal! I could do laundry & email you all! The problem was that it was the first day of our jaunt & I didn’t have enough laundry to justify a load. We had to be content with email alone.

Signs

We had a two-hour drive ahead of us, & the weather had turned rainy. We were in serious tourist country now & there was no shortage of billboards. One that appealed to us was for some product or service we were unable to identify as we sailed by. We did, however, catch the highlights. It read, “ Frogs with attitude & fresh Faeries daily.” I’d love to know what it was advertising. Any guesses?

Along the roadside were signs by the national highway department proclaiming that their work promised better roads for Australia. There was a green map of Australia with yellow lines showing the national road system. For a minute I thought it was a map of one of the Hawaiian Islands. There was a perimeter road, a north/south road, & a loop from Sydney to Adelaide going through Melbourne. That’s it folks! I can handle the fact that the Hawaiian Islands don’t have an extensive road system, but this is an island nation the size of the U.S. It’s a continent, for God’s sake!

Familiarization

We are staying at Kingfisher Lodge Resort on Frasier Island. The island, as I mentioned, is the largest all sand island in the world. In an attempt to preserve the ecosystem, vehicles are limited. We had to park the car on the mainland & take a catamaran over to the island. It was much like Mackinaw, but without the horse drawn vehicles.

The resort is tucked away in a rain forest. It’s a sprawling complex with a main lodge, a few swimming pools, tennis courts, hiking trails, several eateries, a few stores, & lots of covered walkways. Everything is built up on stilts sunk into the sand surface. Believe me, there’s nothing that might be under the walkway that I would want to tread on. Typical of Queensland construction, roofs are metal. All rooms have patios or balconies overlooking wetlands or ponds. It’s very pristine & dramatic with lots of vaulted ceilings, interesting rooflines, & accommodation to the natural setting. For example, there’s a large window in our bathroom that has a view of the great green outdoors. Fortunately there’s a privacy screen so that people passing on the walkway can’t see in. We can hear lots of frogs croaking away & I think that will be our serenade as we go to sleep tonight.

We took a stroll in the drizzle this afternoon to see the grounds. Everything seems to lead down to the beach which doesn’t look too appealing for swimming. It has a lot of debris from the forest that’s close to the shore. This beach is better than the one on the eastern shore though. That one has a deep channel between two sand bars where fish get stuck when the tide goes out. Sharks have learned that this is an easy hunting ground. They’ve been seen feeding in water that’s only knee deep.

On our walk, we heard more birds than we saw. But one in particular was easy to spot. It has yellow markings under its wings. I called it the one with the yellow armpits. I think it’s a kind of finch. We also saw lots of banksias plants. It’s the Australian national flower. What a sad excuse for a national flower in a country full of lush, colorful tropical plants. The flowering part looks like the business end of a toilet brush after it’s been used.

Dang Dingoes

We went to a dingo talk before dinner. The ranger said dingoes came to Australia with Asians. They were semi-domesticated wolves & served as companions on boats until the food ran out. Then they were eaten. They were either left behind or traded to the aborigines on the island & so were isolated for centuries. They’re the purest of the dingoes in Australia. Unfortunately, they’ve become less afraid of humans in recent years. If they see us as a food source, they’re more likely to be aggressive. People are cautioned not to feed them, not to go about alone, & to keep children in tow.

Amazingly, there have been only two killings attributed to dingoes. One was a baby in the outback & one was a 9-year-old boy who teased a dingo & then ran when it became aggressive. His 7-year-old brother was safe because he remembered his father telling them not to run from the dingoes. The parents were 2 km away at a campsite when this happened. As it turned out, the attacking dingo didn’t maul the boy. It gave him one bite. This was a question of dominance, not hunting for food. In the wild, a dingo will bite another dingo as a show of strength. Unfortunately, the bite severed an artery & the boy bled to death before his brother could get help. Everywhere you go on this island are warning signs about dingoes with instructions on what to do if you see them. David really wants to see a dingo.

We chose to eat at the buffet restaurant tonight. It was Australian night so the buffet had a lot of stuff we don’t eat. Tomorrow is South Seas night so there will be a lot of seafood & even more that we wouldn’t eat. I think we’ll go to the bistro tomorrow & order from the menu. We skirted the kangaroo & crocodile on the buffet tonight & stuck to the chicken, fish, & lamb. I never really enjoy buffets & usually rely on the salad table to see me through. This one was disappointing, but I managed to find enough to full me up. The frosting on the mud cake was passable & a nice consolation.

Tomorrow we will take a 4-wheel drive tour of the island & swim in a crystal clear fresh water lake. Hopefully, the weather will have cleared by then.

Toby