IT’S called the Beauty Spot tour. But basically, taking the first step onto K’Gari (Fraser Island) is the first step towards beauty. There is nothing that isn’t beautiful about the island.
There are creeks that are so clear that you can’t see the water, there are lakes that are the colours of a peacock’s tail, there are beaches that stretch on and on, and there is bushland that matches it.
And at this time of the year, there are whales that skip and frolic in the waters of the Great Sandy Straits, stopping there on their mass migration to catch up with their whale and their human friends.
Apex predator on the island is the dingo, evolving from the wolf family and although small, these scavengers aren’t the sort of animals to be petted. The ones with the worst reputations now wear a small GPS tracking box around their necks, so the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service can keep an eye on their activities.
There are also 20 species of snakes on the island, 11 of them sea snakes but K’Gari ranger Andrew Smith said he had only seen a few since he started showing people around the island four years ago.
The 123m x 22km sand island is a national park and the towering cypress hoop pine and cowrie trees once harvested (1860-1922) have had time to reach new canopies. There are also large tracts of land that have suffered fires and they too are starting to re-grow.
All of this information is available, but tour guides like Mr Smith bring them to life as they take an island four-wheel drive tour, giving people the chance to feel the lack of buoyancy of rainwater-filled Lake McKenzie with its silica sand, the fresh flow of Eli Creek and the SS Maheno wreck slowly dissolving into the sea.
“This is a place of exceptional beauty. There is history here. There is geology. There are stories. I am proud to share them,” Mr Smith said.
“I love the feeling of the island. It is unique. In the Butchulla language, K’gari translates to ‘paradise’. To me, the island is the soul of the people.”
Mr Smith said he was ‘thrown in the deep end’ when he first became a guide, filling in for a large number of bookings in Boxing Day.
“I was told that if I could handle that day, there would never be a problem. The island looks after you. It is its own entity,” he said.
And at night, the stars put on a show for free. But anyone wanting to combine some lights and stories, hear about the island’s beginnings with the Illumina light show which spreads haze and magic across the water.
