While a dingo is genetically somewhere between a wolf and a modern domestic dog, it is certainly having its day in the limelight. It might turn out to be a very bad day, as calls for culling become louder. Since April this year there have been six dingo attacks on people on K’gari/Fraser Island. The latest, where a young woman needs airlifting to hospital suffering from more than 30 bite wounds, galvanises political action and sees the Environment Minister visit the island to gauge the situation. Clearly, as a career politician, she is well qualified to understand animal behaviour.
In the interests of investigative holiday-making, we too are on K’gari for a few days. The caravan is in storage and we take the Landcruiser onto a barge which runs across the inlet between Hervey Bay and K’gari, taking about 40 minutes. Friends Peter and Jenny, up from Brisbane, and Brigid and John, in from New Zealand, meet us at the barge. In fact we are gate crashing their plans, offering the Landcruiser for exploring the island: K’gari is, famously, the world’s largest sand island and a grunty 4WD is essential – that and a driver who sees no obstacle too great to impede progress.
We hit the highlights, balancing activity with our proclivity for copious eating and drinking. A swim in Lake McKenzie is mandatory. It is one of several perched dune lakes on the island, all well above seal level and fed entirely by rainwater. The shores are sparkly white, fine silica sand which filters the water so it is clear as gin – and we should know. The temperature lets you know you are alive, as you can see in the photo by the look on Jenny’s face.
A drive across the island to the east coast takes us through a series of six different dune systems. Drive is an understatement – we undulate, sway, bump and grind through rutted tracts which vie for space with soft sand. Sadly we do not count a physiotherapist or osteopath or even a massage therapist in our number.
The oldest dune system, on the west coast, is home to heaths, swamps and mangroves. We continue through woodlands, rainforest, tall eucalypts, and mixed forest before arriving at the Pacific coastal forests. All this over only 18 kilometres – which takes us an hour, slewing our way through the sand tracks. Suddenly it opens up and we power through the soft sand and hit the 120 km long beach road. This runs the length of K’gari and is an official Australian gazetted highway, which also happens to be a runway. We are not the first to roar up the beach, eyes peeled for dingos – we see three or four, and watch out for any rocks or soft sand traps.
You may think we don’t need to go whale watching again after our fabulous experiences on the Ningaloo Reef, but we do. Every time is different. The humpbacks in the Great Marine Sandy Park are on their way south and find themselves funnelled into the bay by K’gari. It takes them a few days to realise the short cut doesn’t work. There can be a couple of hundred in the bay at any one time. We see about eight pods of three or four and the final ones come and investigate our boat. The crew call this mugging, and joke it is the only mugging where you walk away still with your phone and wallet.
Remember that barge we came across on? Well the reverse trip takes somewhat longer than 40 minutes. The hydraulics on the loading ramp fail so we are slowly travelling with the ramp locked halfway up with a jury rigged cable (or is it jerry rigged? the internet is confused)securing it. We arrive at the mainland with no way to take the vehicles off – short of magic. Cue men standing around, shaking their heads, talking on phones and, in that time honoured fashion, generally pretending they know what to do. An engineer arrives – it’s Sunday by the way – and in just another hour and a half – how time flies when you are stuck on a barge with a 300 km drive ahead of you – the ramp descends to loud applause and we can be on our way.
