Australia: K’gari aka Fraser Island

Here is my very special blog dedicated to the incredible K’gari (kinda pronounced like the name Gary!) aka Fraser Island I hope this post gives you insight into how beautiful the world’s largest sand island really is 😍

I’ll start with a teeny tiny bit of info into the background of K’gari and why I’m opting to call it this instead of Fraser Island! The Butchella people are the native Aboriginal people who lived on the island and knew it as K’gari. They believed that a female spirit was turned into the sand that makes the island. When Captain Cook discovered Australia he didn’t actually realise that K’gari was an island and he named it ‘Great Sandy Peninsula’. It was later discovered to be an island by Matthew Flinders in 1799. In May 1836 Captain James Fraser’s ship became shipwrecked just north of the island. A life boat took the people south where they ended up on K’gari. He and his wife Eliza were taken in by the Butchella people. James died reportedly of starvation but Eliza was nursed by the Butchella people. She was eventually rescued but when she tried to tell her story on the Australian mainland no one wanted to know. Good stories regarding Aboriginal people would not make good news at this time. When Eliza got back to her home in the UK her story changed and she made her fortune by reporting that the Butchella people had murdered her husband & were cannibalistic etc. Fraser Island was subsequently named after her. In more modern times the island was used for logging, however this no longer takes place as the island is now a World Heritage Site. The name K’gari is now officially recognised as another name for Fraser and I think it’s much more appropriate as K’gari means ‘paradise’ and that is exactly what this island is!

Australia: Rockhampton to Noosa!

G’day from sunny Noosa 🌞👋 Just a little update from weeks 3&4 in Australia..

With a bit of difficulty we dragged ourselves away from Airlie Beach. We were headed to a place called Rainbow beach but the driving time between Airlie and here was like 11 hours 😱 so we broke the journey up by stopping off in a couple of places.

Our first stop was Rockhampton – 5 long hours away from Airlie. We had booked into a bush camp here called Fardooley’s. When we arrived we discovered it was just a big piece of land that a family lived on and they had turned part of it into a campsite! We met our hosts – Robyn & Pete who invited us for a drink at ‘Fardooley’s bar’. We had a good laugh listening to them try to scare me with croc attack tales and telling us about snakes to avoid around the campsite 😰

Australia: Port Douglas to Airlie Beach

How you goin’? 👋 We have survived our second week in Oz without getting eaten and we’re not bankrupt yet 🙌 hooray!

I left you in Port Douglas last time on the eve of our first snorkel/ dive trip in Oz. After our lovely Thai curry I spent the night googling all the risks I’d have to face in the Great Barrier Reef 😂 (I like to know what I’m up against…much to Jonny’s annoyance!) I was pleased to read that jellyfish season didn’t start until November – pheeeeew!

We had an early start the next morning to head down to the marina. We had chosen to go with Silversonic as our tour guide on Uncle Brian’s tour had recommended it as the best in Port Douglas.

G’day Australia: Sydney to Port Douglas!

G’day Bruce’s & Sheila’s! Time for a little Oz update after a bloody beautiful first week here 🐨🐊 (make sure you read that in an Aussie accent…)

I was filled with fear coming to Australia. Fear of not being able to afford to enjoy myself as everyone had scared us with stories of how expensive it is. Fear that I’d be bankrupt within a week and have to go home. Fear that I’d be killed by either a croc, shark, spider, snake, jellyfish, octopus…or combination of a few of those! But thankfully the fear didn’t last too long (well not all of it!)