Tweet
Hi,
Back today from our trip to Fraser Island. This was only a week after the storm that saw all campers on the eastern beach evacuated. Visitor numbers appeared to be lower than you would expect at this time. We could drive for 5 or more km on the inland tracks and the eastern beach without meeting anyone. When you got to popular spots though like Lake Mackenzie you would find 2-3 tour buses with mostly foreign backpackers as well as up to 6 toyota landcruiser troopies nearly always with 11 backpackers inside and an enormous amount of gear on the roof rack. We must have been timing our drives to perfection as we almost never met one of these quite large 4wd truck based buses on the narrow 2 way tracks. On some tracks especially the one into Lake Garrawonga we would have had to reverse many hundreds of metres as there appeared to be no passing spots. The road itself was essentially a 2 metre deep trench.
The tracks were probably described as rough and cut up but our prado ate them with ease. Not once did we look like needing the maxtrax, air bag, snatch strap or hand winch I was carrying. We only saw one bogged vehicle - a ute pulling a boat at the beach exit south of Indian Head.
The beaches were fairly eroded at the high water mark - if you were caught on an incoming tide you would not have been able to escape due to a sand cliff up to 2 metres high. The beach around Hook Point at the southern end was closed because of this necessitating use of the inland route. This road was very rough on the way in but there was agrader on it today.
As I said the Prado just ate the tracks. Standard suspension clearance wasn't an issue although I was fairly focused on wheel placement and not falling into the sometimes very deep ruts.
We really appreciated having a 180 litre fuel tank and a diesel. Diesel in Maryborough was 138.7 cents on the 8th and 202.9 cents at Eurong on Fraser.
Even though the tracks were rough, cut up and badly rutted it helped a great deal that it had been and was still raing most of the time. This makes sand quite driveable and you always knew that any large hole full of dark water had a firm bottom.
This will do for the moment as it is a long post and I'm probably being indulgent. I may write again on specific issues about the vehicle such as cleaning the sand out of the chassis rails etc.
In summary a wonderful trip with 5 nights being enough time to see virtually everything worth seeing as far north as Orchid Beach.
Back today from our trip to Fraser Island. This was only a week after the storm that saw all campers on the eastern beach evacuated. Visitor numbers appeared to be lower than you would expect at this time. We could drive for 5 or more km on the inland tracks and the eastern beach without meeting anyone. When you got to popular spots though like Lake Mackenzie you would find 2-3 tour buses with mostly foreign backpackers as well as up to 6 toyota landcruiser troopies nearly always with 11 backpackers inside and an enormous amount of gear on the roof rack. We must have been timing our drives to perfection as we almost never met one of these quite large 4wd truck based buses on the narrow 2 way tracks. On some tracks especially the one into Lake Garrawonga we would have had to reverse many hundreds of metres as there appeared to be no passing spots. The road itself was essentially a 2 metre deep trench.
The tracks were probably described as rough and cut up but our prado ate them with ease. Not once did we look like needing the maxtrax, air bag, snatch strap or hand winch I was carrying. We only saw one bogged vehicle - a ute pulling a boat at the beach exit south of Indian Head.
The beaches were fairly eroded at the high water mark - if you were caught on an incoming tide you would not have been able to escape due to a sand cliff up to 2 metres high. The beach around Hook Point at the southern end was closed because of this necessitating use of the inland route. This road was very rough on the way in but there was agrader on it today.
As I said the Prado just ate the tracks. Standard suspension clearance wasn't an issue although I was fairly focused on wheel placement and not falling into the sometimes very deep ruts.
We really appreciated having a 180 litre fuel tank and a diesel. Diesel in Maryborough was 138.7 cents on the 8th and 202.9 cents at Eurong on Fraser.
Even though the tracks were rough, cut up and badly rutted it helped a great deal that it had been and was still raing most of the time. This makes sand quite driveable and you always knew that any large hole full of dark water had a firm bottom.
This will do for the moment as it is a long post and I'm probably being indulgent. I may write again on specific issues about the vehicle such as cleaning the sand out of the chassis rails etc.
In summary a wonderful trip with 5 nights being enough time to see virtually everything worth seeing as far north as Orchid Beach.
Snaga
Comment