Fraser Island and Kingfisher Bay Resort

To date I have visited Fraser Island six times in the last three and a half years. Each time I have stayed in one of the accommodations offered by the Kingfisher Bay Resort. I have stayed in the hotel twice, the villas three times, and done the two day Cool Dingo Backpacker Tour once. So you could say I am a fan of both the island and the resort and think that Fraser Island is a must do if you are in the Queensland area on holiday. The resort is a full resort so the only thing I don't necessarily like about it is the price. However, the rates are not out of line for Australian resorts and the services that they offer, but it is still a significant amount of money to consider.

The island is located about 300 km north of Brisbane and is a four hour drive by car. It is the largest sand island in the world at around 75 miles long. While you may imagine a bare, desert island, it actually contains a very diverse set of ecosystems from dry eucalyptus forests to subtropical rainforests and unique coastal wallums. It is absolutely amazing to realize that absolutely everything including trees to rival some of the California Redwoods is growing in sand and sand alone.

The island has been World Heritage Listed so development is now restricted with Kingfisher Bay Resort being the most recent development on the island. The Kingfisher Bay Resort was developed at the same time the island was obtaining its World Heritage Listing in the 1990's so the resort has a very eco-tourism focus which is evident in its unique architecture that aims to blend into the surroundings and its education focus with a staff of rangers that lead a wide range of walks and talks on and about the island's unique environment, fauna, and flora. The island is particularly known for its very diverse bird life which attracts Twitchers to the island in large numbers during "Bird Week."

The island is also the home to the purest bloodline of dingos since they have not been able to mix with dogs as dingos have in most places on the mainland. It is a great treat to see a dingo on the island, but it is important to keep in mind that they are wild animals and not pets. There is a constant tension with dingos on the island since human feedings have lead some of them to become less wary of people which has then lead to several unfortunate attacks. It is important that visitors understand that feeding dingos is illegal and harmful since if they lose their fear of humans, it is likely they will have to be euthanized in the future. The EPA has a page on how to be dingo safe.

Kingfisher Bay Resort has a very serene setting that looks out over the Great Sandy Straights on the west side of the island. It is easily reached by ferry from Urangan Boat Harbour in Hervey Bay. There is almost no surf other than a the occasional boat wake. The tides are significant so the beach is alive with interesting sand critters at low tide including blue soldier crabs, bubbler crabs, sea worms, and snails. The only danger in the water is stepping on the small stingrays that like to lie across the sand in the shallow waters of high tide so kayaking, swimming, snorkeling, fishing, and sailing are all popular activities with resort guests. The resort is one of the few places on the east coast of Australia where you can see a sunset over water.

Since the island is very large and the points of interest are somewhat spread out, it is necessary to have a vehicle to go from point to point, but outside of Kingfisher Bay and Eurong there are no paved roads so I recommend a 4x4 bus tour like the Kingfisher Bay Beauty Spots Tour which covers most of the islands highlights in one day. It should be noted that any ride on the Fraser Island tracks can be very rough and bumpy so I would not recommend this to anyone with serious back pain or other mobility issues.

If you are a more adventurous person and an experienced 4x4 driver, you can also rent a 4x4 through Aussie Trax though this often results in people spending a lot of their day stuck in the sand. Generally, more experienced sand drivers will come along and help or if you get really stuck Aussie Trax is happy to send out someone. However, mobile service on the island is limited so first you have to get in touch with Aussie Trax. It is also possible to barge your own 4x4 to the island, but considering the extremely rough track conditions and risk of salt damage, I wouldn't recommend this unless you are a serious 4x4 enthusiast, camper, and don't mind possibly damaging your vehicle.

The Beauty Spots tour takes visitors to the highlights of the island though the exact itinerary depends on the tides which determine access to Seventy Five Mile Beach on the eastern side of the island. The ranger tour guides are very good and give a running commentary throughout the day of the history and highlights of each location.

The tour includes a stop at beautiful Lake Mackenzie where the almost pure silica sand can be used to clean jewelry and exfoliate skin. The lake itself is crystal clear and perfect for a relaxing swim on a hot summer day. Central Station was the nexus of logging prior to the World Heritage listing, and still has some huge trees that somehow avoided the ax. Plus there is a board walk along Wanggoolba Creek which is eerily silent because there are no rocks to create the typical babbling noise.
Seventy Five Mile Beach is beautiful with the large crashing surf that is characteristic of most of the Queensland coast south of the Town of 1770, but tiger sharks are known to breed just off the beach so there is no safe swimming or surfing. Along the beach there are a number of interesting stops. The coloured sands at The Pinnacles are quite impressive. Iron oxides and decomposing vegetation have dyed the sand a rainbow of oranges, yellows, reds, and browns that have all been exposed on a cliff face eroded away by the constant ocean winds.

The Maheno ship wreck is the rusted out hull of a early 20th century passenger liner that was also used as a hospital ship in WWI. She was sold to Japan for scraps in 1935, but a cyclone caused her to be beached on Fraser Island and the attempts to get her off the beach all failed. In the WWII the Maheno wreck was used for Australian military training both as bombing target practice and commando ship invasion maneuvers. The bus also stops at Eli Creek which is the largest creek on the island and can pour up to four million litres of fresh water into the ocean every hour. The creek is refreshingly cool and only about waist deep at its deepest point in normal conditions. There is a boardwalk that goes several hundred meters up the creek, and it is quite fun to then float back to the beach. The creek can be a hazard to unwary 4x4 drivers however, because its swift moving waters can create significant sand ledges that must be driven over carefully at low speed.

In good weather visitors are offered a supplemental plane fight in a 6 passenger plane that takes off directly from Seventy Five Mile Beach. Naturally, this costs extra but I thought the novelty of taking off and landing on sand was completely worth the price, never mind the fifteen minute flight around the island. If taking off on sand doesn't excite you that much, I would highly recommend the flight on a sunny, clear day just because it is probably the best way to get a real perspective of how big the island really is. Plus you can often see large animals in the ocean like tiger sharks, hump back whales, sea turtles, or large sting rays. On a cloudy day the plane flight is not at impressive because your visibility is impaired.

The best time to visit the island is from August through October which is Whale Season in Platypus Bay which is on the northern end of the western side of the island, a quick boat ride from Kingfisher Bay Resort. At this time of year the humpback whales are migrating south back towards the waters around Antarctica from their birthing grounds up in the warm waters of the Great Barrier Reef. It is unknown exactly why, but many of the whales stop in Platypus bay for a week or two along the way. There is a theory that it is a good resting stopover point for the newly born whales, but older males will stop in groups as well as the mothers and babies. Since the whales are basically just hanging out while in the bay, they are much more interactive than whales on most whale watches where the whales are busy doing important whale stuff. In Platypus Bay the whales are curious and the more ridiculous the people on the whale watching boat are acting, the more likely the whales are to come over and check you out, wave at you, and maybe even show off their breaching skills. However, if you run into a group of boring, non-interactive whales, it is generally only a few minutes until the captain can find a new pod because there are whales just about everywhere.

Generally during Whale Season Kingfisher Bay Resort has a special whale package offer. I have done the Kingfisher tour twice and have been extremely happy each time with the number of whales seen and the quality of the interaction. However, even if you can't get over to Fraser Island, you can take a wide range of whale tours from Hervey Bay and I suspect most of them are just as good. On my last visit outside of whale season I sailed on Shayla for a dolphin cruise and I am seriously considering booking her for my next cruise because she only takes around 25 guests out of Hervey Bay.

Even if Kingfisher Bay Resort is not appealing or too cost prohibitive for you, I highly recommend a trip to Fraser Island. There are 4x4 day trips that are quite popular though I would not recommend the one that leaves and returns out of Brisbane as I have heard it is too long of a day (8 hours of driving on Queensland roads in addition to the bumpy sand driving). Camping is extremely popular on the island in the summer months and there are a number of camp grounds with different levels of facilities. Because of the World Heritage status other accommodations are somewhat limited. There are two groups of accommodation on Seventy Five Mile Beach on the eastern side: Happy Valley and Eurong Resort. I am not very familiar with Happy Valley, but I believe that it is one of the older holiday areas of the island with an assortment of cottages available to rent. Eurong resort was the first proper resort on the island, and it has a bit of a 1970's feel to it though it has recently been acquired by Kingfisher Bay and is undergoing some modernizations.

Kingfisher also offers the Cool Dingo Tours which are designed for backpackers but are able to cover more of the islands attractions in one of the 4x4 buses since they are two or three day tours.

Cooktown and the Surrounding Area

Over the Christmas holidays 2008 Erik, my American friend L, and I drove up to Cooktown, Queensland. Cooktown is 2000 km north of Brisbane and about 300 km north of Cairns. It is closer to the Great Barrier Reef than Cairns, and thus it has the potential to become a large tourist destination. However, currently it is still a remote small town of around 2,000 residents.

Many people fly into Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef as it is a medium city with a international airport and full services. It is also the most convenient access point to Cooktown for most visitors. To access Cooktown from Cairns you can either rent a car and drive 300 km around the mountains or fly up in a small plane. If you have a good 4WD vehicle in the dry season, you can drive up the Bloomfield Track which follows the coast up from Cape Tribulation to Bloomfield and is a bit shorter.

As it was the beginning of the wet season and our car is our only car, we decided to take the longer route around the mountains. I wasn't expecting too much exciting from this drive, but it was actually quite exciting. First we went over the rainforest mountains and down into a drier cattle country with giant termite mounds. The cattle weren't exactly fenced so we had to be on the constant lookout for cattle in the road which was a new experience for us. In addition to cattle there were a large number of wallabies all along the road, and sadly a number of dead ones on the road. I had never seen so many wild wallabies previously.

Cooktown itself was a small town with a single IGA grocery. We stayed at the The Sovereign Resort which was a nice hotel with a large swimming pool, restaurant, bar, and bottle shop or liquor store. Rooms offered AC, but as with much of Australia the rest of the resort was a tropical open plan.

We soon discovered that many of the town's attractions were closed for the holiday season. The hotel restaurant was closed, though the bar was serving food along with a few restaurants in town. The restaurant looked quite nice so I was disappointed that we did not get to try it out. The Nature's Power House which is a information center connected to the Botanical Gardens was closed which was disappointing since I had heard they have interesting books on the local flora and fauna that I wanted to see.

I had discovered before we arrived that the two reef operators in town were closed as well. I can't tell you too much about them except they operate on a much smaller scale than the reef operators in Port Douglas that I have been on previously. I suspect that this means you leave some of the luxuries behind, but get the opportunity for a more individualized tour. Cooktown Catch a Crab and Ahoy Plane Sailing Sea Planes were recommended to me by the resort and looked like a lot of fun. I hope to get back up to Cooktown to try them out later this year.

However, we still had a great couple of days exploring the region. We took a customized all day tour of the local area by Bart's Bush Adventures. Bart was an enjoyable tour guide with lots of good local knowledge. He showed us rainforest, cattle country, waterfalls, and the amazing coloured sands on Elim Beach which is part of the Hope Vale Aboriginal Lands.

The next day we did an very enjoyable 4 hour walking tour with Willie of Guurrbi Tours to see local cave paintings and to learn some of the storied behind them. Willie was an amazing tour guide who was able to explain some of local aboriginal cultural spirituality as well as discussing modern concerns such as painting preservation for the future. I think Willie's tour was one of the most enjoyable tours I have ever taken.

The next day we headed back south. I would have liked more time to explore the York Peninsula, but without a hard core 4WD or a guide there was not that much more that we could have seen.

Paronella Park near the Atherton Tablelands and Cairns

One of the most unique tourist attractions that we stopped at on our recent trip from Brisbane to Cooktown and back again was Paronella Park which is near the Atherton Tablelands and Cairns in northern Queensland. This is a tourist attraction of a tourist attraction that is only old by Queensland standards though it is certainly in ruins.

I would highly recommend this attraction except that it is a bit out of the way for most visitors of the area and I found the price to be a bit high though the money is obviously going towards preserving and restoring some of the property. I did not feel that we had been ripped off, but I would have felt more comfortable about freely recommending the experience if the admission had been a bit lower. In December 2008, it was $30 AUD per person which allows 12 months re-entry though that is not particularly useful unless you live locally.

As it is, I will describe a bit of history and my experience in the park and let readers decide for themselves if it sounds interesting. In the early 1900's Jose Paronella came to Australia to seek his fortune which he did buying and refurbishing sugar cane processing plants since his specialty was construction. During this time he came across the Paronella Park 13 acre property with a beautiful tropical waterfall and fell in love with it. He bought the property with the intention of creating a unique tourist attraction in the guise of a Spanish Castle in the Australian rainforest.


He built a small English cottage for his new Spanish wife and children, and then began working on the "castle" which was actually a series of function rooms to host parties, dances, and watch movies. Plus there were cafe facilities, tennis courts, gardens, picnic facilities and swimming change areas. Apparently there was a reasonable fee structure depending on which activities you were attending, and the whole business was quite profitable.

However, some building flaws, natural disasters, and possibly arson have left most of the main buildings in ruins and the gardens completely overgrown though the current owners are trying to halt and reverse some of the damage. Currently the property is a beautiful gothic ruin that would be the perfect set for a Vampyre Movie or two. We were there on a dreary rainy afternoon with the river swollen to the point of overlapping the railings just a bit.


There were no crocodiles at the bottom of the waterfall, but the waters were squirming with large eels that generally only come out at night or when the waters are darkened by silt in the rainy season. They seemed fond of fish food instead of human flesh, but I was no hurry to jump into the murky waters. I suspect this was a seasonal condition though as splashing under the falls is still listed as an optional activity.

The Tunnel of Love which was at one time going to be an aquarium exhibit is now the favorite daytime hideaway for the local microbat population. I found the microbats very interesting, but I have always been a bit of a bat person. The gardens are overgrown, but contain some absolutely stunning tropical flowers.

We took the regular day tour of the property, and our French guide was very entertaining and informative. There is also a night walk of the property where they light up the ruins that I suspect would be very creepy and enjoyable. The property is supposed to have some beautiful bird life, but as it was raining, all we saw was a common brush turkey.

Flooding is still a annual problem for the property and floods are measured by how high they reach on the grand staircase. Although flooding this year was extensive, there was no major damage to the property.

Mungalli Creek Dairy: Great Lunch in the Atherton Tablelands

If you are in Northern Queensland, I highly recommend stopping for lunch at the Mungalli Creek Dairy outside Millaa Millaa in the Atherton Tablelands region. We received several recommendations for the dairy while we were up in Cooktown so we decided to check it out on our way back to southern Queensland. The dairy and cafe was a bit smaller than I had imagined, but the food was excellent. They offer an array of delicious choices featuring their dairy products that is definitely worth a drive off the beaten path. Be sure to start with a free sampler cheese plate!


The Atherton Tablelands are worth a visit even without the dairy. It is a beautiful, lush green region of farmland and rainforests not far from Cairns known for a large number of beautiful waterfalls. The Tablelands elevation also offer visitors to northern Queensland a bit of relief from the tropical balminess of the coast as the weather is typically a few degrees cooler.

On all my previous trips to the area I had heard that the Atherton Tablelands were worth a visit, but I like so many visitors was so focused on the Great Barrier Reef and going up to the Daintree Rainforest that I never took the time to visit the Tablelands until this past December. Even on that trip I just budgeted enough time to drive through the region and have lunch at the dairy. Now I definitely want to go back and explore the Tablelands further. I would definitely recommend the Atherton Tablelands as a good daytrip from Cairns or even for a night or two.

On my next visit I would like to check out The Canopy Rainforest Treehouses and Wildlife Sanctuary for a couple of nights. I have only seen brochures and their website, but it looks like an excellent place to stay!

Red Mill House- Daintree Accomodation (Oz)

In March 2007 I did a two week tour with my father around parts of Australia that included two nights at the charming, eco-tourist certified Red Mill House Bed & Breakfast in Daintree Village. The Daintree Village is two hours drive north of Cairns in the rainforest. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Red Mill House and would recommend it to anyone interested in exploring the region further.

Our host was very friendly, informative, and capable of assisting with itinerary plans and tour bookings. Breakfast each day was wonderful with an exotic selection of tropical fruit. The property was full of gardens which attract many native bird and butterfly species. We wished that we had booked an extra day just to relax and enjoy the gardens around the Red Mill House. The common area contained informative books on the birds and the local area and even a native frog during his daily rest.

The Red Mill House was economically priced for the region and provided simple, uniquely decorated rooms with ceiling fans, screens, and AC. The Red Mill House is very close to the center of the village so the small selection of shops, restaurants, and river cruises are just a short walk away.

More Regional Information:

The Daintree Village is the perfect location to stay to be able to explore the Daintree River, the Daintre Rainforest, and Mossman Gorge. It is on the Daintree River 35 km north west of the Mossman River on the Cairns/ Port Douglas side (the southern side of the river).The Daintree River flows right through town and river boat tour can be found in Daintree Village as well as further downstream towards the ferry that will take you across to the Daintree Rainforest. River boat tours offer views of wild salt water crocodile as well as a wide array of rainforest fauna and flora including frogs, fish, birds, snakes, and flying foxes. Night river boat tours offer the unique opportunity to see sleeping birds and the creatures of the night, but take lots of bug spray!

The Daintree Rainforest is a World Heritage listed area across the Daintree River from the Cairns and Port Douglas region (the north side of the river). It is less than a half an hour drive back downstream from the Daintree Village to the ferry. After crossing on the ferry, the road north follows the coast where the rainforest comes all the way down to the beach. There are a series of nice boardwalks with informative signs about the flora of each region for visitors interested in self guided walks. Alternatively, there is the Daintree Discovery Centre which offers a more walks and an observation tower for an entry fee. There are also guided tours that leave daily for the Daintree Rainforest. See the Daintree Rainforest website for more information on the region.

Mossman Gorge is a beautiful natural gorge with several nice hiking tracks. It was also an important aboriginal area, and they offer guides rainforest walks daily. For more information see Kuku Yalanji Dreamtime.