K’Gari FICU Trip – Louise’s Story

We arrived on K’gari in waves. The first seven vehicles (including two Cooloola members) had an early start on Wednesday morning. Electing to stay overnight at the Rainbow Sands Resort, Rainbow Bay.

We were at the barge at Inskip Point, air’d down and in 4WD for the 6.30am crossing. The Manta Ray Barge service was friending and efficient seeing us on the island in no time.

Our destination being Orchid Beach – Marloo campsite we had to work with the tides to get around Hook Point. We stopped at Eurong for a break and then at Eli Creek until there was enough beach to continue. Such a beautiful location.

From Eli we had a quick look at Happy Valley before continuing on to Indian Head. The track was very boggy, earning Guy his, I got bogged on Fraser Island , sticker. Thanks to Brad for the snatch out. Also, to Glen and Chris who were a great help. We got to try out the George’s 4×4 snatch strap. It performed very well. The Maxtrax did well too. Note: it’s a good idea to have the handle straps on the Maxtrax, in preparation. Put them out at 90 degrees when in use. With six wheels going over the Maxtrax without the straps they would’ve been buried and lost.

We got to our campsite on Marloo and setup in beautiful weather. Baby Jaxson was a dream child. He fitted into all our activities without any issues. He’s a credit to his parents Glen and Lauren.

There was a few nights of wild weather. Luckily the only significant casualty was Louise and Guy’s gazebo and the inability of the Orchid Beach crew to join the Dundaburra crew for the planned Lake Mackenzie trip.

We did have to renovate Kathleen’s camper trailer (she was down helping with FICU). We had to turn it around and reassembling it to avoid damage from the weather.

Sixteen cars met at Orchid Beach in preparation for the Cleanup on Sunday morning. Following the trip briefing we headed north to Nkgala Rocks. Everyone got to the north side of the rocks this year. The path was deep and full of sea foam.

Unfortunately Lee, our trip leader, had to call it after Maxx got stuck on the first set of Coffee Rocks. He had to be winched out. The sea was against us, the low tide was high, and the next low tide wasn’t going to be until 7pm. Under those conditions it could’ve taken us a while to get each car through, and also make it a long day if we’d missed the tides. It was the right decision based on safety.

A few of us did our Cleanup duties around the Orchid Beach. We collectively found a bagful of rubbish which contributed to the over 8 ton collected over the event.

The official dinner was held on Sunday night. The food was good and the lines were quick. A few people from our club were lucky enough to win some prizes in the raffle.

The island was a 4WDers dream. The tracks were ever changing. The same couldn’t be said of the island being a campers dream for the first week. There was some wild weather to contend with. A number of people left a bit earlier having had enough of the wind and rain.

We got the remote island experience when the internet went down for a week during our stay. Due to the fire ban we couldn’t communicate via smoke signals either. Thank goodness for the UHF.

To celebrate a break in the weather we took a trip over the the western side, to Wathumba. It was an 18km track offering a few obstacles to make the trip interesting. The white sand and calm waters were beautiful.

We spotted some fish at Waddy Point (aquarium) rock pools. Becca nearly stood on a snake when we were walking up the goat track to checkout the view.

Champagne Pools put on an excellent show for us. The bubbles were foaming over the rocks. Becca and Louise went for a swim. The water wasn’t that cold. It was very salty though, giving the Dead Sea floating experience.

Ocean Lake and Orange Tree Creek are also worth checking out if you’re up the northern end of the island.

The local community were very grateful that we took the time to cleanup. We supported them with going out for Dinner at the Orchid Beach Trading Post and Driftwood Bar. We met Bundaberg 4WD Club at the The Shed, the local Fire Station, for dinner, drinks and a raffle.

We didn’t have any problems with the dingos. We had two young ones pop their heads into our Marloo Camp from time to time but we moved them on easily. Of course, the Dundaburra camp has a Dingo proof fence so had no issues.

We had a lovely run down the island on the way home. There were a few ‘whoopsy-doo’s’, water crossings, step-ups, step-downs and narrow tracks to navigate around oncoming cars. Fun! Fun! Fun!

Special thanks to Chris, Barb, Becca, Glen, Lauren and Jaxson, Dave and Callie, Kathleen and Brad and Guy for being such great company supporting our northern community campsite.

Louise Watson