Well after much anticipation in the lead up weeks, Our 2012 Fraser venture began,That four letter word "work "got in the way of a fair bit of the pre trip prep, as did the weather..
28 day forcast was wet wet and aprox 4/5 days of fine in the middle of our stay..27th Jun > 8th Jul and was on the money for accuracy ..
Tuesday 26th, finish work just after lunch and begin the final sort and pack of the truck and camper trailer ... Bloody rain !!!, during the pack in the PM hours a slip and fall on a wet garage floor resulted in a broken bleeding big toe...Not a happy camper at all !!!.
Pack completed and a late to bed,after culling countless items that the wife deemed we needed to take,after twenty + years of these trips she still over packs..
0245 up and a final check / load of minor things for a 0315 off. Bloody rain !!!.
A good early run to the gateway bridge, in just on an hour - fifteen from home, topped up with fuel at the Burpengary BP for the run up the Sunshine motorway to Tewantin..
Still raining hard and an early crossing on the Noosa river ferry at Tewantin, $12 one way for truck and camper T.
AAhh the third cutting access air down point to Tewah beach "Bloody wind and rain ", a good firm short sand track with a few murky holes of water,and a firm run out onto a bleak wind lashed wet Teewah beach on an almost dead low tide, with the wind and seas running like it was, there wasnt as much beach as usual.
About an hour run to Double Island point an Leisha track saw us on the run to Rainbow Beach and glad to be out of the wind, in the lee of D.I..
The run to Rainbow was good and there wasnt an over amount of beach, the usual peaked lumps and stumps to be cautious with, the first set of main rocks was interesting with next to no beach at all and heavy rain, after watching the sea wash jnto the rocks it was obvious that the Rocky was going to live up to its name again, and it was rock crawling time, Nothing too serious but enough to put the wind up the missus, but for our youngest it was hoots of laughter and giggles and more!! daddy more !!.. the second set of rocks closest to the surf club was a repeat of the first, only this time a slightly miss timed set of the wash put aprox 6" of water under the truck right at the drop off onto the beach, But all good and was done quite safely.
Top up of fuel at the Shell servo and a few of Ed's bakery deliscious pies it was off to the barge at Inskip Point..
The continuing rain made the crossing of the sand to the barge a breeze, Fraser looked bleak cold wet windy and misserable, Joy a wet set up instore for us ..
Hook Point was reasonable although there wasnt a lot of beach, with a blt of tree dodging to be done just around from the barge, due to the wind driven sea's, the eastern beach was very thin due to the big sea's even at just after low tide..
A lot of fresh little fresh water creek wash outs along the southern eastern beach, in the 35 klm's up to Eurong Beach resort " Beware some are only a couple of inches drop in " and others are a foot or so !!!.. there are a couple of reasonably deep wider ones to cross, depends on the tide / seas at the time.
Lots of rock exposed at Poyungan rocks, the bypass track is a must, entry points are a little rough and a couple of small water holes on the nothern side track.
Lots of fresh seepage sections along the eastern beach.
Yidney rocks, again lots of rock exposed south and north, the bypass track entry points are rough and the track on the northern side had some big pools of water, the northern exit to the beach, boarded ramp is damaged and has a reasonable drop off just up from the beach.. Would recomend turning left at the top of the ramp and using the Happy Valley track an exit.
Depending on the weather conditions / tides there wasnt a lot of beach, and at times we had to prop ant wait for the sea wash, to get through a section to the next bay.
Even with the tide half in.. There Chard rocks are exposed just north of Happy Valley and the beach run to Eli creek wasnt to bad.. Eli creek is exiting to the south to the sea and changed in its bank drop offs daily... The whale that stranded is up in the dunes just south of Eli creek and is pretty smelly ..
The beach north of the Maheno is thin, have to realy watch the tide and sea state, even with 3 hours till high tide we were dodging in and out of bay sections ..
We went all the way up to our prefered " Gurruman " camp site, only to find it inundated with 4 to 6 " of water and unusable .." Bugger ".
We back tracked to find a bit of shelter from the winds and finaly settled on a grassy spot about 200m up from the southern most point of Eugarie camp zone, no ocean veiws unless you climbed up a small dune, but it was protected a fair bit from the winds..
Due to the strong winds and driving rain full set up took place over a couple of days and by Friday afternoon, The weather broke, and Fraser was glorious again!!.
The inland tracks were good and had a few areas with large water holes, some you definatley wouldnt want to try to drive through with out scuba gear !!!..
Fishing well lets just say some tried it, and I did see a few in the waves, but not a scale to show for it ..
Indian Head and Champagne ramps had step ups from the high seas but were good and firm. The center section behind Indian head had a porridge like sand section to it..
Ngkala rocks entry was slushy with a large pool of water further in and has had a lot of dune lost in the big seas.
Lake Allom is very full and the track to and the veiwing platform is under water..
Woralie track is firm and rough and has a few large pools of water in places with flowing creeks to go around, the western beach at Woralie creek is wide and firm at low tide and was nice and sheltered from the strong SSE winds..A nice day trip and lunch spot with very few people around,. only 3 trucks and a sailboat over there ..
Went for a flight of the beach at Eli creek, our youngests first ever flight, and she hasnt stopped talking about it, we were lucky to get two take offs and landings due to having to drop a couple of nice young japanse ladies off at the Maheno .. Bonus !!!
Then the sunshine and fine weather vannished and along came the wind and the rain, Flogged with 60 + klmh winds and heavy rain Thursday afternoon, night and Friday, we took a bit of a lapse in the weather late morning to pack and battle our way home ..
Fuels : Burpengary BP ULP..@ $1.46 PL.
Rainbow beach Shell ..ULP..@ $1.45 pl.
Eurong beach resort ..ULP..@ $1.98 pl
DSL..@ $1.99 pl
Happy Valley resort . .ULP..@ $2.05 pl
DSL..@ $2.10 pl
Cathedral beach resort.. ULP..@ $2.10 pl
DSL..@ $2.15 pl
Orchid beach ULP..@ $2.10 pl
DSL..@ $2.04 pl
The major events / damage list of the trip :
Broken right big toe, drivers door check strap ( wind gust ripped door out of hand ).Awning attch zip on camper T broke,two guy ropes,belted in mouth with awning pole by wind, Our near roll over on Cathedral beach resort drive, due to massive bog and rutts from busses, Creek to coast filming a segment, Helicopter rescue off happy valley of capsised fisho, police and ambo high speed to roll over at waddy point and helicopter out of victim ( Rolled due to doing Dohnuts ), speedo cable broke..
## Dingo Awarenes ## Had a dingo be agressive and advance on me several times while setting up the camper in the rain ( I'm 6'4" tall and 120 kg's ) drove him off each time but kept on returning, ended up arming my self with a couple off screw in legs from a gas cooker and chased him out onto the beach, twice a day for the next two days he came back and drove him off with a rake and the airhorn, gave a bit of a wide birth after that, only visiting at night when we slept,stole our steel snap locked paint drum rubbish bin, one night , found it 50m away, so hung it in a tree after that, 1st time ever had too ... last two days he showed up again but took off to a blast from the personal alert air horns,and a bit of posturing .. this is the second time in the last two years years Ive ever had one challenge me like this, in over twenty years of going up to Fraser, so keep the littlies close and be very aware of where they are, my youngest is 4 yrs old and she is very aware of the dingos, usualy spots them before I do . " Just be aware not frightened ".
Planning for all new camper and upgrades has started for next years trip !!!!
