Fraser Island was one of those perfect trips. Two solid days of nothing but good times with good people on one of the most beautiful island’s in the world. Aside from the initial planning of our Fraser Island trip, I can honestly say it was a very low stress, easy segment of our trip.

I hate to admit that Fraser Island was an afterthought in our initial planning. We had a few extra days to play with before Dianna and I flew up to Cairns so we decided to squeeze it in. We took a Premier Motor Services Group bus from Brisbane (about 5.5 hours from Brisbane to Hervey Bay) on Monday afternoon. I was skeptical about the Premier Motor Services company, but apparently they are a legitimate company and the ride went relatively smoothly aside from our miserable driver. He blasted the radio the entire trip!

We got off in Hervey Bay, which seemed to be nothing more than a pick up and drop off point for backpackers headed to Fraser Island. We stayed in the Woolshed Hostel, a cozy little hostel in the same area as all the other hostels. The place was charming with a very ski-lodge/log-cabin feel. I have no complaints other than the fact that they charged $5/night for AC! The free DVDs were a nice perk though.

On Tuesday morning we departed Hervey Bay for Fraser Island on our guided tour. When traveling to Fraser Island there are two types of ways to go: guided tours and self-drive 4WD tours. I looked into both, and was really leaning toward the self-drive option, which would of set us up with other backpackers and camping gear for the night, but once I saw the “roads” on the island I couldn’t of been happier to be on a guided tour.

Highway on Fraser Island

We signed up for a Cool Dingo Tour but ended up on a Fraser Explorer Tour, we’re still not sure how but it all worked out in the end. We had about 25 people on our 4WD bus and thoroughly enjoyed not having to do one minute of planning for two full days.

With endless coastline, uninhabited beaches, sand roads, crystal clear lakes and sand highways down the beach, it was obvious by the first hour of our tour: Fraser Island was unlike any other place on earth.

On Day 1 we drove through the island and visited a few of it’s many freshwater lakes. Day 1 was very active as we had to hike through sand trails in very warm temperatures to get to all of the lakes. They offered both a lunch and dinner buffet, which was a huge treat for a cheap traveler like myself.

It’s times like this that I really start to realize how cheap I am, I’m eying the bread wondering if I could save some for later and stuffing my pockets with all of the condiment packages, which come in handy when we are making our own food. Salt and Pepper? You can really never have enough..

While the whole experience was a highlight of my trip so far, Day 2 was definitely my favorite. We were treated by once again another buffet for breakfast (yay!) and them took off to the Champagne pools. Before we arrived, I had the opportunity to fly with Air Fraser around the island with 6 other people on a very tiny plane.

Island is Huge

Kind of an impulse purchase, but it was well worth the money. From the sky, the island is huge! The endless crystal clear lakes looked tiny in comparison to the vast stretch of vegetation, which covers most of the island. The beaches, which you cannot swim in due to sharks, stingrays and jelly-fish are so clear I could see the ocean floor. I tried to spot some marine life from the sky but only saw a few stingrays.

After the flight, I was off to meet up with the group for the Champagne Pools. We were kind of excited free alcohol might be involved, but once we saw the real Champagne Pools in full effect we were hardly disappointed for the lack of drinks.

These huge tide-pool like craters in the rocks are filled with foamy water that flows over from the breaking surf. It was almost like a Jacuzzi with all of the bubbles; we had a good time floating around and getting knocked around a little by the waves!

After the pools we set up camp on the beach near Indian Head Point. Indian Head Point overlooks two of the main stretches of coast on Fraser Island and offers panoramic views of the island. It was definitely worth the short, rocky hike up the side of the overlook. The ocean is so clear you can see marine life from the top of the cliff. After a while we spotted a baby shark very close to the shore.

I was sad to leave Fraser Island by the end of our two day tours, we had met a lot of great people on our tour, and I was almost getting used to the rough bus rides through sand back roads and highways.