Fraser Island

As some of you may know; the coughran family had a holiday trip to Fraser Island. The cats went to the cattery, the dogs went to the kennels, turt went to amy, and the birds had a minder. So. After the hassles of sorting the animals out, we actually left.

Dad reckoned that it would take 9hrs to get to our first destination; our first campsite, located on the north end of the island. Thankfully, the going on the beach was much better than dad had thought; we reached the campsite after about 7hrs instead of 9. YAY! (we left home at 5:30am) We set up camp, and Carl and dad went to find pippies, to go fishing. We saw our first dingo; a beautiful looking female, which unfortunately I didnt get any good pictures of... Dad and Carl went fishing off some rocks; mum and I followed, and I shot lots of rocks, and waves crashing (by shot, I mean I took photos of) Then, when I looked back to the car, I spotted another dingo. So I told mum, and we both carefully negotiated our way back over all the rocks, so I could hopefully get a picture of the dingo (using the zoom of course; wouldn't get that close!) But teh dingo moved north, so mum and I sat in the car and slept. On another day (cant remember whether it was day 1 or 2) Carl, dad and I drove up to the most northern point of the Island, to check out the lighthouse and just see what the place was like in general. On the way up, I was delighted to see two whales blow off the coast! Then,to get to the lighthouse, it was a 1.2km STEEP climb. Then we realised it wasn't really worth the climb; it was nowhere near the water, and there were trees everywhere so you couldnt see anyway!! So we went back down, and drove back south, and made a detour at the really big sand dunes. Climbed up them, mucked around, and me being me, I took photos.

On the following days, we were real tourists. Looking at lakes, cool creaks, forests and other awesome stuff. In total, I saw 8 dingoes, 2 whales breach, an azure kingfisher, lots of other little birds, lots of adult and juvenile white-bellied sea eagles, brahminy kites, falcons etc. AWESOME place to go wildlife watching!

On the last day (today, being 29th of June) we packed up and headed south to the ferry. Then dad stopped, and said he saw a turtle; so we turned around, and thought the turtle was dead. Then I saw it move feebly; so I jumped out of the car, and picked it up. The poor thing could hardly move, and I spotted a wound on the back of it; part of its shell had snapped off. The wound was clean, and not bleeding, so I just left it as the wound was... Unfortunately I couldnt do anything about it anyway. So, I hopped in the car with a 70cm long green sea turtle, and held it (literally in the air, so it wouldnt get bumped as much on the rough ride) while dad drove about 20km over rough roads. (any of you ever been driving along a beach, on soft sand? like that) eventually we got to the calm water between rainbow beach and sth fraser island, and I walked into the water (completly forgetting I had my phone and camera in my pockets; i was so worried about the turtle) and held the turtle in the water to get it to start paddling. I let it go, it tried to swim, but it was quickly flipped onto its back, so I retrieved it and went about 400m down the beach where the water was practically dead still. Then I went waist deep into the water, and released the turtle. Thankfully, this time it started swimming (feebly though) and got into deeper water. Ill just mention that these were, at this time, box-jellyfish infested water (man-of-wars) thankfully it was the one day in the week i wore long pants, or i coulda had a helecopter trip to a hospital!!

The turtle:





The Dingo that sat next to the car

the lighthouse


goanna

carl with his funny new hair style



Lake Makenzie (sp?)



Forest near our 2nd camping spot. Its weird to see giant trees, growing in sand alone


view from atop the massive dunes


Sunset whilst fishing. i was fishing with dad (day i caught 5 fish) i saw the sunset and grabbed my cam carefully... fishy fingers... lol. this is probably up there with my favourite photos ever, that ive taken. i havnt edited it in photoshop yet.


another sunset piccy, another favourite, taken earlier than the prev picture




next to "champagne pools"


just a random shot which i happen to like (no sean, not shooting with a gun)



while bellied sea eagles
Juvenile



Soaring adult


osprey


Oh well. long enough post, I doubt anyone read the whole lot anyway. So, cyas.