Rainbow Beach on route to Fraser Island

We set off for a day tour of Fraser Island (another world heritage site), here's a fact for you... its over 4 times the size of Singapore but has only 100-200 residents. It is the largest sand island in the world and is the only place you can see rainforest growing out of the sand.

We had previously shunned the tour and contemplated hiring our own 4x4 and going it alone. I am so very glad that we didn't. We would still be stuck on the first beach and would never have made it to the island. Our vehicle of the day was a crazy looking tank-like 4x4 which did the job, just. At one of the petrol stations there is a photo gallery of cars which didn't make it along the beaches and got caught out by the tide. There are alot of them!

Rainbow Beach is on the main land although from many parts of the shore it looks deceivingly like the island is connected to the mainland. It is called Rainbow Beach because of the different colours of sand present there. There are really deep reds through to yellows. Both it and 75mile beach (which is only about 72miles long, good one Captin Cook!) are used as highways. The only way to access the villages along the way is to drive on the beach. It's the busiest beach I have ever seen! It's like a motorway but with everyone dodging the tide and the soft sand.

On Fraser Island we had a walk through the rainforest, a bbq and a swim in lake McKenzie.