Fraser Island Continues: Maheno Wreck, Eli Creek, and a Hike

One of Fraser Island's most famous landmarks is not a natural one--it's the Maheno Wreck.  Built in 1905, the SS Maheno was used as both a luxury passenger ship and a hospital ship during World War I.  In 1935,  the ship began a journey towards Japan to be used for scrap metal when it was caught in a cyclone and washed up on Seventy-Five Mile Beach, the eastern shore of Fraser Island.

I could have sat there all day, watching the waves rush through the hulking shell of rusted metal.

As we drove along the beach at 70kph with the windows open, I heard a recurring series of popping noises.  It was quite some time before I realized that we were driving over hundreds of Portugese Man O' War (also known as blue bottles) that were washed up along the beach.  Their bodies have a air-packed bubble that were no match for our Land Rover tires, and after I pointed out what was happening to the boys, they were decidedly gleeful each time we heard a string of the popping sounds.

Blue bottles on the beach (source)

We ventured along and saw some rock formations with gradations of color.  While it's certainly no Bryce Canyon National Park, the reddish tones in the sand were beautiful.

Eli Creek, the longest creek on the eastern beach that pours a couple million liters of fresh water into the ocean every hour, was a fun place for the boys to boogie board and wade.

I will remember Eli Creek as the place where the clouds parted, and I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing, when  a kind family we were camping near offered to charge my iPhone with their car charger.  I am forever indebted, as it allowed to me continue to photograph our experience on the island.

For our last day on Fraser, we left the 4x4 sitting idle and hiked from Central Station to Basin Lake.  At 5.6km return, we just upped Kenyon's longest hike by a couple kilometers and he did great; I love being able to cover longer distances as the kids get older.  Of course, there are days where I can't coax Kenyon to walk to the corner without him collapsing limply on the ground, sobbing--but on this day, 5.6 km was a breeze.

It didn't hurt that the hike was awesome, with mangled strangler figs, palms and ferns aplenty.

Alex the Buddha

As we packed up camp and said prepared to say farewell to Fraser Island, Jackson spotted this little guy on his tent and scooped it onto a stick for a picture.  He only had 6 legs but seemed to do just fine.  The boys also futilely attempted to grab a goanna; Sam encouraged them as I mentally calculated how many hours away we were from a hospital.  Luckily, they didn't even get close before it darted further up the tree.

We got back to the mainland, more than eager for a night at a hotel.  We bathed, washed clothes, ordered room service, watched a movie, and Sam and I sat in the bar and had a drink (yes, friends back home--Sam actually had a drink, too!).

Fraser was awesome, and now we had to start making our way back home with our stores of books on tape (and my patience for car noise) growing thin.

Murramarang Camping Weekend, Part 1

We rolled into the Pebbly Beach campground at Murramarang National Park after dark on Friday; not an ideal situation but Sam and I wanted to make the most of our long weekend.  The fact that Jackson and Alex have become absolute experts at setting up their tent was a huge bonus--I think our tent bag wasn't even unzipped before the dim outline of their bodies were seen proudly declaring that they were done, and with nary a punch thrown or even a pinched word of frustration or superiority.  Seeing as though we're less than two weeks away from our next big road trip with plenty of opportunities for tent setup and breakdown, I'm psyched that this solid level of teamwork has carried over from our first big trip in January.

Pebbly Beach is a beautiful, well-maintained campground with nice cooking and restroom facilities, while still maintaining the rustic camping feeling.  Spotted gum trees meet a grassy field which runs to the ocean; it is here that we hoped to see what Pebbly Beach is known for: its kangaroos, which can be found right on the sand.

As morning light hit, I handed out slices of the berry coffee cake I'd made (to appease the rabid dragon Kenyon) and we quietly walked towards the beach, hoping to spot kangaroos.  As soon as we hit the path leading to the beach, we saw this handsome fella:

We observed for a few minutes and headed onward towards the beach.

We moved slowly and watched from afar, but as we made our way closer the kangaroos continued to nibble on the grass and plants without any signs of caution.

Even though they are used to humans, they are still wild animals, so we didn't pet them.

Okay, fine, we did pet them.  How could you not? They are fuzzy and soft and didn't seem to mind at all.

offering some beach grass to my new friend

Our friends Kylie and Josh and their two children Xavier and Issy showed up later that morning, troopers for making the drive and setting up camp for just one night (although we were thisclose to making you stay for another night, weren't we, Josh? Ha!).

It's great to have the beach right by our campsite, and we went to bed each night to the sounds of the waves.

Alex and Issy were fast friends since their initial meeting, and they enjoyed a long stint on the beach together working in the sand.

We wanted to share our American traditions of camping with our friends, so I brought s'mores fixins, or the best I could approximate in a country that doesn't make s'mores.  No graham crackers here, folks, so I used Marie biscuits.  And the marshmallows?  I don't know where to begin.  First of all, they're about 1/3 the size of their Kraft jet-puffed American counterpart.  And the strangest part is that you can't buy plain white marshmallows--all the bags come in an assortment of white and pink, and the pink is some sort of fruit flavor.  Let it be known that that's the kind of country Australia is, forcing flavored marshmallows on its consumers.  I futilely attempted to thwart the oppression and high-grade the bag for the white ones, but the fruity flavor permeates all the mallows.  If I became a United States ambassador to Australia, these are the sort of oppressive issues I'd bring to light.  Luckily, I had no problem finding dark chocolate.

Sam made sure there were plenty of sharpened sticks for the boys to play with, because camping isn't camping without flesh wounds and Lord of the Flies-esque savagery.

This campground is home to tons of gorgeous birds--king parrots, crimson rosellas, and rainbow lorikeets.  As we walked back from the beach in the afternoon, we saw this:

Another camper had brought bird food (which turns out to be a big no-no, but since we didn't know it at the time, we happily joined in for the feeding).

There was plenty of bird life outside of the parrot family as well.  Alex got up close and personal with a kookaburra while climbing a tree.

We also saw a satin bowerbird, which are known for their distinctive methods for attracting a mate.  They build a stick structure and decorate the outside with blue objects.  While I didn't get a picture of the bird, I thought this glimpse of his nest was worth sharing.

Just down the path from our campsite was a lovely gate that read 'Alexander's Cottage'.  Naturally, we needed to document our Alex's presence there.

All of this--the kangaroos, the birds, the beach, the quality time with friends--was awesome.  But the true highlight of the weekend (and surely, my year) was to happen the next day...

Queen of the Pack Mules

Sam took a 'sickie' on Monday and we headed out for a long weekend camping trip at Pebbly Beach in Murramarang National Park.  Friday had been a blur of preparations, and between meal planning, grocery shopping, Kenyon's swim lessons, and picking up the boys, it wasn't until we were well on the road that it dawned on me that I hadn't seen the two bags of grapes I bought...or the avocado...or the 3 peaches...or the loaf of bread...or the 8 bananas.

Let me preface this gripping tale of the Case of the Missing Groceries by saying that in Australia (or at least in the town where we live), you cannot take your grocery cart outside of Woolworths ('Woolies').  People leave their bags on racks just inside the store and pull their car up to a designated lane for easy access to loading.  It seems a bit cumbersome to do all that, so I have simply gotten accustomed to pack-muling it and carrying all 174,572 bags out to the car in one trip--and really, with my apartment building's elevator having been broken now for 47 days (not that anyone's counting), I am Queen of the Pack Mules, a title I never set out to earn but I think it's the only shot I've got at being a queen so I should relish it.

Anyway, after buying my groceries I had to go next door to the liquor store for ice, so the cashier told me to leave my groceries on the rack by the door.  I asked if they ever had any problem with theft, and she said, "No, absolutely not!  The cashiers all keep an eye on them, and we've never had a problem."  Righty-o...I took care of my errand next door and pulled my car up, Aussie-style, to load my groceries.  Then came the remaining blur of afternoon tasks, and there we were, back in the car heading south as I wondered where my myriad fruits and bread ran off to.

Folks, I know you're in suspense so I'll just solve this mystery for you--on my very first attempt to grocery shop Aussie-style, one of my grocery bags was stolen.  Not cool at all, especially since we were now 2.5 hours south, setting up tents in the dark as I wondered what kind of punishment would befall me when I broke the news to Kenyon that his morning oatmeal would not have chopped peaches.  You don't want to mess with this kid and his breakfast expectations; he's like a rabid, fire-breathing dragon in the early morning light.  There was also the fact that our peanut butter and jelly would have to be eaten by the globful instead of spread on bread since our bread was now sitting in someone else's kitchen (hopefully emanating massive amounts of bad karma if the universe is at all well-balanced).  And I'm fairly certain ensuring an adequate supply of bananas was a major topic in my wedding vows, and now Sam was going to have to go without for three whole days.  Grounds for divorce for sure; did the thief know that he was derailing almost 10 years of marriage with that one stolen bag of groceries?

Our friends Kylie and Josh, who joined us the next morning, were merciful enough to let us hog their bread among many other important foods, like beer, so I'm happy to report that our family is still in tact.

I'm happy to report that when I mentioned the missing grocery bag to the Woolies cashier today, she was more than willing to replace the lost goods even though I had no receipt.  I love businesses with good customer service.  But I'm not leaving my bags on that cart to be grocery-napped again; anyhow, the Queen of the Pack Mules needs to stay on her game lest someone else steal the crown.  There is no end in sight for the broken elevator, so I shall have a long reign.

Oh, and the actual camping portion of the weekend?  Epic.  Pictures to follow in the next post...