Fraser Island

One of the classes I am taking this semester is Integrated Marine Systems, and one of the requirements for this class is to go on a mandatory field trip.  This semester the field trip was to Fraser Island, so I had no problem fulfilling this class requirement.  Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, being 120 kilometers (75 miles) long and around 24 kilometers (15 miles) wide.  It is made up of sand that has been accumulating for approximately 750,000 years on volcanic bedrock.  Unlike many sand dunes, the plant life is very abundant on this island.  Another item of abundance on this island is lakes.  Fraser Island has over 100 freshwater lakes, some of these lakes are considered the cleanest lakes in the world!  Fraser Island is home to half of all the perched lakes around the world.  We learned on this field trip what a perched lake is exactly.  A perched lake occurs when the lake forms above the regional water level.  The perched lakes on Fraser began when compacted sand formed a thin layer of clay-like substance and then when it would rain the water had nowhere to drain, so a lake formed.  Since the lakes are high above sea level, there is no way that the lake can receive its water underground, so all of the water in these lakes are purely from rain water.  When we visited some of Fraser’s lakes we realized that most of them have flooded over a lot of surrounding land, and this is mainly to do because of the intense rain storms that occurred in Australia earlier this year that led to massive flooding everywhere.  It was very cool to be able to find freshwater lakes throughout the entire island that were so clear.  It was a beautiful sight.



Airplanes landed and took off on the beach!



So, our mission of the field trip was to go out and do field work and collect data that we will be using for further research throughout the semester.  The data we wanted to collect was the number and types of shore birds on Fraser Island.  So pretty much, we had to go bird watching, which turned out to be a lot more fun than it sounded.  We met at the Uni bright and early on Tuesday morning, split up the class and jumped into two Land Rovers and made our way to Fraser Island. 

We traveled for about two hours until we reached Rainbow Beach.  We then had to drive onto a ferry which took us to Fraser.  Once we were on the island we trekked up the coast line in our Land Rovers and began spotting out birds, tallying what types of birds we saw, what behaviors or activities they were taking place in, and their exact location using a GPS with latitude and longitude coordinates.  When we collected the data it really made you realize just how many birds live on the beach.  We learned the names and some cool facts about all the birds.  I learned so much!  I can now point out and name most of the shore birds in Australia!  During our trip we were even lucky enough to spot one of the rarest birds in all of Australia, the Beach-Stone Curlew.  We literally just got on Fraser Island and started looking for birds when Holly points out a bird.  Our professor, who is driving the car, looks over to where she is pointing and keeps on driving.  He said, “No, that’s just a coconut.”  Holly points it out again and the professor looks over for a second time and then slams on his brakes.  Then he starts freaking out and gets so ecstatic and said that that bird is one of the rarest birds in all of Australia and he has only seen it three times in his whole life.  Someone else who was on this trip with us even said that her mom is a professional bird watcher and that her mom has never seen a Beach-Stone Curlew in her entire life.  It was really cool to see this specie of bird that not many people have ever seen in real life before.



Ferry ride!




Beach-Stone Curlew



Besides birds, we had a lot of other cool finds on this trip as well.  Our first find was a dead Dugong (Australian Manatee) that was washed up on the beach.  We got out of the car because we weren’t sure what kind of animal it was.  Our professor kept saying, “Oh, I think it’s a cow.”  I asked if he meant a sea cow, but he was too interested in the dead animal to answer.  So Holly and I kept asking, “How does a cow get onto this island?”  And our professor said, “You know, it must have died at sea and then washed up with the tide.”  This still didn’t answer our question of how a cow could have died in the ocean.  Then our professor announced that it most definitely was a Dugong, which Holly and I had no clue what that was.  Then someone in our class finally said to us, “You know, a manatee.”  So, finally we got our answer of what this carcass was.

Our next big find was a ship that washed in with the tide relatively recently.  Our professor goes to Fraser Island very frequently and he said that this ship was not here the last time he was here.  A lot of people have been writing all over this ship, mostly their name and the date.  And the latest date we could find on this ship was in late June.  This really makes you wonder what could be sunken or floating around in the ocean that a good storm could uncover.  It’s so cool to think about! 

As we continued on up the coast we then found another dead Dugong.  This one was being guarded by two Dingoes who were probably feeding on the dead animal earlier in the day.  This Dugong was a fresher kill and you could see more of what it really looks like.  The head and body of a Dugong looks a lot like a manatee, but its tail looks just like a dolphin’s tail.  It’s really quite odd looking and makes you question evolution a little.

A couple of minutes later we came across another dead washed up animal, but this one was different.  This one was bigger and flatter.  This one was a giant Sunfish!  I’ve never seen a fish so big!  Sunfish are very cool looking fish and are always relatively big, but the one we found had to be one of biggest.  This fish must have been pretty old judging by the size of it.  We were all amazed at how gigantic this fish was.  Our professor was trying to devise a plan of how to get this fish back home so he could keep its skeleton.  It was one amazing animal!  To see this kind of fish alive in the water would be kind of scary, but at the same time quite amazing!



Sunfish!



Later on in the day, as we were driving back to our camp, we spotted some whales swimming right off the coast.  It was so cool to be able to stand on a beach and just look out and see huge whales swimming by.  There was one point where a wave formed right where the whale was swimming so you could see an outline of the entire whale through the wave, and it was the biggest animal I’ve ever seen!  It was enormous!  It was so amazing to be able to see this beautiful animal gracefully swim by. 

Then, we went to our camp at Dilli Village to unload all of our stuff and take a break.  Dilli Village is owned by the University and is mainly for students and staff who are conducting field work and research on Fraser Island.  It is located further inland on Fraser, behind the big dunes.  We were able to sleep in cabins which were very nice, much better than sleeping on the ground in a tent.  After we unloaded everything, we jumped back in our Land Rovers and headed further inland to go see some of the lakes.  We saw a couple of Fraser’s famous lakes and even got to put our feet in one.  Holly and  I were the only international students in our class, everyone else is from Australia so they were all used to coming to Fraser in the summer and going swimming and fishing and four-wheeling, but this was all new to us so of course we were the only ones who actually got into the water.  Crazy Americans!  After visiting the lakes, we headed back to Dilli Village for dinner and bed.  There are no paved roads on the island, all of the “roads” are just tracks through the sand.  They are all single lane paths, so you just have to hope another car isn’t coming from the opposite direction.  The roads are so bumpy and curvy and fun!  Our professor knows these roads like the back of his hand so he was flying through the woods and we were just trying to hold on for life.  It was one crazy ride, that’s for sure!

The next morning we headed back out to the beach and started bird watching at the point where we left off the day before.  We found many more cool birds and some other things too.  Our first discovery we came upon was one of Fraser’s famous shipwrecks, the SS Maheno.  This ship was built in 1905 and wrecked into Fraser Island in 1935, where it has become a popular tourist attraction.  We also saw a Dingoe playing in the water nearby, it was so cute!

SS Maheno

We ended our data collecting at Indian Head, which is a giant cliff that looks like an Indian head staring out at sea.  Captain Cook named the cliff in 1770.  We parked our Rovers and hiked up the cliff.  The view from the cliff was absolutely beautiful!  You could see down Fraser Island for miles!  You could tell just how clear the ocean water was by looking down over the cliff and still seeing rocks at the bottom, it was beautiful.  While we were up on the cliff we were lucky enough to see a couple of whales swim by.  There was at least two whales, maybe three or four, we couldn’t really tell if there were different whales coming up for air each time or if they were the same two.  They were beautiful and we even got to see one of the whale’s tail as it flipped into the water.  What an amazing sight!  The whales were the last great thing we saw before we turned around to go back to catch the ferry and go back home.  This whole trip was just an amazing experience!  I learned so much from my professor who seems to know everything about beaches and sea life, and I even got to tour the island and see so much of its wild life.  It was such an amazing trip!