Shipwrecks, slow sand and creek crossings

Tuesday 16th February 2021

Today we woke up in our hotel room. Madeline was a little agitated overnight. Boy does she move around a lot at night.

Today we prepared ourselves to drive from the resort to the east coast to get to Eli creek. We left at 9am. It was approximately 40km but managed to take us 2 hrs.

The sand driving through the tracks was slow. There were deep throughs and very deep pot holes to drive over.

Eli Creek

Jason drove to Eli creek. We made 2 detours around rocks that were impassable and a flowing creek crossing to get to Eli Creek.

Eli Creek, the largest creek on the eastern beach of Fraser Island, pours up to four million litres of clear, fresh water into the ocean every hour. Eli Creek is a popular picnic and swimming spot, with a boardwalk that follows the creek inland through banksia and pandanus.

Maheno Wreck

Maheno is the Maori word for Island. The ocean liner was built in Scotland in 1904 and was the world’s first ever triple screw steamer.
It was first used as a hospital ship in World War I and then later purchased by a Sydney company to travel between Australia and New Zealand.

The Maheno was then sold to a Japanese company who planned to melt the ship into scrap metal and resell. The ship began its journey back to Osaka Japan in 1935 by tow, linked to another boat by chain

On this voyage the ship found itself in the middle of a seasonal cyclone off Fraser Island’s coastline and lost its link to the other ship, which soon disappeared. It then washed upon the shores of 75 Mile Beach – luckily there was only a small crew onboard.

The Maheno shipwreck soon became a sacred for the native aboriginals, where the men would gather to play the didgeridoo and the women would venture to the site to give birth.

And back again

We had to travel back to the hotel. It was Eva’s turn to drive.

We managed to see a little plane on the sand before take off.

It took a good 2hrs to get back to the hotel. Madeline had a sleep in the, very bumpy, car on the way back.

We all survived. The car managed to drag some forest back with us. The Thule shifted a fair bit, but remained on the roof.

Overall, today was a long day driving but very much worth the effort.

Tomorrow

We plan to spend our day in and around Kingfisher Bay Resort.