The second day of our tour of Fraser Island covered more ground than day one. We stopped by a popular creek that led into the woods, climbed a headland known as Indian Head for great views, visited the Champagne Pools (basically large frothy tide pools good for swimming), stopped for photos of a shipwreck and some colorful rock formations know as the Pinnacles, and finished off deep in the interior of the island at the sandy shores of Lake McKenzie.
We saw two more dingoes, including one which walked right past us, just a few feet away, as we were leaving Lake McKenzie, although Deborah had her back turned and was completely oblivious to it until Myra and I pointed it out to her. Dingoes do occasionally attack and even kill humans, particularly children. The increasing number of violent encounters between dingoes and humans since the 1980s are thought to be a result of intentional and unintentional feeding of dingoes by tourists. The majority of attacks by dingoes on humans have occurred on Fraser Island, which has the genetically purest strain.
On the drive back to Rainbow Beach the driver spotted a spikey sphere at the edge of the surf, which turned out to be a puffer fish. The little fellow was in full expansion mode, obviously agitated or excited about something. A busload of tourists handling him and gawking at him probably didn’t help to calm him down, which seemed necessary if he was ever going to deflate and thus be able to swim back to deep water without being constantly pushed back to shore in his current soccer ball shape. At last we put our cameras away and climbed back on our bus, leaving him to his struggle, hoping for the best.
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Watch your babies._
View from Indian Head.
Indian Head
Deborah and Blake
Champagne Pools.
The Pinnacles.
The Maheno shipwreck.
Just a bit rusty.
The girls at Lake McKenzie toasting with the previous day's leftover wine. They aren't picky.
Our spikey friend.