Fraser Island Clean Up 2022

The weekend of Friday 20th to Mon 23rd of May saw the running of the annual Four Wheel Drive Queensland Fraser Island K’Gari Clean Up event, with 23 affiliated clubs from across Queensland coming together to help give K’Gari her annual spruce up.

Thursday morning saw 3 barges running to accommodate the large number of vehicles attempting to get onto the island at day break. Amongst the throng of these were some of our members who’d left the Gold Coast on Thursday and camped the night at Inskip Point. Most of these members were in the clubs’ designated camping location on K’Gari and setup by the afternoon.

Unfortunately there were some members who had to withdraw from the event for either health, family, or vehicle trouble. Ted made it all the way to Rainbow Bay before having car troubles, which ruled him out of putting his feet on K’Gari by just a few kilometres!

Shane was leading a convoy leaving the Gold Coast on Friday morning, which turned out to be a total of just 3 cars, being himself, Josh and Grant. Arriving at Inskip Point around 12noon, we had a small delay while waiting for the tide to turn to allow the barge to put down on at least some beach on the island. With the tide high and receding slowly, we travelled via the Hook Point Inland track up to Dilli Village. We chose a scenic route to camp, taking in some of the beauty of K’Gari’s many lakes including Lake Boomanjin, Lake Benaroon, and Lake Birrabeen, and then out to the beach via Central Station and Eurong. Even in the rain it’s hard not to admire the beauty of this island.

We arrived at camp in the midst of Happy Hour at Murray, OohAah (Glenn), Geoff & Duane’s camp, found the leftover spots and set up camp.

The rain fell, and the wind blew all afternoon, and well into the night, and we awoke Saturday morning to more wind and more rain.

The weather didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of one little intrepid explorer who, with kite in hand, was happily waving to passing cars on the beach from the sand dunes, in the rain! At around 10:00 am, a large contingent of us drove off into the island to explore what we had come to help clean up, but first, coffee from Eurong Village.¿

Setting out from Eurong, we headed to Central Station first. With all the rain the sand tracks were fairly firm, and there were many puddles and potholes to avoid. 

At Central Station we all had a walk amongst all buildings and the trees full of staghorns, and then made our way down to the boardwalk along Wanggoolba Creek. The group split here as OohAhh was having some battery issues, so thought it best to return to camp instead of traversing further around the island. Upon leaving Central Station, we made our way to Lake Mackenzie, where we were greeted with it’s beautiful white sands, clear waters, and more continual rain! But even in the rain, there’s still plenty to see.

Next on our agenda, was finding the Valley of the Giants. This led us across the island tracks to Kingfisher Bay, and then back inland and North. Slowly we weaved our way through the track, much of which was not maintained very well and the hole through the bush was just big enough to drive through without scraping the vehicles too much. Completing the loop, we headed back East towards Happy Valley to get back onto Seventy Five Mile Beach, and return to camp. Saturday afternoon we all assembled again at Murray, OohAah, Geoff & Duane’s campsite for Happy Hour, and yes, it was still raining! 

More Trip Photos available in our Photo Catalogue

Sunday morning delivered a glimmer of hope, with all campers spotting the sun peeking through the breaking clouds, delivering the picturesque postcard scenery that K’Gari is renowned for. We were visited by a pair of Dingo’s this morning, making their way through the camp sites, cars and sleeping areas as they were on their morning stroll and scrounge for food. At around 8:15 am we were all assembled on the beach out the front of our camping area, eager and keen to get out into the sunshine and clean up. After a brief meeting we were off down the beach towards our clean up area. Members staggered themselves down the beach, collecting rubbish and filling bags as they went. Leap frogging other members when their area was clean to move further into our clean up zone. 

A total of 52 bags and bulky items were collected by our club, combining for a total of just under 580kg. A fantastic effort by all. Over all, FICU 2022 collected and removed 8,215 kg of rubbish from the beach. That afternoon many of the club members made their way to Cathedrals on Fraser for the Four Wheel Drive Queensland thank you dinner. Stopping at the usual tourist destinations on the way North, including Eli Creek, and the S.S. Maheno ship wreck on the way to Cathedrals on Fraser.

The thank you dinner was set up with a few of the sponsor’s tents, showing their wares, giving away some freebies and offering prizes for your phone number and email address. Massive camp ovens were sitting over flames, and had been cooking away most of the day. The FICU committee had taken onboard criticisms of previous years and made changes, especially around the serving of meals, which this year was very well planned and everything ran very smoothly. There were multiple lines to receive your food which was supplied in disposable plates with disposable cutlery. Dinner was a choice of Spaghetti Bolognaise, Chicken Curry & rice, Beef stew with mash potato, or vegetable curry, and came with a scone. Dessert was a choice of plum pudding and custard, or sticky date pudding. All the meals were very tasty and seconds were available for everything. Unfortunately our club did not register even 1 prize in the raffle’s drawn on the night, and we all came home empty handed, and wet! Cruising south along the beach at night, the Maheno came into view, so I decided to stop and grab a few shots of the rusting ship at night in the light of the car headlights.

While we were all out having dinner, an intense storm ripped through our camp site, damaging several gazebo’s and flooding the camp grounds in several locations with about 10cm of water. Murray, OohAah, Geoff and Duane made light of the situation and had a blast while cleaning up and fixing their structure, even employing a shovel as support so it lasted one more night.

Overall it was a fun filled trip, with great beach and inland drives, lots of laughter and banter. Even though it was affected by rain and wind, the effort of getting there and back , and doing the clean up to keep this part of our home clean, is well worth it.

Roll on FICU 2023..