Day 119 (May 29) - Shopping trip to Bundaberg, planning for Fraser Island

Pretty straightforward day. We needed to do some food shopping so decided to go up to Bundaberg rather than down to Childers. It was a bit further to go but we thought it'd be nice variety, especially as we didn't know how long we'd be in Woodgate.

Along the way we stopped at Alloway Farm Market and bought some local produce, including finger limes which were very interesting! If you've not had them before, they look like dates but you cut them open and inside they have loads of little red balls in their own little capsule, like small passionfruit seeds, and inside each of these is some strong lemon / lime flavoured juice. We squeezed them onto some fish we had a few days later and they were delicious!

Now... Fraser Island, you ask... :)



The first round of travel restrictions were lifted while we were down in Wamuran. Some National Parks reopened, but not for camping, so this didn't affect us much and we didn't pay a lot of attention to it, other than checking the list when we were planning our day trips. We found, for example, that Kondalilla National Park was open, but the waterfalls and rock pools (which is what we wanted to see again) would remain closed. However we did find that Fraser Island was going to be open for day visitors. In the end the timing didn't work out for us to go there on the way up from Wamuran, but we decided that while we were at Woodgate we might as well make the 2.5 hour drive back down to visit the island while we were here. So I made the necessary enquiries and bought a National Parks permit ($52 for a month) and arranged to purchase a barge ticket ($130 for the year). We had priced up a barge from Hervey Bay but this was nearly $200.

Given the minimum length tickets meant we had a month's access, we wondered if we could spend a couple of days there. Most people said at least two days was necessary, but we didn't know what we were going to find and how much we'd need to stay longer. Overnight accommodation / camping on the island wasn't allowed but we figured we might be able to grab a cabin in Rainbow Beach on the mainland for the night, if necessary. So we packed some overnight things and a bit of extra food just in case, and decided we could restock on food at Rainbow Beach after the first day if necessary. We intended to get up around 6am so we could make the most of our time on the island!

-- Greg