Fraser Island Great Walk Day 5
Distance walked – 25.3km 22.3km + 3km Afternoon Side Trip
Total Distance – 94.4km
We are well into our morning routine now and we were packed and ready to go just before seven o’clock this morning. We were excited about the walk today as this part of the Fraser Island Great Walk was going to take us into the cool shaded rainforest of the central high dunes and then to the area known as The Valley of the Giants. It is called this as it contains some of the largest living trees on K’gari.
We retraced our steps from yesterday towards Lake Wabby and found the Valley of the Giants track junction. The path heads uphill from here, crossing several roads before climbing up and down through increasingly long sections of rainforest for several hours before reaching another track junction at about 11kms.
We dropped our packs and walked about 600metres winding around and up a sandy ridge until we came out on the top of a dune at the edge of the Badjala Sandblow.
Badjala Sandblow
From here there were amazing views down the sandblow towards the ocean. The constant movement of the sand has left some skeletal trees exposed, a stark reminder of the slow relentless power of the sand as it slowly engulfs the vegetation and recreates the topography of the island.
We wandered a little way down onto the dune and spied some great tracks in the sand which we assumed were goanna tracks
Goanna tracks
We headed back to our packs and then slowly downhill through sections of rainforest with increasingly tall trees. It was cool and shaded and we were finding the walking pretty easy. We stopped for a few breaks and agreed that this was undoubtedly the best portion of the Fraser Island Great Walk so far. We were both loving the rainforest and the awe inspiring trees. The island must have been unbelievable before the logging of the last century.
Eventually at about 16kms we crossed the end of a remote road and shortly after, a junction where a sign-posted side path heads down to a giant Satinay tree, the tallest on the island. We left our packs again and headed down the side-track. Almost straight away we came across 2 packs on the side of the track – other walkers at last!!
After about a kilometre two ladies, the presumed owners of the packs, came into view heading back up the track towards us. We stopped to talk with them. Almost immediately the older of the two said ” I wouldn’t bother going down there. It’s still a long way from here and it’s only a tree. Nothing that special about it”
We were a bit taken aback, and so we quickly changed the subject and asked them where they were headed. They were a mother and daughter who were doing a two day walk on the Great Walk. They had been dropped off by the taxi service today further along the track and had walked back to the Valley of the Giant campsite where they were camping tonight. Tomorrow they were going to walk on to Lake Wabby where they were going to be picked up again.
We told them a bit about our trip and said we would see them back at the campsite tonight. The older lady repeated her warning about the apparently unimpressive giant tree and they departed.
Louisa and I had a discussion about the merits of carrying on. We decided that as the tree was marked on the map and it has a specially constructed and maintained path that it was probably worth going to have a look. Although it was an extra 2.5km each way, what else did we have to do?
1000 year old tree
As we came up to the tree we were so glad that we had made the effort. Our pictures do not do it justice. It is a marvel of nature and one of the highlights of our entire trip. We both spent time wandering around the tree, contemplating its vast age and the questions that it seems to pose about the transiency of our lives and the nature of our existence.
Standing beneath the Giant
The Satinay tree, originally known as the Fraser Island Turpentine, only grows in a small area of Queensland, mostly limted to K’gari. Although initially ignored by loggers due to the difficulty in drying the timber, it eventually became highly prized as it is resistant to termites and marine borers and its close texture polishes to a fine finish. It was commonly used for marine pylons and was extensively employed in the construction of the Suez Canal with over 50 000 trees being utilised. In the early 1930s the Queensland Forestry Department rebranded the tree as Satinay (as when finished it resembles the fine Satine timber of French Guiana) and pushed it as a fine timber for furniture making and polished floors. Over half the houses built in the 1930s in Brisbane have polished Satinay floors. Due to the extensive logging there are few large specimens remaining however somehow this tree escaped and we can only hope that it survives for another thousand years.
After spending some time with the old giant of the rainforest, we walked the 2.6km back to the track junction and then the final 1.3km to The Valley of the Giants campsite.
The campsite is definitely the best on the walk and is beautifully sited amongst the giant trees of the rainforest. We greeted the two fellow walkers we had met earlier who had already set up in one of the camping areas. We picked a site a little away from them and went through our now well-oiled campsite routine.
There are always two sides to things and despite it being visually the most beautiful campsite, it was the first place where we were really troubled by insects. There were a variety of insects, including large biting march flies that made sitting outside for any period of time difficult. Our insect repellent that we had carried all week seemed to have little effect.
Battling the insects
After setting up we decided to go and visit another giant tree that was marked on the map. It was signed as 1.7km each way. As we didn’t feel too tired, it wasn’t that late and sitting at the campsite was difficult due to the insects, we thought we would go on an afternoon walk.
The second tree is a giant Tallowwood tree which is a species of eucalyptus (E.microcorys) that grows throughout coastal regions of Qld and NSW. Its timber has been used for a wide variety of things including flooring, tool handles, fencing and construction. It is not a rare as the Satinay but this was still an awe inspiring tree.
On the return to our campsite, we stopped to talk to the other campers. It turned out that they were in a bit of a difficult situation. The mother, who was probably in her early seventies, had started feeling unwell after we had seen them and had been feeling dizzy and unstable on the walk into the campsite (maybe explaining her comments about the tree). They had decided to leave and try and get picked up as they didn’t think they were going to be able to complete the long walk to Lake Wabby tomorrow. There was no phone signal however, and we hadn’t had one all day. They were due to get picked up at Lake Wabby by Steve from Fraser Island Taxis who was the same person who was going to pick us up from Happy Valley tomorrow. After some discussion about options, we offered to call Steve as soon as we had a signal tomorrow and let him know to pick them up from the nearby road junction instead. We made sure that the mother was okay medically and that they had everything they needed for the night and headed back to our tent.
Not long afterwards, we saw a young couple walk down the track through the campsite. They stopped to talk to our stranded fellow campers and we overheard them also offering to call or text Steve if they were able to get some reception. Not thinking any more of it we had our dinner (in the tent due to insects) and went to bed as the sun went down.
At about nine thirty we woke to the sound of a vehicle approaching and then the sound of a man’s voice. It was Steve the taxi man. He had received a text from the couple who had passed through and had driven at nine o’clock at night all the way to the Valley of the Giants to pick up the stranded couple. Not only that, he also had a key to the locked gate at the road junction so was able to drive all the way to the campsite! What a complete legend. We cannot recommend him enough. We stuck our heads out of the tent and wished them all the best. We listened as they packed up their gear and headed off in the 4WD before falling asleep in the now deserted campsite
Today’s Route
