THE MIGHTY FRASER

Fraser Island? You want me to write the travel story on Fraser? Strooth, Editor Shaun must have copped a brown bottle bite on his last skinny-dipping trip. Sorry mate, I mean skin diving. That’s something I won’t know much about until they introduce ‘fat bugger diving’…

I do know a bit about Fraser, though, but it’s not the sort of lollygobble blissbombs you’ll read about in the brochures. My version of Fraser kicked off 33 years ago when I was working for a water drilling company. One day I’m out in a paddock with the divining wires looking to tap the basin, the next I’m in the office being told to pack a bag and head north. The boss had landed a contract with a mob called Queensland Titanium Mines (rutile, a common mineral in Fraser sands, is used to make titanium.) Tony and I had a week to get up there with the drilling rig and the fourby that serviced it, a G60 Nissan that was like a tractor with a body.

That was around 1973. Tony was a lot older than me and fresh out of the army, where he’d spent most of his time blowing up tunnels in Vietnam. He’d seen a lot of bad stuff, although his biggest hang-up was coming home and copping abuse from the anti-war crowd. I’ve never liked ‘do-gooders’ much since then. Watching Tony – a man who’d fought for his country regardless of whether it was right or wrong – take out his frustrations on a bottle turned me off do-gooders for life. You need to know that now because when it comes to Fraser Island, the city-bound greenie do-gooders are always going to cop a bashing from me!

But drilling suited blokes like Tony because once the rig was set up, they could hand over to the ‘nong’ – that was me – and go sit under a tree until the nong broke something.

When I drove that G60 on to the original flat bed barge, I had my dog on the seat next to me, my rifle in the back and a canvas tent strapped to the roof. The tucker box was stuffed full of tins and there was a kerosene fridge on the trailer. Thanks to 30-plus years of do-gooders, they’d probably arrest you for most of those things these days!

Yep, I can’t keep the anger out when it comes to Fraser Island, but that’s because I love the place dearly. I’ve had some of the best times of my life on those wonderful beaches and swimming in the lakes, but the one thing that’s never changed on Fraser is the bullshit. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the sign that says ‘No Driving on the Natural Sand Dunes’ – where I know we bulldozed rainforest to put in another dredge – or the one that says ‘No Camping’ at Lake McKenzie.