K’gari is a story told about the legend of a princess from the Dreamtime. This princess spirit, called K’gari, fell so in love when helping create the land and sea that she begged to lay here to rest forever. It is said that her many lakes were created so that she could always look back up to the heavens and remember where she came from, her thick flora created to clothe her and the animals to keep her company. Then, when paradise was complete, Yindingie, the creator spirit created the Butchulla people to protect K’gari forever. Introducing K'gari aka Fraser Island.

Fraser Island

Fast forward time to 1849 when white man ventured the seas, they decided to name this paradise in recognition of Eliza Fraser. She was a shipwreck survivor, looked after by

the Butchulla people when stranded on the island. Her stories, well most probably lies, that she told of what she endured when she arrived back in Sydney ultimately led to the massacre of the Butchulla people. According to her biography she was described by the people she knew as a most profane, artful and wicked woman.

What an absolute tragedy to the traditional owners of the land, the Butchulla people. I do not ever want to use the name Fraser Island again.

World Heritage Area

Fast forward, further in time to 1992 and K’gari was listed as a World Heritage Area. Then in 2017, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service renamed it to its traditional name, K’Gari, rightfully so.

K’gari is located around four hours north from Brisbane. The island is about 126 kilometres long and about 22 kilometres wide. The island lies on volcanic bedrock and has been accumulating for about 750,000 years. It is the largest sand island in the world, stretching over 1840 square kilometres. It has more sand than the Sahara Desert and the island is growing by approximately 40 to 50 centimetres in the east each year. Wow

Lake McKenzie

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hey, oh and it has around 100 or so fresh water lakes and they are pristine. In fact, Boorangoora, otherwise known as Lake McKenzie was so special to the Butchulla people that they did not swim in it. They only used it for drinking water. This is also the only island where a rain forest grows in the sand. There are some trees, Syncarpia hillii over 1000 years old and growing up to 50 metres high. According to Wikipedia, there are around 25 to 50 mammal species, dingoes, 74 reptile species, 350 different species of birds and in terms of fauna there are more than 865 species of plants that grow on the island. It is a very special place as it holds an important

part of the preservation of the Great Barrier Reef. There would be no Great Barrier Reef if it were not for K’gari as the island prevents the sand from washing further up the coast and smothering the reef. This is a very important island indeed and oh so beautiful.

Clean upI recently spent three days at K’gari on a mission to rid the island of rubbish. Okay not all of the island or all the rubbish, but some at least. K'gari Fraser Island Adventures teamed up with Zero Co Australia and held a beach clean-up weekend. There were 28 of us and we managed to pick up 1222.5 kilograms of rubbish off the shore, excluding the two pontoons that were too big to move. Well that is a pittance amount of rubbish in comparison to what they picked up off the shore after the floods in Brisbane, which was 14 tonnes of rubbish. I know right, it is unbelievable the amount of rubbish that washed up. As the way the currents move, in a strong offshore current northward along the coast, K’gari seem to collect a lot of rubbish from all over the world and every day more rubbish washes up.

The rubbish collected from a very short period of time on the first day

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Day oneI was picked up at the Sunshine Coast airport by Mark on Friday morning at 8.30 in a minibus. After a few stops to pick up other shareholders, we eventually ended up at Hannah and Mark's house, formalities were done, there were 28 of us in total and then we were off on our way in four-wheel drives. It was raining a lot; according to Elders Weather we got 40.6 mm of rain for the day. Before we knew it, we were at the barge at Inskip Point waiting to cross over onto K’gari. The ferry only took about 30 minutes, if that and then we were off, cruising down the highway, I mean beach. It really is like a highway with all the other four-wheel drives. After passing a few dingoes, stopping to pick up a few handfuls of rubbish we were at our accommodation, the Beachcamp, Eco Retreat, Eurong, home for the next

two nights. It was glamping at its best as it was a big tent with bunk beds, I shared with five other people. You could have upgraded to a cabin, but I was happy in a tent. After a bite of lunch, deciding which bed to sleep in, we were off to the shore to pick up rubbish, according to World Weather Online, the wind was up to 22 km/h and the gust was up to 32 km/h with 7 mm of rain. It was a wild

Sorting out the micro plastic, there was so much of it

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Day twoLuckily the weather cleared up a bit, and after breakfast we were out the door. The day consisted of driving north for a few kilometres and picking up rubbish. Again it was astounding how much rubbish washes up. What angered, upset, disgusted and surprised me, and what I feared, was the amount of small plastic bits that were everywhere. They had to come from a larger vessel and it was gut-wrenching to see and to think how much microplastic there is floating out there in our oceans. Some people in the group found the whole experience overwhelming and so upsetting. No wonder it is getting into our blood. If you have not heard about that, read Microplastics found in human blood for first time.

The day was not all about picking up plastic however. We found a message in a bottle, quite a sweet message too, about someone in the middle of the ocean, writing this. And whoever finds the bottle, tell his love he is missing her. Well, I think we are going to respond with something along the lines of stop throwing rubbish out in the ocean. Back to our adventure, we drove up to Eli Creek, had a float down the creek and had an amazing lunch served to us.

Then it was up the beach to the SS Maheno. The Maheno has an interesting history. Built in 1905, she was on regular routes to and from Sydney and Auckland, then she became a hospital ship in Europe in World War One. Then in 1935 she was decommissioned and on her way to Japan when a cyclonic storm came through and she washed up on the beach where she stayed. As the tide was coming in we had to get back to camp. Dinner was served, a fire was lit, stories were told then it was off to bed not long after. It is hard work picking up plastic.

SS Maheno

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