Cultural Resolution

Cultural Resolution

 

My bro' is a Queenslander so he has an air conditioner in his home, and can no longer refer to a temperature in the 20s without putting the word "cool" in front.  It has been a while since he lived in New Zealand, longer still since he lived in Wellington.  Along with a liking for temperatures high enough to wilt steel, he has also developed a passion for off-road 4wheel driving.  I still live in Wellington and spend a lot of time riding bicycles, so there is this cultural gap between us.  An invitation to spend a week exploring Fraser Island by 4wd then, was not only a chance to see a new place, but also an opportunity to plumb the cultural divide and test the fraternal bond.

 

Fraser Island is made of sand.  Lots of it.  It is actually the largest sand island in the world at around 120km long and with an area of 184 000 hectares.  Apparently it all came from further south over the last 700 000 years, so when it comes to State of Origin, this Queensland icon would play for New South Wales.  Needless to say, dry sand is not an ideal surface for driving on, so damp beach sand at low tide offers the best conditions.  The trouble with that is when you put a 4wd vehicle on a flat surface, speed is the inevitable result, so there are times when getting from the warm surf to the sand dunes is like crossing a major motorway.  Inland, the roads are rough, dry and rutted - the kind of thing bro' just loves.  Fraser Island is the domain of 4wheel drive vehicles, and in Queensland size matters.  The typical rig consists of a turbocharged V6 or V8 behemoth, often towing a dual axle trailer laden with generator, fridge/freezer, and pretty well all the comforts of home.  Half a dozen surfcasters in holders welded to the 'roo bars and then tied back to the roof rack so the driver looks out through a forest of fishing gear, often with beer in hand, completes the rig.  Our own setup was a 1976 series III short wheel base Landrover .  Some would call it a classic vehicle, others would call it outdated, underpowered or just inadequate. It is undeniably basic.  Cabin cooling comes from a vent under the window and the floor on the passenger side is so close to the exhaust it gets hot enough to disfigure synthetic shoe soles.  Power steering is by "Arm-strong". But my bro' knows a thing or two about driving off-road, so there were never any doubts in my mind.

 

Being more used to carrying my camping gear on my back, it was with a sense of awe that I helped load up vast quantities of tent, awning, camp stretchers, folding table and chairs, umbrella, double gas burner, 8kg gas bottle - it went on.  A giant "esky" that took two of us to lift declared that starvation was definitely off the menu.  In went a tool selection bigger than I have seen in a car since I owned a Triumph Herald.  Amongst it all was a can of "Start Ya Bastard" a self-evident aerosol boasting 24% ether. Only in Australia.

 

Oily rags, spanners, screwdrivers and feeler guages are de rigeur on any classic Landrover excursion.  Curiously, that seems to be part of the attraction for those who own them.  You don't need an excuse to tinker under the hood - it's part of the deal.  But so too is the heightened sense of satisfaction that you get when they don't break down.  Oil was drained from the transfer case and returned to the gearbox where it belonged but like Arnie - it would be back. 

 

But somehow everything fitted in. Just.  The finishing touch was tying the fishing rods and tent poles to the roof rack.  We looked like a serious expedition - at least to my eyes.

 

With a top speed on the open road of about 90km/hr, we were an obstacle on the road north from Brisbane, rather than something to keep up with.  Nobody seemed to mind, however but I had to wonder about whether Kiwi drivers would be so accommodating.  After four hours of humming road tyres, screaming engine and brief shouted attempts at conversation, we arrived, ears ringing at Rainbow Beach where we had pies for lunch before forcing a couple of slabs of ice and some beer into the last of the air spaces in the esky.  It was time to leave the tar seal.  A short barge ride soon had us at the southern tip of Fraser Island, and then we were heading north, high on the beach with an incoming tide.  Occasionally a tongue of water would rush up the sand as if to remind us that we should be off the beach very soon.  We turned inland at Eurong and made for Central Station - a well appointed camp site in the forest in the centre of the island that is completely enclosed in a dingo-proof fence.

 

Fraser Island dingoes are regarded as the purest strain in Australia due to the lack of interbreeding with domestic dogs.  They can be dangerous as attacks on people, even fatalities although rare, are documented.  A solo run along the beach in the morning is definitely not recommended, even though you are more likely to get run down by a turbocharged SUV than a pack of hungry dingoes.  As with any predator you encounter in the wild, your safety is partly determined by those who have gone before you.  Most dingoes do not associate people with food, but dirty campsites and poorly disposed of fish scraps can create a dangerous expectation that people provide food.  Certainly none of the dingoes we saw looked as if they have been getting handouts from people and ignored us completely as they foraged. 

 

For an island made almost entirely of sand, Fraser Island has a remarkable number of lakes - over a hundred.  Some are called perched lakes which form when organic material accumulates and hardens in depressions in the sand which then fill with water.  Fraser Island's forty or so perched lakes represents about half of the world's total.  There are also barrage lakes which are formed when sand dunes are blown across a stream, effectively damming it.  The lakes are fringed by pure white sand that squeaks underfoot. 

 

The track to lake McKenzie from Central Station passes through Pile Valley which has a spectacular forest of satinay and Australian kauri.  Satinay were favoured in logging days as timber suitable for wharf piles, but those days are gone now that the island has UNESCO World Heritage Area status.  While occasionally soft, the two wheel ruts gave adequate traction.  When meeting an oncoming vehicle, the challenge is to climb out of the ruts, onto the soft shoulder in order to give each other room to pass.

 

After three days exploring the lakes of Central Fraser, it was time to pack up camp and head north to the tip of the island at Sandy Point.  For the most part we cruised along the firm sand of the beach but some rocky headlands force the route inland, through soft sand.  These rocks are the solid anchors, that the sand of Fraser Island have formed around.  On one inland section, we stopped to help extract a heavier vehicle that had dug itself into the sand.  As we moved on again, working hard through the soft sand,  a new sound from under the bonnet crept into our collective consciousness.  The four part harmony of the engine had developed a new percussive element which intensified over the next hour until denial finally subsided and we conceded that all was not as it should be in the engine department.

 

We stopped on a particularly flat and featureless stretch of beach to have a look.  Ominously, a rusted engine block protruded from the sand at the waters edge nearby - a mute and frankly unnecessary reminder of just how far we were away from a workshop.  There were few clues to the problem and we decided to push on to Sandy Point, feeling that we may just be pushing our luck a bit far.  We clattered the last 20km to the point and climbed out for a look around.

 

From a high sand dune, we spotted a large dark shadow moving in the calm waters behind the sand spit that extends north from the cape.  It was a densely packed school of fish, and better still, it was almost within casting distance of the shore.  Wading out to chest deep water, I managed to drop a lure beyond the school and soon had a tailor flapping on the sand and another one soon after.  Ten minutes fishing, two fish.  It was time to put the rods away and preserve our success rate.  We'd heard enough "3 days fishing and no bloody fish" stories to know when we were ahead.  It was time to head south.

 

With a scary lack of compression and tappets beating out a death rattle, we limped back to camp, not at all confident that we'd be able to make it back to the mainland without a tow.  At one point, we actually came to a complete standstill and the engine lapsed into silence.  Bro' swore.  No muttered expletive, but a loud, emphatic vocalisation of the "f" word.  Billy Connolly couldn't have been clearer.  I was elated;  At fifty, I was at last old enough for him to swear in front of.  But I was also acutely aware of the serious nature of our predicament - a commercial recovery would be hideously expensive.  We crawled into camp and spent an hour or so adjusting the tappets in the company of a couple of thousand flies.  It was one of those displacement activities you do when idleness seems damnable.  Like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it brought hope by distraction.  Things were pretty quiet around camp that evening.  I wondered aloud where we'd be in 24 hours time.  We discussed plenty of possibilities, many of them unappealing, and changed the subject.  At least we had fresh fish.

 

In the morning we packed up for the return trip, not knowing just how far we'd get.  Crossing the dry sand from our camp amongst the casuarinas onto the beach was the first obstacle but we made it with little fuss and a good low gear.  The crux would be the inland route around Ngkala Rocks where the problem had first developed.  We would need assistance to get through the kilometer or so of soft sand.  We stopped where the track left the beach and attached a long webbing towing strap to the front of the vehicle with shackles, laid it out along the sand in a suggestive fashion and waited for a vehicle to come from the north.  Sure enough, the first vehicle to come along was a vast turbocharged V8 of climate warming proportions and the driver relished the oportunity to haul us to the firm sand on the other side of the headland.  In no time at all the Rover was being dragged along waving from side to side in the manner of a parachute behind a landing space shuttle, as bro' struggled at the wheel to follow the ruts. 

 

Back on firm sand and with heartfelt gratitude, we put a bit more air in the tyres - sacrificing traction for reduced rolling resistance and continued south at a limp, mostly in third gear, south past the wreck of the Maheno.  We passed a nudist camp - from a distance they looked like pieces of leather hanging from a washing line - from a bit closer we could see they were playing volleyball.  (What is it with volleyball and nudists?)  Eventually we reached the barge and after a short trip we were back on the mainland.  Somehow we struggled through the deep soft sand, tappets clattering, and onto the road.  Regaining the seal was a triumph and we cruised into Rainbow Beach feeling like we'd just crossed the Simpson Desert.  We celebrated with kebabs and ginger beer and, buoyed with our success, set our sights on Gympie.  But the highway really showed how sick we were, with horrible noises from the engine on the slightest incline and several stops to allow the overheating engine to recover.  Eventually, about 40km short of Gympie, we admitted defeat and summoned the RACQ (Royal Automobile Club of Queensland) for assistance.  Soon enough we were collected by a vehicle recovery truck and taken to town.

 

Getting to Gympie with the vehicle intact was one of the better scenarios we had speculated on just 24 hours earlier.  Gympie has shops with names like Foxy Lady and Dreaming Diva.   But more importantly for us, it also has a Landrover specialist workshop and all we had to do is make a phone call and leave the vehicle.  As darkness fell, the streets were cruised aimlessly by pimped out boy-racing rigs.  The macho turbos of Fraser didn't seem quite so gauche.  As we ate under the fluorescent lights of a fast food restaurant to the crackle and fizz of insects being electrocuted, I felt we had closed a cultural gap with a mixture of exploration, anxiety and good humour.  Bro' certainly operates at the right end of the 4wd spectrum and his Kiwi minimalist approach to life was still intact.  The problem with the Landrover turned out to be a blown head gasket, so he has since added a spare head gasket and torque wrench to the toolkit... just in case.