Rainbow Beach, Travelling tales

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(heaps of pictures further down the page ;) )

23 on my right arm, 9 on my left arm, 53 on my right leg, 43 on my left leg and a few dotted around the rest of my body for good measure….this is the toll of the sand fly war that we face every dawn and every dusk (or so I’ve been told but I’m sure they are there 24 hours a day waiting for me!) I’ve tried a mixture of dettol, baby oil, citronella essence smothered everywhere but with no joy as they still come back for more, I’ve tried industrial tropical strength repellent but that seems to attract them more, I’ve tried citronella lamp oil burning 24 hours a day in our annex and mosquito coils at all corners of our caravan but the blighters still come back, I’ve tried sitting in line of the smoke from a camp fire but it still doesn’t work. I’ve tried taking antihistamines which work for an hour of so and then the itching starts so now I fully understand why you get complete lunatics in tropical sandy, swampy areas as no one in their right mind could stand this for any length of time.

I’m waking up itching in the night and every second I’m awake all I want to do is scratch it is the most horrible, uncomfortable feeling and there is nothing you can do but hope that by walking around in warm temperatures wearing long sleeves, long trousers (preferably ones that can by tied or tucked in socks), socks and boots all looking very attractive as your sweating and scratching like a pig. Sooooooo what do I think about Rainbow Beach????? BLOODY ITCHY!!! It is a lovely looking place and well worth a visit if you come this way but don’t stay close to the water up this way, you need to go slightly inland to avoid these horrible flies.

Anyway enough moaning and some nicer details as to what you can see and do around here. Firstly Rainbow Beach is much nicer than Tin Can Bay so stay there if you can if you think you can handle the flies (I’m a right wimp when it comes to things biting me as they seem to love my blood which I’m quite keen to keep!) then Rainbow Waters is a great place to stay as you can have fantastic campfires and feel as though you have space around you. If you like your fishing then there is also a ramp right next to the campsite to get your all important tinny into the sea, otherwise you can hire a boat quite easily around here.

From Rainbow beach you can get a barge across onto Fraser Island which is meant to have the purest breed of Dingoes throughout the whole of Australia and although there were warnings everywhere as to what to do if faced with a dingo we only saw one and that was hovering around the bins by a hotel in the main resort on the Island.

You can stay on the island and have a couple of days tour which will cost a few hundred dollars per person or you can go for the day at the cost of something like 85 dollars per person which is a good way to see the island OR if you really are daring hire a 4x4 and go for it yourself around the island. You need to buy a permit from the ranger at Rainbow Beach to drive on the island costing 33 dollars and if you want to camp then you have to get a permit for that as well. There are good campsite areas that are fenced off so the dingoes won’t get into your camp and food! The barges over to the island cost 65 dollars if you are taking a car, there are a few barges but they are all the same so it doesn’t make a difference which one you use.

You can buy a map from the ranger which is well worth every cent as it shows in detail the various tracks around the island and bear in mind that the major tracks are still serious 4x4 tracks so the small tracks shown on the map are very rough 4x4 country tracks. We followed the track that takes you inland from the village of Dilli which leads you to the various lakes around the island. It is worth walking down to the lakes but the best lake of all is Lake Mackenzie which is a huge blue water fresh water lake in the middle surrounded by white sands. The properties of the water are very good for cleaning gold so it is worth taking your jewellery for a dip if you go there. There are toilets and changing rooms by the lake and a fenced off area for picnics, a word of warning though it is better to get there very early or later in the afternoon as all the tour buses go to this lake and it does start to get a bit crowded around 11am but they all disappear soon after lunch.

If you do drive on the island yourself then make sure you have the usual recovery gear as you may get bogged in the sand or you may come across trees across the tracks, so just use your sense before driving on the island.

I have to say my favourite area around Rainbow Beach was driving through the Freshwater track down to Cooloola Beach it starts as a track that is suitable for all vehicles until you hit the first lake after that you start to go into 4x4 country. It is pretty smooth driving until you get very close to lake freshwater which is quite an attractive lake although not totally spectacular and certainly not worth going through the track purely to view. After lake freshwater you do eventually come to a lovely picnic area and then onto the beach.

If you turn left you can drive up to the shipwreck of the Cherry Venture which hit the land in the 70’s and is shown in all the tourist books except I think the pictures in the books were from the 70’s as it isn’t really worth a visit now except maybe for the ice cream van that somehow gets onto the beach and hovers around the wreck. You can also drive past the wreck to Double Island Point which has a small track that takes you through to Rainbow Beach and to where the famous coloured sands, this is where Rainbow Beach has got it’s name from – the coloured sands are all the way up the high cliffs and are multicoloured due to the various minerals in the earth, it is better from a distance but you do get some good areas where you can clearly see the colours. If you look in the tourist guides most of the pictures of the sands were taken before any of the vegetation took a hold and started to cover them up, but they are still worth a trip. If you try to drive around to this point from Rainbow Beach itself then you have to pass the treacherous Eight Mile Rocks which have claimed the lives of many 4x4 vehicles and the local tourist board has a fantastic wall of shame photo gallery to prove it! In fact even the local surf club have a board as to how many vehicles have been caught out by these rocks, at least once a week another meets it’s doom. During busy periods the track by double island point will have traffic lights as it gets that busy around this area then, also down Freshwater track becomes one holiday nightmare for people looking for somewhere to camp out for the holidays.

If you drive south of the wreck you are then faced with a long beach eventually turning into Teewah beach. You are allowed to camp along this beach in places but again you must get a permit from the local ranger. It does again get very very busy along here during the main holidays and it has even been known to have speed cameras on the beach, as it is treated as a normal highway.

We drove all the way down this beach to Tewantin where you can catch a ferry over onto the mainland and can drive into Noosa, I said it was the best motorway I have ever driven on as it took us a couple of hours but the views were something else and never have I enjoyed such a long journey. We headed down this way to go shopping amongst just having a nose at the beach and tracks. We did however make the fatal mistake of stopping on the soft sand (due to me insisting on taking a picture of driving out onto the beach!) and got firmly stuck in the sand but instantly other 4x4 drivers come to offer help so don’t worry if it happens to you it is all part of the fun and even the most experience drivers will tell you of how they got stuck in the same spot the week before!

Another good drive is on the way up to where the barges cross to Fraser Island it s called Inskip Point and again you can get a permit to camp there. It gets to a point where you have the sea on one side of you and a small estuary to the other side. If you go 4x4 once again you can drive along the beach and actually get down to Rainbow Beach following the coastline, with a nice view of Fraser Island in the distance.

One tip though is when driving up to Rainbow Beach DO NOT take any notice of your GPS system as it likes to send you through Cooloola Way which is basically a 4x4 track through the Great Sandy National Park but when we got sent this way we had our caravan in tow and in some places it was very very scary. The ranger told us we were very lucky as they had closed even the footpaths through there as the conditions were really bad. So you pay for an nice expensive gadget to tell you where to go but you just have to ignore it as I know of another couple it sent through the same route.

We lived to tell the tale though and our nice new caravan and truck looks like it has done some serious off roading now so at least we don’t look so amateurish!

I hope that gives you some insight into Rainbow Beach area of Queensland.

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Here's some pictures that we took around Rainbow Beach.

This is the way our flipping Sat Nav sent us. It turned out it had been closed to even peopel walking let alone a flipping great big car and caravan although we did get through it ok. Just warning you though do not pay any attention to your Sat Nav when driving up from the South and it says to turn off before Gympie!!! :unsure: It had to be the most riggety looking bridges I had ever seen so I offerd to wlak it and take the picture instead of being stuck in a vehicle with the weight of about 5 tonnes :D

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This is Rainbow Beach as you drive in very quiet but quite a nice little town.

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We stayed in Rainbow Waters which is the bay side of Rainbow Beach. Lovely quiet camping ground next to the ocean..horrendous sand flies and this is where we saw our first Bush Turkey

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OK now off down the Fresh water track through the rainforest and out onto the beach...where we got stuck :lol:

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Just about out onto the beach....

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This is looking out to Double Island Point
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You can see the colours of the sand in the cliffs in this photo although up close and personal it is much clearer

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This is up by Inskip point which is where you can cross to Fraser Island, also great camping spot where you can pay the local ranger a small fee and camp right ont he beach front....if you can handle the sand flies.
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This is a picture I love of the Pelicans you get here. There were heaps in Maroochydore along the river fron but this shot is taken near Tewantin where you can drive along the beach and cross by ferry to get to Noosa.
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This was takign from Fraser Island looking back at Rainbow Beach, you can just see the pyramid by Double Island point in the distance

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Off roading around Fraser island. The tracks were quite deep with sand as you can see from the ruts and these tracks traffic went BOTH ways!!!

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This tree was massive and what a great colour
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One of the many lakes on the island
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This lake was amazing though, so blue and meant to be great for cleaning gold so take along your jewellery with you :D Get there early though as they come by the bus load to this lake.
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Our one and only wild dingo... int he resort bit of Fraser Island by the bins :lol:
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