Kingfisher Bay

Friday 18th May

The catamaran to Fraser Island takes forty-five minutes from the marina at Hervey Bay. Typically, they don't call it Hervey Bay, they call it Harvey Bay. I know this because I was corrected by the woman on the Qantas check-in desk back in Brisbane.

"You know it's Harvey Bay" she said

"In that case, you know it's spelt wrong" I replied.

The boat comes in to Kingfisher Bay, which is handy because that's where we're staying. We arrived last night, just as it was going dark. I'm sure it's fine in the summer, but we're approaching the shortest day and arriving at dusk is a bit of a problem when the only shop is about to close.

The thing about Fraser Island is it's unlike anywhere else in Australia. It's a sand island, there's no rock underneath, just a great load of sand brought along the east cost by longshore drift. They reckon it took a million years to form, but I'm always suspicious of round numbers. We once went to Lake Tahoe and heard how it was the deepest, highest, coldest, windiest, blue-est, nicest lake in the whole of the Americas. Or something like that. Hence the suspicion.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how long it took to form, the fact that it manages to support such a diverse range of plant and animal life is incredible. The centre of the island is rainforest. How does it take root? How do so many types of plants and trees manage to live? It's really a matter for David Attenborough, which is why botanists love it and tourists flock here in droves.

According to Lonely Planet, Fraser Island is all about the great outdoors. It's about camping and four-wheel driving, billy-cans and swag-rolls for a bed. And on that note we're staying in a two-bedroomed villa at the Kingfisher Bay Resort with its jacuzzi, heated swimming pool (to 26 degrees, seeing as you asked), gourmet restaurant and tasteful, ecologically-minded ranger talks and ranger walks. Oh come off it, faced with a choice between your hairdryer and digging your own toilet, what would you do?.

There are two types of people staying on the resort; old couples in matching khaki shorts and cream shirts (too old for swag rolls) and middle-aged, middle-class parents with young children (too knackered for swag rolls). Once the kids reach, say, five, you could probably do the camping thing. In the meantime, when they need putting to bed at 7pm, it's the two-bed villa all the way.