Fraser Island Queensland K'gari paradise

Fraser Islands 75 mile beach Highway

Fraser Island gives visitors, the opportunity to observe a ‘real Australian dingo’, whether up close, or from the window of a tour bus. There is never a dull moment, when dingoes venture out onto the pristine beach's of Fraser Island.

Fraser Island  was once called 'K'gari' in the Butchulla people's language (pronounced 'Gurri'). It means paradise.
According to Aboriginal legend, when humans were created and needed a place to live, the mighty god Beiral sent his messenger Yendingie with the goddess K’gari down from heaven to create the land and mountains, rivers and sea. K’gari fell in love with the earth’s beauty and did not want to leave it. So Yendingie changed her into a heavenly island – Fraser Island.

Aboriginal people regarded dingoes as being equal to man

Archaeological research and evidence shows that Aboriginal Australians occupied Fraser Island at least 5000 years ago. There was a permanent population of 400-600 that grew to 2000-3000 in the winter months due to abundant seafood resources. The arrival of European settlers in the area was an overwhelming disaster for the Butchulla people. European settlement in the 1840s overwhelmed the Aboriginal lifestyle with weapons, disease and lack of food. By the year 1890, Aboriginal numbers had been reduced to only 300 people. Most of the remaining Aborigines, the Butchulla tribe, left the island in 1904 as they were relocated to missions in Yarrabah and Durundur, Queensland. It is estimated that up to 500 indigenous archaeological sites are located on the island.

The dingo was so sacred and revered, that Aboriginal women nursed dingo pups from their own breasts.

Fraser Island is an island located along the southern coast of Queensland, Australia, approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Brisbane. Its length is about 120 kilometres (75 mi) and its width is approximately 24 kilometres (15 mi). It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1992. The island is considered to be the largest sand island in the world at 1840 km². It is also Queensland's largest island, Australia's sixth largest island and the largest island on the East Coast of Australia.

Fraser Island has over 100 freshwater lakes, as well as the second highest concentration of lakes in Australia after Tasmania. The freshwater lakes on Fraser Island are some of the cleanest lakes in the world.

Fraser Island Lake McKenzie

Mammals found on Fraser Island include swamp wallabies, echidnas, ringtail and brush tail possums, sugar gliders, squirrel gliders, phascogales, bandicoots, potoroos, flying foxes and dingoes. The Swamp Wallaby finds protection from dingos in the swampy areas which have dense undergrowth. There are 19 species of bats which live on or visit Fraser Island.

Estimates of the number of visitors to the island each year range from 350,000 to 500,000. The chance of seeing a dingo in its natural setting is one of the main reasons people visit the island.


How to get there

Follow the Maryborough - Hervey Bay Road from Maryborough. Continue past the Bundaberg turn off on the left, and turn right into Booral Road. Continue past the General Store and reach the waterfront. Look for the Kingfisher Bay Resort Barge. Bookings have to be made in advance.

Dingo

The Australian Dingo or Warrigal is an ancient, free roaming, primitive canine unique to the continent of Australia, specifically the outback. Its original ancestors are thought to have arrived with humans from southeast Asia thousands of years ago, when dogs were still relatively undomesticated and closer to their wild Asian Gray Wolf parent species, Canis lupus.

The fur of adult dingoes is short, bushy on the tail, and varies in thickness and length depending on the climate. The fur colour is mostly sandy to reddish brown, but can include tan patterns and be occasionally black, light brown, or white.

It is often wrongly asserted that dingoes do not bark. Compared to most other domestic dogs, the bark of a dingo is short and mono sounding.

80% of the diet of dingoes consist of 10 species, the Red Kangaroo, Swamp Wallaby, cattle, Dusky Rat, Magpie Goose, Common Brushtail Possum, Long-haired Rat, Agile Wallaby, European rabbit and the Common Wombat.
Today dingoes live in all kinds of habitats, including the snow-covered mountain forests of Eastern Australia, dry hot deserts of Central Australia, and Northern Australia's tropical forest wetlands.

Dingo Fence


The Dingo Fence or Dog Fence is a pest-exclusion fence that was built in Australia during the 1880s and finished in 1885, to keep dingoes out of the relatively fertile south-east part of the continent (where they had largely been exterminated) and protect the sheep flocks of southern Queensland. It is one of the longest structures in the world and is the world's longest fence.

It stretches 5,614 km (3,488 mi) from Jimbour on the Darling Downs near Dalby through thousands of kilometres of arid land ending west of Eyre peninsula on cliffs of the Nullarbor Plain above the Great Australian Bight(131° 40’ E),near Nundroo. It has been partly successful, though dingoes can still be found in parts of the southern states.

Although the fence has helped reduce losses of sheep to predators, this has been countered by holes in fences found in the 1990s to which dingo offspring have passed through and due to increased pasture competition from rabbits and kangaroos.

Today, the rate at which feral camel are smashing down sections of the fence is fast increasing in Southern Australia. Plans for restructuring the Dog fence to be taller and electric are under process.

Dingoes and Aboriginal culture


Traditionally dogs have a privileged position in the aboriginal cultures of Australia (which the dingo may have adopted from the thylacine) and the dingo is a well known part of rock carvings and cave paintings. There are ceremonies (like a keen at the Cape York Peninsula in the form of howling) and dreamtime stories connected to the dingo, which were passed down through the generations. There are strong feelings that dingoes should not be killed and in some areas women are breast feeding young cubs.