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Date: May 2004
Location: Noosa, Queensland Australia
 "We're coming up to the 'car eating beach'," the driver
said as the Toyota Landcruiser zoomed along the wide thoroughfare.
I looked on ahead but could only see clear sand.
"It's a
notoriously treacherous spot," the driver continued. "One guy barreled
through here in his 4WD and disappeared down a hole. When they tried to
pull him out, the wheels got stuck and it wrecked his suspension. Well,
the salt water would have probably ruined his 4WD anyway."
We
entered the treacherous area and bumped over a few potholes in the sand
before zipping on. No 4WD-eating trenches today. Apparently created by
wind and tide, they were deeper some days than others.
"This beach
is actually a gazetted thoroughfare," the driver said. "It has a speed
limit and its own road rules."
We had been driving for about 70km,
mainly on wide-open beach, in beautiful Queensland, with blue water on our
right and sand hills to our left.
The beach was at Wide Bay, just
south of Fraser Island or some way north of Noosa, depending on how you
looked at it.
I was travelling with Fraser
Island Adventure Tours and we had set out from Noosa about an
hour-and-a-half earlier.
If the beach was a road, then it gave
birth to its own motor 'inns': after driving for about 20km we came across
campers shacked up under the tall sand hills. And what campsites! The best
one had tents set up for living, dining and sleeping quarters, complete
with a flagpole.
Further north, the sand had compacted into
cliffs with amazing colours. One canyon had horizontal stripes of yellow,
orange and red sand, which suddenly aroused in me a craving for candy.
The left-hand side of the beach became more dangerous; from time
to time the towering cliffs of compacted sand had collapsed. It didn't
bother the casuarina trees, though. They just slithered 70 feet down the
embankment and continued to grow even when they were half buried.
I found myself looking out for car-eating potholes and cliffs that
could suddenly launch tonnes of sand on top of us.
But it was just
another one of those ridiculous picture-postcard days with blue sea and
blue sky, which you tell everyone about but they just don't believe.
After a hearty buffet lunch, we made it to Inskip Point,
overlooking Fraser Island, but due to time constraints we headed back-
instead of going over to the island by ferry, as the tour usually does.
Back in Noosa, I returned to my room at the spectacular South Pacific
Resort Noosa where the ambience had been inspired by
the South Seas.
The resort's interior designer said her brief had
been to recreate the South Pacific's myths and magic through an eclectic
mix of the tropical and the colonial.
The resort was the
brainchild of long time Noosa developer Jim Tatton, who believed there was
a market for upmarket accommodation inspired by dreams of the South
Pacific.
The spacious, fully self-contained one, two and three
bedroom apartments had a tropical feel with colourful fabrics and prints,
ranging from Gaugin to 1950s Pam Am posters.
There were polished
timber floors, cane furniture filled with soft cushions, oriental and
Polynesian trinkets, wide French windows and pleasant vistas over palm
fringed paths and the wide lagoon-like pools.
The spacious
pitched-roof lobby, Hula Moon restaurant and cocktail bar, plus the health
and beauty spa complimented the resort's decidedly South Seas' feel.
After racing about in a 4WD, I definitely decided high tea, or
preferably a cocktail, might be just the relaxant I needed to end another
day in paradise.
For more information:
Tourism Sunshine
Coast
Tel +61 7 5452 2555
- By Shaun O'Dowd
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