Fraser Island Transportation

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In order to get onto Fraser Island you must take a barge. You can pick it up from Hervey Bay to Moon point, Wangoolba Creek or Kingfisher Resort on Fraser Island or if your like us you can pick it up from Rainbow Beach (inskip point) to Hook Point on the southeren point on Fraser island. Once your on the barge its a good idea to let your tire presser down to 20PSI. Please make sure you read the tide times and keep off beach two hours before and after high tide. Bookings must be made for the barge.

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You can reach Fraser Island by ferry from River Heads near Hervey Bay, or from Inskip Point near Rainbow Beach. My tour group took the ferry from the latter one and the journey only had a duration of fifteen minutes. All ferries transport cars.
See the contact information for more details!

If you are travelling on public transport and want to do a guided tour or backpacker tour to Fraser Island, you need to stay in one of the three mainland towns that are closest to it: Hervey Bay, Rainbow Beach or Noosa. You can book guided tours that leave from there, and the hostels organise self-drive backpacker tours.
All three towns lie on the east coast Greyhound route and can be reached conveniently. From Brisbane it is about two hours/25AUD to Noosa and about five hours/40 - 60AUD to Rainbow Beach and Hervey Bay.

We did a great trip to Fraser a couple of months back - a great adventure in a magnificent setting. You can only go with a 4WD - we used a smaller company called Fraser Magic in Hervey Bay (the guy was german or swiss). We had a great time, with four of us in a Land Rover Defender. Visited the main sights including Lake Mackenzie and Eli Creek, but favorite spots were the southern lakes and Champagne Pools. We thought we could do it in two days, but called the company and stayed an extra day - it is simply impossible to see everything in under 3 days. They were very obliging. The truck took us everywhere we wanted to go (which was not the case with a number of others we saw stuck in the sand, especially around Indian Heads).
Was also very impressed a few days later when they called us to ask where to send my sunglasses that they found in the truck - I thought I had lost them on the island .

The only way of getting around Fraser is by using a 4 x 4. Most hostels in Harvey Bay do 2 night self drive camping trips, they provide the 4 x 4 and everthing you need for a 2 night camping trip, except for food. This is a great way of getting around fraser and it's also a graet way of meeting people. I went with fraser roving and i would have to give them a 10 out of 10, it's a great hostel for 1 and they do a really good trip.

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We were staying at Noosa Heads and took a 4 wheel drive guided day tour. It was a very comfortable , but long day out, our journey starting with a 6:30am pickup at our hotel. Our new Toyota Landcruiser was ideal for the day, handling the drive along beaches and rainforest tracks extremely well. A champagne breakfast was served on Rainbow Beach whilst we enjoyed a BBQ lunch at McKenzie Lake including wine, beer and soft drinks. Our guide gave an excellent commentary and went out of his way to take us to the special spots. Cost for the day was Au $169 per person, well worth it.

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There are a number of tour groups to choose from but, from what I can tell I think my wife and I got lucky and choose not only the best one for our 2 day safari but, we also got the best guide for the trip.

The tour that we went on took us to a number of key spots:

-Eli Creek (no big deal)
-The Pinnacles
-Maheno Shipwreck
-Indian Head
-Lake Wabby
-Central Station
-Lake Birrabeen (BETTER!!! than Lake Mckenzie)
see other details on other pages for more info on each of those sites.

-We stayed overnight in a somewhat rustic but comfortable tent/cabin.

One of the best parts of our trip was our guide (Steve). If you go on this tour I highly
recommend asking for Steve as your tour guide. Having done similiar work back in
my YMCA days I understand how important it is to have a guide who really loves his
work. I think this company is by far the better choice:

http://www.fraserislandco.com.au/tours/2day/wilderness.html

Steve reminded me of myself in what I used to do. Both my wife and I immensely
enjoyed going on his tour.

To be fair we tried one of the other tour groups. It cost more but, we really didn't get
as much out of it. It's clear that paying more in this case will not mean you're getting
something better.

The Fraser Island Company tour (with Steve as our guide) provides a much more comfortable
4WD vehicle with much much more leg room than the competition for a much better price.

On my last trip to Fraser Island I hire a Suzuki Jimny. There were only two of us travelling and this little 4WD was ideal. It was light and easy to drive and didn't tend to sink into the sand like some of the bigger vehicles did.

It was also the cheapest hire vehicle that you could get at AUD$115 per day plus insurance.

There are plenty of places at Hervey Bay to hire 4WDs, but limited numbers on the Island itself.