Rainbow Gorge
After spending the remainder of my rest day watching tourists at Eli Creek and planes landing and taking off on the beach (it's not lonely on the beach at Fraser, I can tell you), I turned in early in preparation for a long old walk back down the beach. Day 6 started with a 7.30am dip in Eli Creek – a refreshing experience with no tourists around and morning birdsong erupting round me – and before long I'd struck camp and started wandering south, this time wearing only my beach shoes. My feet had benefited hugely from a day without hiking boots, and the walking was tiring but easy enough, and to my surprise I got to Rainbow Gorge, the halfway point, by mid-morning.
Rainbow Gorge, which I'd bypassed by getting a lift with the fishermen, also contained examples of coloured sand, but after the Pinnacles it visibly paled. However the 2.5km walking track round the area passed through the Kirral sandblow, and yet again Fraser Island surprised me with its natural beauty. Not since the moonscape of Tongariro had I seen such desolate landscape, with miles of sand blown into Sahara-esque dunes and mountains. Kirral lived up to its name – the wind howled down the valley, filling my eyes, ears and various other crevices with sand – but it added a real atmosphere to the place as it whistled through the cypress pines. Not since Wave Rock has the wind felt so aboriginal and primeval...
That night, after a fairly uneventful but thoroughly enjoyable wander down the beach for 25km, I camped just south of where the track ducked back into the middle of the island. The stars on the beach that night were quite stunning, with not a cloud in the sky.
