my daytrip to fraser

The tracks are pretty rough, however the Fraser Island mangagement people and the Rangers are very reluctant to have them graded as they believe that it will only encourage people to speed. I actually quite enjoy driving along those rough tracks at a slow pace as I get to see quite a bit more than I normally would.

Peter

I was there at Easter and the tracks were okay considering the damp weather.
Mostly vehicles were well behaved; the occasional silliness/ignorance seemed to be committed by the backpacker / rental 4wd brigade rather than tourist buses.
I've always been impressed with how well the overall upkeep of the island is considering the pressure.
The only solution to crowds would be to increase the permit cost or limit the number of permits issued. I'm inclined to think either of these would hurt us 'locals' more than tourist outfits (who could just pass on the costs or book permits furthur out in advance).
Regards,
Brad

Glenno
Can't do much about the buses etc but we can still enjoy the island.
The inland tracks really haven't gotten that bad over the years as I have travelled them (more than most) for over 20 years.
Some of the tracks 15 years or so ago were almost impassable then. Particularly the now closed Bowarrady track. Depends on the weather I guess.
As far as bogging goes, IMHO, I would suspect that most of the problems would be due to driver inexperience or an unwillingness to reduce their tyre pressures.
Cheers
OskarMrs Oskar on Big Red

Glenno
Can't do much about the buses etc but we can still enjoy the island.
The inland tracks really haven't gotten that bad over the years as I have travelled them (more than most) for over 20 years.
Some of the tracks 15 years or so ago were almost impassable then. Particularly the now closed Bowarrady track. Depends on the weather I guess.
As far as bogging goes, IMHO, I would suspect that most of the problems would be due to driver inexperience or an unwillingness to reduce their tyre pressures.
Cheers
OskarMrs Oskar on Big Red

glenno
We just got back yesterday from Fraser, only our second visit.... the buses were outnumbered by the "hire-a-troopy" set, driven by backpackers with little or no experience, we travelled the Southern Lakes Drive track,the Lake Garawongery (?) track and the Wathumba Creek/Orchid Beach track and found them in what I would describe as quite good condition, if you like to drive medium to sometimes hard tracks. (Lake Garawongery, in particular the Lake to Poyungan Rocks section was a lot of fun!) I agree that the driving is slow, but that gave us more chance to look around! The (what I would call) "serious" 4 wheel driver wouldn't be there without the right gear. We found 3 guys bogged to the axles in a compact "soft-roader" at the Indian Head exit. They had a shovel, which I suspect was borrowed, but no other recovery gear. The car was equipped with road tyres, which were almost bald, and they had dropped the pressures to 10 psi. (They asked if I would give them a hand to push the car so that "gravity will take over and it will roll down the hill"... )
The only good thing that I could see from all this is that the back packers hire a fourby, and try to cram so much into a day trip or two day trip that they don't spend too much time at any spot... E.G at Lake Boomanjin the longest a truckload stopped was for about 15 minutes.... so they really couldn't be there long enough to do too much damage. Lake Garawongery was the same... Lake McKenzie is another story obviously and will be closed to traffic from next week. The hire-a-troopy business is thriving, and it would be hard to stop it.... as much as we would all to......
cheers
Brian