On the way you see the tall pointed silhouettes of the Glasshouse Mountains. It is certainly worthwhile taking a detour, into charming villages, stopping for scones and cream at little 'tearooms', smelling the fresh air of this wooded area. If you come this way with a guide you can also be told some aboriginal myths round these mountains which have the kind of mystery that invites mythical explanation. Since its World Heritage status was declared in 1992, this beautiful island with rare and delicate ecology has become a popular tourist destination. Clear rivers run past ancient angiopteris ferns, under towering satinay and brush box, some trees a thousand years old.
Amazing freshwater lakes dot the island, irresistible places to swim and linger.
Lying as they do on white sand they are the clearest imaginable radiant blue. Along the ocean coastline there are sculptured dunes and coloured sands along a 35 km stretch of beach. Dugong feed on seagrass beds, turtles breed on some island beaches and each year some humpback whales migrating from Antartica come into the sheltered waters of Platypus Bay on the western side. After calving further north, many whales spend a while with their offspring in Platypus Bay before continuing 'home' to Antartica. Fraser is strictly 4WD territory.