Climate
At 500km south of the Tropic of Capricorn, Fraser Island has a hot and humid climate but is cooled by sea breezes. Its summer maximum average temperature is only 30 degrees C, although the summer months have some extremely hot days. Winters are mild, with average temperatures of around 15 degrees C. This is usually the dry season and most winter days are sunny and frost free, making for a very pleasant climate.People with fair skins need to be wary when out in the midday sunshine since unprotected skin can burn in a few minutes. Hats, cool clothing that protects from the sun, sunscreen and common sense are essentials to enjoying Fraser Island summers.
Understand
Fraser Island - stretching over 123km along the southern coast of Queensland. Fraser Island with an area of 184 000 hectares is the largest sand island in the world.
Fraser Island's World Heritage listing ranks it with Australiaâs Uluru, Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef. Fraser Island is a precious part of Australiaâs natural and cultural heritage, it is protected for all to appreciate and enjoy.Fraser island is a place of exceptional beauty, with its long uninterrupted white beaches flanked by strikingly coloured sand cliffs, and over 100 freshwater lakes, some tea-coloured and others clear and blue all ringed by white sandy beaches. Ancient rainforests grow in sand along the banks of fast-flowing, crystal-clear creeks. Fraser Island is the only place in the world where tall rainforests are found growing on sand dunes at elevations of over 200 metres. The low âwallumâ heaths on the island are of particular evolutionary and ecological significance, and provide magnificent wildflower displays in spring and summer.The immense sand blows and cliffs of coloured sands are part of the longest and most complete age sequence of coastal dune systems in the world and they are still evolving. They are a continuous record of climatic and sea level changes over the last 700 000 years. The highest dunes on the island reach up to 240 metres above sea level. The Great Sandy Strait, separating Fraser Island from the mainland, is listed by the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Ramsar Convention. The wetlands include: rare patterned ferns; mangrove colonies; sea-grass beds; and up to 40,000 migratory shorebirds. Rare, vulnerable or endangered species include dugongs, turtles, Illidgeâs ant-blue butterflies and eastern curlews.
Flora and fauna
Dingoes - once common are now endangered on Fraser Island and the island is the only place in Australia where they are considered dangerous mainly due to being fed by visitors and losing their fear of humans.
Fraser Island is famous for over 300 species of birds, and include coastal birds such as dotterals, pied oyster-catchers, pelicans and terns, and birds of prey such as brahminy kites, white-breasted sea eagles, ospreys and peregrine falcons. The island's heathlands are home to one of Australia's rarest bird, the ground parrot, and here you will also find honey-eaters, kingfishers and cockatoos. The freshwater wetlands are the habitat of curlews, jabirus and brolgas. There are 25 species of mammal, including pure-breed dingoes, wallabies, possums, flying foxes and echidnas. Dugong feed on the sea grass, turtles breed on some island beaches, and tailor spawn annually near rocky headlands.Humpback whales from the Antarctica come to the sheltered waters of Platypus Bay with their new calves on their return journey south. Between July and August is the time to see the whales, and licenced tour-operators operate from Hervey Bay.