K'gari 2025

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Cleanup K’Gari Trip Report

 

A few spanners cast in other people’s works meant I had inherited the mantle of the clubs’ inaugural cleanup trip leader (Tino and Rob, we missed you). Anne and I were the ones who had driven on K’gari before, so there were four Grenadiers, seven Pax, four Fraser Island virgins, two Sand Driving first timers, and one other Fraser familiar but his first time driving his vehicle. 

 

With a few WhatsApp chat conversations and calls later, the plan was pulled together. Each of us had a goody bag with no shortage of beer stubby holders. Arthur had the groups allocation of yellow rubbish bags and a sharps disposal kit. Our cleanup duty was Sunday morning 8am-1pm on a 6.2km stretch of beach from Eurong halfway to Poyungan Rocks, sharing cleanup duty with Bayside Offroaders. Coincidentally I had done my cert three 4WD training with that club and I knew their trip leader Bec. Beach Camping Zone 5 - Maheno was allocated as our campsite, shared with another new outfit, the GWM Tank 4WD Club. If I was asked to pick where I would like to camp on K’gari, this is exactly the spot I would choose, nestled between Eli Creek and the Maheno Wreck. 

 

Anne and I headed up Thursday night with our van staying at Standown Park, Kia Ora on the road from Gympie to Rainbow Beach. Gary and Fiona Steele met us there so we could travel in convoy to the island. Brief introductions were had on a chilly night when we pulled in about 8:30pm. Then a quick “101 driving on sand” briefing for Gary before pulling the pin to warm up in our 20ft Retreat ERV or the “Taj Mahal” as we have christened it. A six thirtyish start got us to breakfast at Little Parliament Cafe in Rainbow beach at 7am. Having eaten, and Gary having charmed a whole takeaway coffee cup of Chocolate Freckles from the waitress, we were off again.

 

Inskip Point loomed up quickly where we passed hundreds of 4WDs busy airing down. We pulled up on the wrong side of the road utilizing the only gap we could and just across from a Shale Blue Trialmaster in convoy with another club.  Airing all wheels including the van down to 18psi, the queue to the barge had extended back up the road we had travelled down, so we asked nicely and pulled in as space was made. 

 

By complete coincidence this put us in the middle of the Bayside Offroaders convoy and just in front of their team lead Bec’s car. The queue was long and at a standstill, so Anne wisely took to the road/sand on foot to go shoot some photos, and we filled the time in with introductions and chatter to the Bayside team. We’d left Gary and Fiona behind by about 15 vehicles now, with a simple plan to wait for them on the other side.

 

Two hours later we rolled onto the barge just after 10am, loaded first due to the size of our van, it was time to relax. Then pure panic set in part way across as I realised the Grenadier had faulted and wouldn’t start, requiring me to lock it up, run away with the key an unknown distance (10m works by the way) and pray there were seven minutes to get through the internal reset sequence. As the watch hand moved past the mark and the barge was pulling up to the beach, I unlocked the Grenadier and we both breathed a sigh of relief when the engine roared to life. Not only saving the embarrassment of holding up the K’gari cleanup crews, but the reputational ribbing the Grenadier would have got. While waiting for Gary & Fiona, I scribbled a quick email to Jordan at Ignition saying that I had managed to replicate the issue on the other key, but I had forgotten in the excitement/panic to video of the no-start event that INEOS had requested.

 

With Gary and Fiona pulling off as the last vehicle on the next barge, we headed up the sand around the point thankful the delay left us plenty of hard firm beach to tow the vans. The first planned stop was Eurong to register the team and collect our Sunday meal tickets for the camp cook. The two Grenadiers were just eating up the drive with the vans in tow making it look effortless as we got up to around 70 kms. I had picked Bayside’s channel 16 on our handheld and they were immediately in front meaning I got a read on all the washouts before we encountered them and could pass them on to Gary and Fiona making me look super aware. 

We pulled up on the beach front event registration tent at Eurong about 11:30am where the Event team was only part way through the job due to the queue for the barge. 

 

Arther Fowler had started super early on Friday morning direct out of Brisbane and he would beat us to the campsite by several hours, and the event staff told us he had passed through a while before us. He only spent one hour waiting in the queue and only then because his spot was being usurped by frequent travellers: The rangers and island staff who get priority. So, radios on channel 29 which we had been allocated for the event, we kept on driving. A little bit of chatter heard from a stray Gold Coast Club vehicle looking for his club mates, and a bit of humorous chat mostly instigated by Gary (call sign Freckles). The day was warming up and the fun was being had.

 

A couple of dingos were spotted along the beach, a lot of 4wd club banners hanging to highlight their campsites and a bunch of 4wd vehicles with a few people out fishing.

The first real driving challenge for us (having the large van) was navigating the Poyungan rocks bypass. Low range, centre diff lock & rear lockers on just to make sure I didn’t make a tit of myself and get stuck, I set off up the plastic matting and rocks. Getting part up with the 3.5t caravan in tow I met a Tour bus coming down, and had to reverse the bloody rig back down navigating the caravan in my rear view mirror between a couple of tyre-ripping rocks, all for no thanks, just an impatient spirt of speed from the tour bus driver, going left of us when he spotted a gap large enough. Well done Gary for leaving a gap! 

 

Next up was the bypass at Yandina rocks and there was no way round rocks with the tide, but it proved straight forward. I was worried about the depth of Eli Creek washout but conditions were good and we sailed on through. Then we heard Arthur on channel and 1km later at 1pm we pulled up. Arthur had parked at the entrance plain as day and had walked through to see how we might get in.  We picked the second entrance and while  very soft deep was deep all was fine as I pulled through with a bit of momentum to assist. 

 

Then the boys spied a better spot and Gary pulled his little camper trailer up there, but our rig got buried with me trying to take the corner. After an hour of recovery with Maxtrax (and Gary’s enthusiastic assistance at using these for the first time) we were back where I started with my wife asking “what was wrong with the first spot” which was flat hard packed and sheltered and “why don’t you listen” as we set about making camp. She pointed out Arthur had wisely kept out of it and had already begun setting up camp in the spot he just pulled into to be out of the way.  

 

The day was marred a bit by the news that there had been a Dingo attack at Yandina rocks not an hour after we had been through where 9 year old girl was attacked and parents nowhere to be seen. Sadly, the driver who saw it in his mirror, stopped and went back to rescue the girl, had to stab the Dingo to get it release the girl. We heard later from a ranger that the female Dingo had been abandoned by her pack and was found by the rangers but had lost too much fluid and died shortly after they got help. 

Camp set, we broke out the beers and then we saw the dingo come through the camp. After Gary and Fiona raced to secure anything edible that they might have had around, we reconvened back again and broke out the Rose, Pinot Noir and Shiraz. All the crew into wine, who’d have thought. 

So over drinks but no fire (sadly no campfire was allowed due to where we were staying) we set a tentative itinerary of Champagne Pools for the morning and then back in the afternoon to make sure Ben and Julie found us, Ben’s work and a Friday prior commitment had kept them from making it to K’gari on the Friday. And it was Day One done.

Day two dawned bright and early, I got up to watch the sunrise, which was sadly only ordinary, then wandered down the beach to see our neighbours up and about looking at something. It was the GWM Tank camp with just one vehicle after late cancellations by the others. A pleasant young couple, Ash and Sam, were looking at group of Dingos which had made camp next to theirs and had broken into their locked fridge and taken all their food overnight and were then sleeping off the goat curry with naan that they had stolen. The debris was strewn all around the dune. 

Her (Sam’s) vehicle turned out to be a wrapped bright pink GWM 300 with the tag @that_pink_tank on Instagram. Turned out Ash owned a Tank ute as well. I said seeing they were all alone they were welcome to tag along with which they did later.

 

Anne had decided for a morning off as she has been to Champagne pools a few times wasn’t up for a swim.  Arthur’s Grenadier was too integrated into his campsite to pull out easily, so in tandem, we took two Grenadiers, with Arthur in our Silver and Gary and Fiona in their Black one, and That Pink Tank as a tag along. 

 

So many Dingoes seen on the way there, I’ve never seen as many on K’Gari we also tooted at a Grenadier owner as we went past but didn’t stop to interrupt his cleanup efforts. 

 

The pools were crowded, the first carpark overflowing and so we got a park at the 2^nd carpark. Obviously, everybody not on the Saturday cleanup roster had plans involving Champagne pools. The tide was not favourable for the picture perfect waves breaking over the rocks giving the fizz to the name, but we donned on swimming gear went for a bathe, I want for body surf with one of the Bayside crew who hatched the same plan it seemed and then we were off again, going our separate ways. That Pink Tank was off to Ngkala rocks so we decided to tag along with their agenda and went up through Orchard beach stopping for a snag at the pub where the Cleanup K’gari crew had put on a sausage sizzle and then onward to to the rocks. 

Beyond Ngkala rocks the campsites are closed thanks to Cyclone Alfred and the damage, and the rocks track itself has had a sandbank slide onto it so the entry is closed. But round the bottom is passable at the right tide to the midpoint where you can climb back onto the track and do the section everyone gets stuck on. We watched as That Pink Tank took a run at it, we checked out going around but were turned back by blue water too deep to take the Grennie swimming and then waited for the Pink Tank to come hooning back leaving Sam the driver on Cloud Nine – she’d never done it before and didn’t realize how long and expansive the soft sand was until in it. A few photos later it was back to Wabby point to enjoy the sun, a few more dingoes including a pack of four scrounging on the beach from something buried in the sand.  

Home bound we got down the beach back to campsite with more dingo sightings and a couple of Pelicans hovering round a fisherman hoping for offcuts. And we turned into camp finding that Ben and Julie had turned up just 5 minutes before having missed the campsite, got as far as Cathedrals 40 minutes up the beach, turned around and found it on their way back. Clearly, we need club flags as we were too well hidden. 

 

Ben was running city tyre pressures and they brought just camping gear and had no trouble. Leaving them to make camp, we gathered around Taj Mahal, broke open the nibbles, beer, gin and wine and settled in for another quiet although Dingo visited night at K’gari, after a stunning weather day. Discussion turned to the club, general Grenadier mods, then a bit of planning for the cleanup for morning and the departure time. The big map came out again and we talked about tides in general and what to expect for the run back for Ben and Julie to the Inskip ferry in the avo. 

 

Day three dawned with an early start, much nicer sunrise too. Ben and Julie had packed up everything, mentioned their midnight Dingo visitors moving around but causing no problems, we were off up the beach at 7am to get to our Clean-up point. It was clear from the tracks as we left with 3 Grenadiers again Arthur coming with us so as not to break camp. The tide was just going out, Eli creek as a smooth easy washout after the tide, and we were running the top of the tide line on softish sand to Happy Valley. Then we had to take the inland bypass track to Yandina rocks, then it was back onto the beach again for a clean run down to Poyungan rocks and the short bypass there.

We had the beach to ourselves, only one set of vehicle tracks before us. And we had arrived at the North mark of our cleanup stretch and started down it in reverse, no presence on channel 16, no tracks of vehicles, Bayside Offroaders were nowhere to be seen. We thought this way they would have to come past us to the other end, and that way we could meet in the middle.  

That Pink Tank had swung by shortly after we had started it turned out they were the section next to us cleaning back up to Poyungan rocks with and so they’d kindly snapped a picture of us all, with our fashionable high viz vests, closed in shoes, sun protection, pickup sticks and the mandatory yellow cleanup sacks for rubbish.

 

By 10am we were needing a short break so we swung our Clevershade Ultra awning into action – turned the car around so the shade fell on the people and hung out in the shade for a biscuit or two (thanks Anne for the Byron Bay cookies) and a cold drink. Still no sign of Bayside Offroaders… hmmm.

By 10:30 the first of the bayside crew had turned up and after a bit of miscommunication with some of their team who were cleaning up the section we had already done we started hopping down the beach in tandem with them in 100m stretches to sweep for rubbish. It turned they had got stuck in their late afternoon excursion the day beefore and were nervous about the tide so had picked a later start time, unlike our intrepid seasoned group who showed no fear. 

 

Finally at half twelve we pulled the pin and set about finding the rubbish point. With a little confusion and me driving up and down the beach a couple of times calling our on channel 16 to Bayside for helpful instructions (the booklet said Cornwalls road, but the briefing which I hadn’t attended had identified a spot south of Eurong), we found it and offloaded our  lot into Bayside’s growing pile. 

 

Dropping the rubbish off to the collection station, it was all weighed and identified by the teams, people and vehicles. With Bayside Offroaders and Ineos 4x4 Queensland combined we had collected 325kg of rubbish with 12 vehicles, 25 people. The overall volume collected for weekend was 8.3 tonnes with 384 club vehicles, and 23 participating clubs, beating all previous records. Greater than 70% of the rubbish was international, there were 30,000 pieces of plastic, 12,000 bottle caps, 425m of rope.

We went to the resort at Eurong to have a well-earned drink and some food, Ben and Julie were leaving our group here and making their way back, so we bid them farewell at 2pm so they could beat the tide and catch the Inskip Ferry.  As we made our way back to camp a swim at Eli Creek was debated but we offered Arthur a hot shower in the Taj Mahal and he succumbed to the mortal pleasures of promised hot water.  

 

All dolled up and ready for the K’gari camp dinner at Cathedrals we ducked out just after 4pm knowing  it was a bit tight tide wise to get up the beach, all five of us had all piled into our Silver Grennie to make the logistics easy as parking was limited at the event, also allowed others to have a drink or two. As we came out the camp turnout, we found a young man, his Hilux with a large caravan stranded in the sand as the tide was rapidly coming in, the max tracks attempts were a failure due to his rear lockers not working. We didn’t realise at the time but he also had his partner and young child with them.

So he asked for a snatch and I inspected his unrated strap and agreed to use it with no promises, a planned higher speed snatch one was organised with a 2m runup and full acceleration with spectators well away from the firing line, and also as quickly as we could due to our travel and tide pressure. Five tonne plus payload, Hilux buried up to the rear hubs and diff and he hadn’t reached the worst of the soft sand yet, not to mention the large caravan. So Grennie to the rescue snatching him into the campsite from the deepest soft sand. Thankfully the strap did its job. Picking up the rest of the crew who had watched the demo snatch, it was on and we were racing up the beach at 80kms speed limit to get to the K’gari cleanup gathering before the tide cut us off.

 

The gathering was a bit of a drawn out affair and we arrived as one of the last vehicles just before 5pm. By 5.10pm Cathedrals would be unreachable while the tide came in. The camp cooked dinner was served, various sponsor speeches made then the raffle draws began – an agonising hour or two to get through the 78 prizes drawn. Sadly, none of the Grenadier crew had winning tickets. The raffle itself was a bit of a surprise, some of the prizes were large and they were handed over on the spot… imagine you won one of the 3 three 270 awnings from Rhino, Yakima or XTM, or a drawer system, or a fridge. How do you get that home unexpectedly? Mental note: next time leave room for prizes.

 

Chasing the high tide line down the beach 1 hour and 15 minutes after high tide, as the mist rolled in, there were a couple of vehicles grateful for someone to follow including That Pink Tank. We missed the Maheno wreck in the dark and with the tide in and overshot our campsite. It was only when we got to Eli creek and crossed it that we realised where we were and turned around and popped back the 1km up the beach.  If we’d known we would have had to stop assess and time our way through the waves at the narrowest section between the sea and the washed out beach which turned out to be between our camp and Eli Creek. We called it a night fairly quickly knowing we had to pack up in the morning and leave this beautiful paradise.  

Monday dawned with the best sunrise yet and it was time to pack up camp and make a leisurely drive back to Brissy. We figured there was no hurry as we wanted a bit of packed sand to run the caravans down the beach so we had set departure for around 9am. Beyond Happy Valley was still impassable on the beach with the tide so we dragged the caravans through the Yandina bypass with me snagging and knocking one of the extension mirrors off the car, quick race back to grab it with almost no room either side to get past the caravan… hmm tight. 

 

The ferry ride was uneventful this time and the queue and the delay to board was not so burdensome as Friday’s. Once ashore on the mainland the convoy broke up, for us to head to a dump point at Rainbow Beach, and for the others to queue at the local underbody carwash. Waiting for our turn for a washdown, we bid Gary, Fiona and Arthur farewell on the radio as they pulled away. The adventure had finished.

 

Ben & Julie Meddows:

“We arrived on K’gari Saturday morning, a day later than the rest of the club. Thankfully, we caught a ferry straight away and made it to the campsite in good time. That evening, we gathered around a caravan, sharing nibbles, dinner, and great conversation — a perfect way to settle in and connect with the group.

 

“The next morning, we were up early to meet at the cleanup site before 8 AM. Driving in convoy, we made our way to our designated section of the beach. Hopping out of our Grenadiers, we got straight to work. Collecting rubbish together as a club felt incredibly rewarding — not only did we fill numerous bags, but we also shared in a real sense of purpose and teamwork.

 

 “As we moved along the shoreline, we passed other clubs hard at work as well. Bunny-hopping past each other between cleanup zones, there was a powerful feeling of shared effort. A wave, a smile, a nod — small gestures that reminded us we were all there for something bigger than ourselves.

 

“We’ll definitely be back next year — and this time, we plan to arrive a day earlier to take full part in the weekend, including the final group dinner. This was our first visit to K’gari, and it certainly won’t be our last. We’re especially grateful to those who knew the area well and helped guide us along the way.”

 

Arthur Fowler:

“K'gari Cleanup was an excellent event. It was my first cleanup (and my first time with the Grenadier in the sand) catching the early ferry from Inskip was great and so many other volunteers I had no issues finding the check-in site, camp site, or cleanup site, though some confusion on the dump site but we eventually made it there in time to be told it was a record amount collected which was really rewarding. 

 

The most interesting part of the weekend was identifying the various waste items that we found and with the waste sorted and data collected showing ‘Single Use Bottle Caps’ to be clearly the most found item across the weekend. Really great event, really well coordinated, and highly recommended event to attend 😊

 

Gary & Fiona Steele:

“Our first visit to K’Gari and first time on sand—what a trip. Huge thanks to Doug for guiding us with patience and know-how. We learned a lot in just a couple of days and felt much more confident behind the wheel by the end of it.

 

“Fiona driving through Indian Head was a memory that will live long for us both. What looked pretty intimidating at first turned into a great moment, thanks to some timely advice on channel 68.  More memories were made watching Doug rescue a stranded Ute and Van, and the night drive back along the beach from the Cathedral post event dinner.

 

“We enjoyed getting to know Doug and Anne, Arthur, Ben and Julie. Swapping stories and sharing laughs around the van made the whole experience so friendly 

 

“Early Sunday morning was our allotted slot for the beach clean-up. Hot and painstaking work searching for plastic, rope, old thongs and other scrap in the sand, it’s good to know we played a small part in looking after this amazing place. Lunch was well earned for sure!

 

“We are already looking forward to the next one, and the next club trip!”