There doesn’t seem to be much variety in how to do K’gari, the only choice to make is whether to stay overnight or not. As a second day would bring mostly extra beach time or swimming time in one of the lakes, I did the island on a day tour from Hervey Bay, taking the ferry from River Heads at 8.30 a.m. and back at 5.15 p.m.

The remarkably long island can already be seen from the mainland, although the ferry ride still takes 45 minutes. There were about a dozen cars aboard, plus some 50 people. On the island, we were joined by an extra load of those staying in one of the resorts. Three large 4WD buses were filled up – and this still wasn’t the high season. Several private 4WD cars (the only ones allowed on the exclusively sandy roads on the island) had gone ahead of us already, and within 10 minutes or so one had got stuck in the sand. It was pulled out by another car, and fortunately, this was to be our only delay during the day.

The thing that most surprised me about the island is how forested it is. Most photos depict its 75 mile beach, which makes you think the whole island looks like that. But it is actually covered in forest, some rainforest even. And it all manages to grow on sand. Until WH status in 1992, it was used for logging and the Central Station former logging camp attests to that. The early loggers especially liked the very tall and straight trees of the island, which they used for ship’s masts and other shipbuilding. The forests nowadays are mostly under threat from fire: the driver-guide told a story about an accidental fire in 2020, which took 10 weeks to contain and had everybody on the whole island being evacuated. The plants and trees have regrown since and it looks greener than it has ever been before.

My main goal for the trip was to see and take good pictures of a wild dingo. I sat on the right side of the bus (the seaside) and was worried that any dingo would show up on the other side, coming from the forest. But our first one just troddled along the branding, getting its feet wet. I got a good look at that one and managed to take the best pictures I could through the window of a bus (I wonder why they don’t use safari-style buses where the windows open fully?). Later on, we saw 4 more across 3 different sightings. The driver told me that in the past 16 weeks, there had only been 1 tour where they hadn’t seen any.

The dingoes looked just like lean dogs. They’re not deterred by people or their vehicles: as opportunistic scavengers, they have learned that where there are people, there will be food.

During the rest of the day, we did 75 Mile Beach, the Shipwreck, the Pinnacle Rocks, Eli Creek and Lake Mackenzie. These are the main sights on the island and all places were busy (the island receives 500,000 visitors yearly). We also had two obligatory stops at the inland resort to support the local economy.

I am on the fence whether I liked K’gari or not. While the driving in the sand all day makes it feel adventurous, you are mostly confined to the interior of a vehicle and are only allowed out at stops like Lake Mackenzie, which, despite its OUV-worthy origins of being a perched dune lake, looks more like your average swimming pool. I have used the word 'overexploited' before in the context of Australian natural WHS, and K'gari is just another example (why allow so many people in? why build two resorts with bars and swimming pools?, why all the racing on the beach?).