USC281_0007

Food was prolific and easily obtained mainly from the sea. Numerous, extensive
middens along the shore line bear witness to Flinder's observations. Their principal diet was eugaries called "war-wongs" but they varied these with fruits (Midyim,
pandanus and zamias) vegatables and fish.

Unlike white people, the aborigines were tidy. When they feasted on the shell fish
from the shores, they piled the shells in heaps. Gradually, over the years, huge
mounds would build up, sometimes so large that after being overgrown with grass,
they have been mistaken for small natural hills.

By 1897 only 300 aboriginals remained. They were brought to the old quaratine
station at White Cliffs where a mission station was established. Here they were ex-
posed to the corrupting influence of alcohol and opium. In 1904 the mission people were transferred to Yarrabah (outside Cairns) and the few remaining to Durundur
and Cherbourg - A sad end for the long history of the proud Kabi tribe.

THE DISTURBERS

Great Fraser - "our" Island, don't die!
Only death will take this scene
Not the blindness from our tears,
As we watch your wealth destory
The calm of other hidden years.

The sleeping sand stirring slightly
Under her children's moving feet
Each day, now wakens in terror
At the marauder's looting churn
Tearing her very life away.

Dorothy Tracey.

Looking south to Indian Head from dunes behind Waddy Pt.

Native flora on the ocean beach, Fraser Island.

FOR THE NATURALIST
The wastelands are clothed with an extraordinary miscellany of varied tree growth
swamps, heaths, wild flowers and mangroves, but in places are bare, extensive, snow
white shifting sandhills. In spring the wildflowers make a wonderful pattern of beauty.
Swampy low lands and sandy hill tops blaze in purple, blue, red and yellow.

The most obvious animals are the brumbies who have survived on the island since
the earliest white settlement. However, dingoes, possums, squirrels and bandicoots,
as well as wallabies, are part of the fauna to be encountered.

The prolific bird life of Fraser Island and its wide variety of plant life are major
attractions to the naturalists. Only the thunder of surf can obliterate the songs of
almost 200 varieties of birds records on Fraser Island. Cockatoos, wrens, honey-
eaters, kingfishers, whistlers, robins and flycatchers are just some of the birds which
abound on this 77 mile long sanctuary where shooting is strictly forbidden.