Fraser Island bush food walks from Kingfisher Bay Resort

The guided bush food walk on Fraser Island, run by rangers from the Kingfisher Bay Resort, explores Indigenous uses for plants. The walk looks at how the Butchulla people would use piccabeen palms, cinnamon myrtle, paperbark trees and foxtail sedge.

For many visitors, their first experience of Fraser Island/ K’gari is on the rough and ready side. Four wheel drive tag along tours stop at the lakes, Maheno shipwreck and rainforest walks, before camping out for the night. But there are more comfortable accommodation options on the world’s largest sand island.

Plushest of these is the Kingfisher Bay Resort on the west of the island. It’s not just about the accommodation here, though. The K’Gari World Heritage Discovery Centre is here and the activities on offer are impressive too.

Pick the best K’gari/ Fraser Island tour for you

HIGHLIGHTS PACKAGE: One day coach tour from Hervey Bay.
FROM THE SOUTH: One day 4WD tour from Rainbow Beach.
PACK MORE IN: Two day tour, staying at K’gari Beach Resort.
BEACHY: Boat cruise with west coast beach stops.
BACKPACKERS: Three day, drive-yourself camping adventure from Hervey Bay. Or similar from Rainbow Beach.
MORE LUXURIOUS: Three day adventure, staying at the Kingfisher Bay Resort.

Fraser Island bush food walk

The Kingfisher Bay Resort offers a range of bushwalking options, both guided and self-guided, and ranging from hefty all-dayers to short strolls along the Wallum wetlands boardwalks.

Perhaps the most intriguing of the guided strolls is a Fraser Island bush food walk focused on native plants and how the indigenous Butchulla people used them.

Ranger Robin’s first prop is handily outside the resort reception. It’s the giant leaf from a piccabeen palm. “It was used as a backpack, although it could be sealed with honey from native bees to make it watertight,” says Robin. “So it would then be used for carrying water.”

The next leaf to be plucked off is smaller. Robin grinds it up in his hands, then invites guests to taste it. There’s a strong clove/ nutmeg taste to what’s known as the cinnamon myrtle, and it would be used in cooking much like a bay leaf. It also has natural anaesthetic properties – chew it for long enough and your mouth will start to go numb. The Butchulla would chew up to 20 before allowing a tribal doctor to remove a rotten tooth.

Fraser Island bush food walk: Lemon myrtle, paperbark trees and foxtail sedge

Further along, the Fraser Island bush food walking tour encounters lemon myrtle, which is fabulous in herbal teas. There are also the tiny stingless bees that make the honey used to seal the piccabeen palm leaves. Then come paperbark trees – the bark was used like plasters, and the white powder found behind it has amazing antiseptic properties – and the soft, green foxtail sedge which was used for lining beds. It is now is extremely popular with florists arranging bouquets.