Yesterday I got up super early (half past 5) and made my way into the city to meet up with the tour people at 6.45am! Why everything has to start so early I don't know...was a kicker on the tour in October and I am guessing it is going to be the same when I go to Alice Springs in May.
Anyway, I digress....Moreton Island is reportedly the second biggest sand island in the world, after Fraser Island which is furher up the coast. To get to the island we were taken to a service station on the way out of Brisbane by one guide who was heading off to Fraser Island with another group and we were collected by another guide who took us to the Port of Brisbane to catch the Micat over to the Island. There were four of us who were heading over, me and three girls from Brazil - all very nice but only one of them could speak English so communicating was definitely interesting! The boat took about 1hr and 30mins to get across to Moreton Island which looks like this from a distance....
There are no offical roads on the island, they are all surprisingly enough made of sand so in order to get round it you need to have a 4WD vehicle and luckily enough for us Graham our guide for the day was waiting on the beach with one to take us round with the group who had been on a 2 day tour and had camped there the night before. The boat dropped us off directly onto the beach and we were able to have a look at the ship wrecks there that are just of the coast.
They were pretty cool and if you were there for a longer stay you got the option of going snorking round them.
We all piled into the 4WD vehicle which was pretty basic but could fit the 11 of us in as the back had bench seats and we went across to the desert on the island and went sand toboganning....I don't have any photos of this as it was very sandy and I didn't want to trash my camera! The basic idea though is that you climb to the top of one of the dunes, lie face first on a piece of wood that has been waxed on one side, you pull up the front of it, put your elbows out and go down the dune....great fun but I opened my mouth on the 2nd run and got a mouthful - not helpful when the water was in the vehicle! Would definitely do it again and think I might take Mr & Mrs M if they come over in November!
After the important drink of water and the recovery from walking across the dunes (painful on both the calves and the lower back!) we headed down to the eastern beach which we drove all the way along and then went across the island to the Western Beach where we chilled out and rinsed off the sand whilst Graham organised our picnic lunch. There was a creek of some form running through the middle of the beach which had brown water in - yes I know it sounds disgusting but it was from the tea trees apparently so we rinsed off in there - weird as it was really warm on the top but cold on the bottom...very refreshing though! We then had our lunch before heading back across the island to Cape Moreton lighthouse which is apparently Queenslands oldest lighthouse...you can also look out over the ocean where we saw dolphins and turtles playing in the waves!
We then headed back to the campsite where the group had stayed the night before to get their kit and have a bit of a cool off in the Blue lagoon - which again was brown because of the trees but was a lovely freshwater lake that was nice and cool and we needed it the cooling down - so hot! I have a nice red mark on my back to prove it!
We then headed back across the island to get the boat back to the main land before us all heading in our separate directions...
It was a fab day but I was glad to get home to get rid of the sand and where we had a lovely meal of spaghetti bolognase made by matty and then a little St Paddy's day drink before I had an early night....nice jugs SP!
Its going to be a quiet couple of days before I start work on Monday!
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