Day 316 Moreton Island

Saturday 12 November


Another early start but wasted as the ticket office staff were half an hour late arriving! We set off on the 7.30am ferry to Moreton Island.  Like Frazer Island this is another sand island (3rd biggest in the world) but has a large resort called Tangalooma where we had  booked a room for the night.  This weekend was going to be spent chilling on the beach and not charging around in a 4x4.  


After booking in we headed for the watersports centre and checked in for the 10.00 am snorkelling trip to the wrecks.  There are 15 big boats deliberately wrecked  2km up the beach in shallow water, originally they were supposed to form a harbour.  We were kitted out in wetsuits etc and set off in a flat bottomed boat.  There was quite a current so we were dropped off at one end of the line of wrecks and drifted & snorkelled up to the other end where the boat was waiting.  There were loads of fish, the highlights were the big white octopus, the wobbegong shark (a bottom living shark like a nurse shark) lobsters and the flatheads.  The only difficulty was avoiding the screaming incompetent Koreans/Chinese thrashing about with us!  Unfortunately our underwater camera has sprung a leak so no photos!


The afternoon was more leisurely, on the beach and a snooze. Gaz spent a lot of time on the loo but recovered by evening.  We were going to buy him some Imodium but at $22 ( about £15!!!) a pack we let him suffer! There was a spectacular sunset before we set off to feed the dolphins.  There is a pod of wild dolphins that come in to the jetty each evening where they are fed 20% of their dietary needs. There is a long history to this and all are descendants of a single dolphin who used to take scraps from the fisherman using the jetty when the resort first opened in the early 1960's.  Ian will post a video on Mogs Travels but it was too dark for still shots.


Heres a few views of the resort.

Looking up the Beach to the Wrecks near the Horizon

Playtime, for Gulls & People

My Favourite Palm, Backlit

Kookaburra

Palms

Looking East to the Jetty at Dusk

Kayaks on the Beach at Dusk

Ian with the Video Camera

Sunset + Terns

My Favourite Tree at Sunset