Day 54

This is one of the big weekends planned. Moreton Island! With a tour. A little background info, the island is about 39.5 km long (very big, let me tell you when you’re driving around), and 9 km wide at its widest point. It’s the third largest sand island in the world (the other two also in Aussie), meaning that it developed naturally over time. So when it comes to roads…there are none. It’s all sand paths. It’s easiest to drive on the beach especially at low tide since the sand is hard and wet. Otherwise it’s bumpy roads on the shore or through the bush. You have to have 4-wheel drive and an experienced driver, who still sometimes get stuck. There’s a resort on the island where you can stay and feed the dolphins, or do camping. There’s also a town, where some people live without electricity, as there is none, or fuel. Solar panels are popular as well as generators. There’s one small store, stocked once a week by boat, with essentials such as toilet paper, beer, pads, batteries, and some other small items.

So, I woke up at 5:45 am and took the bus to the Brisbane Transit Centre where we would be meeting up with our tour operator and group at 7 am. Anita also came along for the overnight tour. There were two others staying overnight, and four others on the day trip. The ferry, Micat, left at 8:30 am from the Port of Brisbane. We all piled into this Jeep, small packs on our laps, large bags, surfboards, and coolers up top. Our tour guide’s name was Josh. There was a Korean and a Peruvian-American who were staying overnight, and two Japanese, a Korean, and another Asian (I can’t remember where she was from) for the day. We drove the car onto the ferry and piled out. The first level was an inside deck with toilets, tvs, and a café. I headed towards the back where you could go outside, and discovered around a corner by following some people that there were stairs further up! So from there you could see all around. Anita and I sat in the sun on one of the sides, watching the ocean and the planes take off and descend from the Brisbane airport. As we got closer to the island, you could see this ring of turquoise water around the island, and massive sand dunes! Then shipwrecks as we approached further. The ferry took about an hour and a half. The ramp goes directly on the sand and all the Jeeps and trucks drive off.

I was shocked. I was expecting there to be roads, but everyone just drove off along the beach. We were all told to buckle our seat belts and some safety rules, like when he said hands up, hands go up on the ceiling to prevent us from bunking our heads. Luckily I was right behind the passenger seat, a less bumpy ride and you could hold on well. I truly enjoyed the 4-wheel driving. It didn’t make me motion sick at all! We first headed to the Desert, aptly named for the large area of sand. We hiked up the top of a huge, steep dune with our sand boards. It was so hard. I definitely got a work out from all the sand I walked on. We waxed the boards and some people were off. You could sit up, lie down, or use the standing up board with helmet (a lot like snowboarding). I chose to go down the other side, which was less steep, lying down. That was fun! Then the steep side. It was hard to fit completely on the board so I got a bit of sand burn, especially when I tried to slow myself down with my bare feet. Afterwards I had sand everywhere! Down my pants, shirt, and later I discovered after swimming, on the back of my neck. The steep part wasn’t that fun for me, a little too crazy. Anita went on the standing up one and did a great job! Climbing back up after sliding down though…oh my gosh. It was so steep at the end you collapsed when you made it to the top. The last section would have no footprints, because they disappeared by sliding away that quickly. What was cool to see, is that the island has about 20-something different sand colors. There we saw a pure white, black, orange, and brown.

Next, we drove to Blue Lagoon. There was a little walk through the sand (at this point everyone had abandoned their shoes in the car, the sand was cool to walk on actually) to this beautiful fresh water lake. I tasted the water (you’re supposed to be able to drink from it) and it was delish! We ate our lunch here, Subway sandwiches. I chose to go in the water, along with Jun (the overnight staying Korean). It was freezing cold! Definitely one of the colder places I’ve swam. Did not stay in long.

Afterwards, we went back to the main beach by the shipwrecks so that we could go snorkeling. The ocean water felt warm to me, but we all got wet suits (a good thing in hindsight since it was a bit chilly towards the end). Also, we received life jackets (PFDs), flippers, and masks. First we had to show our swimming proficiency by swimming out a little and then back. So I put on one of my flippers and then promptly tripped, hopped, bent the flipper, and fell over trying to put the other one on. Very hard to walk in them! We were told to walk in the water backwards, but walking the first steps, I nearly fell several more times. First thing I discovered: the current was super strong pulling us further down the beach, opposite of where we want to go. Second: I could not swim at all with flippers. At all. They were slightly big which didn’t help, but I felt swimming without them was a lot faster for me. I told Josh and he had someone switch with me, the same size, but a pair that wasn’t ripped on the side. These worked much better. Three: I obviously wasn’t using the breathing tube properly even though I put my entire mouth over the opening since I swallowed quite a bit of sea water. Anita showed me how to properly bite down on it and adjusted the head part and it worked perfectly afterwards. The goggles leaked a bit around the nose so I had to empty them periodically and I kept a hand pushed on the nose bridge which helped.

We were told to swim between these two boats, straight out, and then through the artificial wrecks. Artificial meaning that they put these sunken boats here on purpose. You could only see a few from the surface, most were underwater. The problem was as soon as you headed out you got slammed by the current. I ended up trying to move in the right direction by swimming on my back, worked a bit better. One of the guys on the white boats among the reef encouraged us along, saying that we were putting in a great effort. Finally we made it by the wrecks where the current was a lot less powerful.

Oh my, it was soo beautiful. The water was crystal clear so you could see really far into the depths and there were so many fish! Very colorful ones, striped, blue, yellow, orange, black. You had to be careful when swimming though that you didn’t get to close to the wrecks or swim over the shallow parts. I really wish I had an underwater camera! Anita and I saw a cormorant surface right in front of us fish in his beak. The fish struggled and the bird as well, the fish escaped once, but in the end the bird swallowed it and you could see it moving down the throat. I still can’t believe it fit inside the bird! Such an amazing view. After quite some time, I headed back to shore, not cold at all! The warm water plus a wetsuit worked well.

The day visitors headed back to the ferry as we packed up back to the sandy paths to make our way to our campsite. Along the way we drove through the one town on the island, an old hobo village. Since 98% of the land is national park, you can only build where there were previously buildings. The town was nice, lots of remodeled, glass, fancy houses. It’d be fun to live there except for the fact there’s no electricity, they all had generators and solar panels, and one store, no fuel. The store was restocked once a week on Tuesday by boat. They had essentials like beer, pads, some canned food, drinks, and lots of toilet paper.

The next short we made was at Five Hills Lookout. It was located in the middle of thick bushland and our tour guide told us that it was crawling with snakes. At the top of the path, you had a great view of the surrounding bushland and the Glasshouse Mountains over the bay on the mainland. We made it to our campsite at dusk. First stop after unloading our things into tents, Anita and I decided to share one that had three mats, very comfortable, was the restrooms. One cold water external showers, a sink, and outhouse toilets that had a button on the floor. When you stepped on it, it would pump a cleaning solution into the toilet. It was all very environmentally friendly, trying to minimize the impact of humans.

Since it was dusk time, you could see the path to the beach lit up with setting sunlight. I headed to the beach to watch the sunset and it was gorgeous! Took so many photos of the beautiful sky and waves. Along the beach we’d always see pairs of pied oystercatchers. They always were within 1 km of each other. They have one mate, if the female dies first, the male will starve himself to death, if the male dies first, but the female will just pick another mate. There also exists a rare kind, sooty oystercatcher which Josh’s boss had seen once in 10 years. Apparently the black bird Anita and I saw on the beach was a sooty one. He’s in the background of our photos. Jun ran after the bird and managed to snap a closer picture with its crazy red eyes.

Josh fired up the grill with the propane tank we had brought with. Dinner was garlic bread, spring rolls, sausages, and salad. All a bit burnt, okay the garlic bread was badly burnt, couldn’t pull off the aluminum foil from some areas, but still good! The temperature rapidly dropped with the sun gone. It was sooo cold! You could see your breath, definitely around low 40s, upper 30s, or 10ish C. We played some card games and then headed to bed around nine. I added my flannel pj pants over my jeans, a second pair of socks, and another t-shirt to the tank, shirt, blouse, sweatshirt, and fleece jacket I was already wearing. My borrowed sleeping bag was a bit small, only went partly up my chest, so I was cold the entire night and woke up a couple times. It wasn’t that bad though especially the next morning when the sun came up early and started warming up our tent!