We had to wake up so early and drive back down to Brisbane to catch a ferry over the Moreton Island. We got so incredibly lost and ended up missing our 7am ferry by mere seconds. To make matters worse, the area around the launch is very industrial, so pickings for a cafe for brekky were limited and we were even worse off because it was a Sunday at 7am! So, we went to the Airport which is right nearby and had Red Rooster Brekky rolls! (Red Rooster is the chicken equivalent to Burger King.) While we were at the Airport, Jon bought my stuffed koala, Nellie, a new friend; he's a wombat named Russell (I didn't name them, the tags on their tushies did!)
We arrived with plenty of time to spare at the ferry the second time around and set off across Moreton Bay. Moreton Island is 98% national park with the resort making up the other bits. The water is gorgeously calm & clear and the white sand beaches are spectacular! Except, you end up with sand all over everything because it is a sand island just like Fraser Island and it is actually home to the tallest "sand hill" in the world (280m.)
As we were on the boat, they ran a video of all of the different things there were to do at the Resort & on the Island. Everything looked like so much fun that we were kind of bummed we hadn't made a weekend out of it. All of the big sand hills are great for "sand tobogganing" which just looked like SO much fun and there were some kayaking tours where you could go see some dugongs (manatees) in their natural environment, but they didn't fit into our timetable. The ATV trips & Blue Lagoon excursions were not running the day we came out, so that was out. There are also awesome whale watching opportunities for migrating humpbacks, but it was the wrong time of year. So what did we do you ask?
We decided to go snorkeling the Tangalooma Wrecks. It's a group of about 15 different dredgers, trawlers, and other working ships that were sunk off the sheltered western side of the island that are home to myriads of reef fish and gorgeous corals. It was only about a 50 yard swim out to the Wrecks and for the early part of the day the water was absolutely beautiful, not too cold & no strong currents. We took heaps of pictures, but they didn't come out. Words cannot describe how gorgeous the afternoon turned out to be!
We watched the most amazing sunset and snacked on fish & chips at a beachfront cafe while we waiting for night to fall. As dusk settled in, we made our way over to the boat launch area where each night as the sun sets over the horizon, a group of Indo-Pacific Bottlenose dolphins swim in for a visit. There is a marine biology research station housed at the resort that does heaps of conservation and education about the dolphins, their habitat & eco-conservation in general.
As the biologist is giving his chat, the dolphins arrive at their own place and just play around in the water. It was explained to us that they are still completely self sufficient in the wild.
The after all of the dolphins arrive and the marine biologist finished his talk, you walk down in pairs with on the marine biologists and get to hand feed the dolphin. The dolphins line up in lanes in pairs of two with certain biologists in each lane; they return in the same formation almost every night. You handed a fish and instructed to hold it like an ice cream cone, scales down not to injury the dolphin. On the count of three, you both bend down and feed the dolphins simultaneously or you might lose some fingers =)
You can meet the dolphins we fed here:
Tinkerbell: www.tangalooma.com /dolphinweb/dolphins /tinkerbell.asp
Shadow: www.tangalooma.com /dolphinweb/dolphins /shadow.asp
What a weekend! It was such a great time! Jon and I can't wait to get back and spend a little bit more time exploring the island. It was far too much for just one day!
No comments:
Post a Comment