Moreton Island today. We head to the bus station which is a 10-minute walk from the hotel, arriving early. Since we haven’t had breakfast we search for a cafe but there’s nothing open before 7am nearby. We buy some snacks from the vending machine, which the kids are ecstatic about, I’m less so, then register for the tour.
The coach takes us to the ferry port which is a 30-minute drive. There’s quite a few others onboard, all on some variation of the tour. We disembark when we arrive at the terminal and walk on as foot passengers finding a place to sit in the cafe deck.
We’re all hungry, so we opt for breakfast from the cafe. Alex goes proper Ozzie and has a steak pie. Diana and Bella try the sausage rolls. It’s a 90-minute ride to Moreton Island, so we relax and buy things we’d forgotten, like sun cream and sun glasses!
On arrival at Moreton Island we take a short walk along the beach and get ready for Kayaking. It’s pretty overcast, but the guide tells us that’s actually better for water clarity. We paddle our transparent kayaks between the shipwrecks looking at all the fish. The guide gives us some Tortilla wraps to feed them with which brings quite a few to the surface! Some wrecks have warnings about asbestos on them which concerns Alex, we have a good conversation about that. I couldn’t see anywhere for asbestos, the wrecks were rusty old hunks!
Diana and Bella had been taking in water as they’d paddled along not realising it was getting too much. In a comedy moment their kayak sank and had they had to be rescued by the guide on his jet ski!
Back at the beach we switch modes to snorkelling and don wetsuits. We repeat our exploration of the wrecks but this time underwater, looking at the coral and the fish again.
Back to the beach again we dry off, and it’s time for lunch. Wraps and salad with all the tour groups together so quite a queue for food.
After lunch, we are due to go sandboarding in the desert, but the weather comes in, and it starts to rain. We go and shelter in the tour bus and have a very bumpy ride in the 4x4 tour bus to the desert, crossing our fingers that the rain will stop in time. When we arrive it’s still raining and there’s also thunder and lightning. The guide suggests that we go somewhere else for a walk on the island because the desert is a hot spot for lightning strikes! We drive to the place where we were going to go for a walk, but it’s still chucking it down, so the group decides to drive for coffee at the local shop at the end of the island instead.
45-minutes bumpy drive later we queue for snacks with a few other tours who had the same idea. On the way up we’ve passed some locals in beach camping bays who’ve setup for Christmas camping looking out at the ocean. It looks amazing but let’s hope the weather improves for them!
The queue was so long we’re running out of time and need to step on it otherwise we’ll be late for the 3pm ferry departure. The guide races down the beach, tries to take a shortcut but is blocked by a group of 4x4’s stuck in the sand. He had to reverse all the way out and then head down the beach which was slower due to a number of stream crossings.
We arrive at the ferry with minutes to spare and run onboard. Exhausted we find some seats and nap on the way home. While it was shame we couldn’t sand board, it was interesting to have a tour of the island on the amazing 4x4 tour bus.
It was similar to Fraser Island that I’d visited on my first time in the area nearly 20 years ago, just more accessible and with more people. So happy we decided to visit.
Back to the hotel via the bus station and then shower for dinner.
We walk down to the river front and try a few places before finding a Caribbean restaurant called Barbosa’s. We enjoy drinks and dinner before heading home.