Moreton Island

After leaving Byron Bay, we drove on up the coast to Brisbane, or more specifically the port of Brisbane. We stayed at a caravan park, very home and away esq!!! We had an early start to catch the ferry to Moreton Island. Moreton Island is the world’s third largest Sand Island, located just off the coast from Brisbane. It took about an hour to get across. Only four wheel drive vehicles are allowed on the island. There are no roads as we know them, only Sand tracks and the beaches are the main highways!! So Cool.

Alan, our guide whilst on the island picked us up off the ferry and took us to our accommodation in one of the 3 towns on the island. Only about 60 people live on the island. We then went to the north beach on the island and took a walk along the headland, over the rocks to a place called Honeymoon Bay. We went body boarding in the sea which was so cool, lovely and warm. Then we headed inland, to a place called the Blue Lagoon. It’s a fresh water lake. Totally beautiful and so refreshing. Lovely to swim in. And virtually deserted. Such an amazing place.

We stayed on the island overnight. After a dinner of Lasagne cooked by the group we sat around and drank beers and chilled out. Lots of bugs and Mosquito’s around, but we tried to make the best of it.

For day 2, we went for a hike to the top of the highest vegetated sand dune in the world, Mount Tempest. It had panoramic views over the entire island. I didn’t actually go up to the top, choosing instead to have a sleep in the van, as thanks to one of the guys in the groups alarm going off every ten minutes from 5.30am, I needed a few more hours sleep. After that we went sand boarding down the sand dunes. It was cool to do, but Jesus the sand literally gets everywhere. We had to go swim in the sea to wash some of it off, but even today (nearly 36 hours later) I’m still finding sand in places sand was never meant to be.

After lunch on the beach we went to the resort on the island to swim in the pool, which was so so so lovely. We then took the ferry back to the mainland, and drove onto Mooloolaba where we stayed last night. It’s a nice town, we didn’t do much as we were all a bit wrecked.
Janet, the girl from Bolton had to go to Hospital with a sore throat. And then this morning she fell over and gashed her arm and leg as the van was reversing. It was all very dramatic.

Once she was bandaged up we hit the road, heading for Rockhampton. Bit of a long day driving but we got there in the end. We went to a rodeo for dinner, where the local boys were riding bulls in a pen in front of you. Quite cool. Rockhampton sits just on the tropic of Capricorn, so we are now officially in the Tropical zone. And Jesus don’t I know it. I’m sweating more and more with every step. It’s about 80% humidity here tonight. From here we are heading to Airlie Beach tomorrow which is where we sail out to the Whitsunday islands from. I’m really looking forward to that.

Mosquito’s have taken a liking to me, especially my face. I now have 4 bites on my face, 5 on my fingers, 3 on my arm and 3 on my stomach. And all that after I had covered myself in insect repellent. I dread to think what I would be like if I hadn’t sprayed. I have had to take my rings off as my fingers have swelled up so much. It’s not an attractive look!!!!

Finally spoke to the lovely people at Virgin today about changing my flight. They would like to charge me AUS$6776.00 to change my flight. That’s about twice the price of what the original flight cost me. So I’m looking into one way flights home for the end of Feb.

Internet connections aren’t great around here, so I haven’t been able to upload any photos yet, but will do soon.