As soon as I arrived in Brisbane after the ten tropical days up in and around Cairns, I unpacked and packed my bag again for the next destination: Moreton Island. Mirjam and I were about to spend our weekend on this second largest sand island, with guaranteed sun and fun, only 1.5 hour boat transfer away.
The island-based pelicans welcomed us together with the friendly crew of Tangalooma Island Resort were we got to enjoy our own room just 50 meters from the beach. The staff had some good fun waiting for us, like quad riding and sand boarding.
As Mirjam and I were needy for speed, we started with the quads. A two hour racing through the sand dunes in the middle of a beautiful scenery. We made it even to the boys team that -ironically enough- did go a bit faster then the girlie group.
The Desert Safari Tour brought us to amazing white sand hills with traces of the mineral black sand. We took a board, waxed it and made our way up to the top for a sweet sand boarding equivalent to bodyboarding. Good exercise guaranteed if you want to go for many more rides as the hill is steep and the sand so soft.
Yes, this was al very amusing, but the best thing of all must have been the amazing, breathtaking sunsets, every day around 6 pm.
As the total pallet of colors kicked in, mixed up, passed by and eventually dissapeared, the moon and a countless number of stars took over. That’s one of the things that I love so much about islands: it makes me feel being just that important inch closer to nature, to the universe.
Ok, back to earthly talk. Mirjam and I met great guys from the dive shop Dive In Sports, called Luke and Joe. Hanging out with locals is always the best thing to do, according to my experiences, if you want to get to know more about the place you are visiting and… simply having the best time. And so we did. The guys showed the freshly -by hand caught- Blue Barred Parrot and an hour later we got to enjoy the “after-version”, which I had to give a 10 out of 10 points…
The following day Luke, the owner of Dive In Sports, provided us with snorkelling gear and Joe brought us to the ship wrecks, that have been dropped 50 meters off the coast on purpose to brake the waves in order to protect the coastline.
Under water I felt I was on a one-man mission discovering the Titanic (as seen on TV) while accompanied by small colored fishies, which I bet taste good too with some garlic and lemon…
That night we fed some wild dolphins who come as close as possible towards the beach to get the fish we were allowed to feed them. Sweet creatures, and clever, because as soon as the bucket with fish was empty, they sonared “c ya” and off they flippered.
Mirjam and I flippered to Luke’s house again and met some more staff: Zeb and Shea. Another culinary dish was presented, yep; these islanders take good care of themselves, and their guests/ friends! I picked up some cool Aussie slang and typical sayings, that I’ll definitely try out in appropriate situations with my best Aussie accent. (Which still sounds way too Dutch)
We played some pool, danced to some Aussie bands and Dutch DJ’s and laughed along with the Kookaburra birds until they thought our imitations weren’t funny anymore…
Once being back the next day on that rainy Sunday afternoon in Brizzy, I already longed for more, much more Moreton Island…
Posted from Brisbane with Vodafone Mobile Connect on my notebook
